Bare face = bare soul

Scrap that fake facade. Your beauty comes from the inside and why put useless chemicals on your face just to become someone else? I refuse to continue this nonsense. 

I first put makeup on when I was about 12. I threaded my eyebrows two years prior which almost drove my mum insane. Now, more than a decade later, I am trying to go back to my 10-year-old self with a more natural approach to beauty. And it is hard. Not only because of all the mascaras, eyeshadows and foundations I’ve collected over the years (and I’d hate to throw them away just like that) but also because of the persona I have built over the past decade. 

Ever since I was a teenager, I’ve tried to be the cool kid. And to some extent, I succeeded. Then I moved to the UK and I became a total (‘eastern European’) outsider. What next? I started trying to fit in again. But once more, it wasn’t me, it was the kind of person I thought would be liked by the majority. And again, I succeeded. I only realised how dishonest these relationships were once I left college and never heard from most of these than-called friends again. But that’s ok - it taught me an important lesson. 

I continued playing these pretending games throughout universities until I finally returned back home and realised that what you look like is not who you are. I started slowly peeling off the layers of the crazy person I’ve co-created. I say ‘co’ because I wasn’t in it alone. Everyone I chose to be around, everyone I let get close to me only knew a certain part of me - one I was comfortable with sharing. 

It took 25 years to learn that every part of you is perfect. And as I sit now in front of my mirror, makeup on, looking at a face I no longer recognise, I promise myself to gently end these games. One step at a time but it will happen. I have faith, it will help me proceed. 

You might think I am full of radical changes. I quit meat some time ago, I stopped drinking alcohol and quit social smoking. I am cautious about coffee and refuse clothes shopping unless second-hand. I have undergone a dramatic transformation and getting rid of makeup is just another step on this journey.

Having had a highly restricted childhood and a limited teenage-hood (one has to grow up quickly when let alone in a foreign country), it still took me years to finally define who I am and benefit from my own freedom. And so, as I look at the picture in the mirror, I promise myself to stop with this nonsense. Stop wearing the colours which turn you into someone else, stop being uncomfortable in someone else’s clothes, instead, be happy with what’s natural - your body, your face, your emotions. It’s not about what’s on the surface, it’s the inside that counts. For me, at least...