How to feel confident going makeup free

24 July 2017
By Fashion Quarterly

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Magazine editor and long-time beauty aficionado, Lucy Slight explains

Leaving the house without makeup on is like not buttering your Vogels before slathering on your peanut butter. Sometimes the peanut butter is tasty enough and oily enough that you don’t notice the difference, and other times it’s dry, bland and downright dull. Anyway, my point here is that like butter on toast, makeup serves the purpose of making us look and feel extra delicious, and that’s why we love it! But sometimes you just CBF with all that effort and actually, your skin just happens to be looking so darn glowy today that covering it up would be the biggest sin of all. Am I right?

It’s taken me a long time to be comfortable walking out of the house sans makeup, I’m not going to lie. Sometimes I’ll sweep on some mineral powder to go to Pilates at 7am and that’s totally fine – but when you’re rocking bright, glowy, au naturel skin it can actually feel super empowering, so I’m starting to embrace it. Here are some of my top tips for flaunting that barefaced beauty of yours:

1. A good skincare regimen is your #1 BFF for life

I was lucky enough that my mum insisted I cleanse, tone and moisturise every day from the age of about 13, so the whole skincare thing comes pretty naturally to me. The key is finding the types of products that work best for your skin type and sticking with them. As I’ve gotten older, my skin has become much drier, so having plump, glowing skin for me is all about maximum hydration. I look for products with ‘barrier protection’ so I know that all that hydrating goodness will stay locked in my skin and keep it from getting thirsty. SKIN by ecostore’s Replenishing Night Cream has hydrating New Zealand marine extracts that do just that – working to nourish your skin while it regenerates. (Added bonus: All SKIN by ecostore products are cruelty-free, holla.) There are products in this range for all skin types – whether you’re oily, dry, normal or combination – just take a look at the labels to determine the products best-suited to your concerns.

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2. Know your skin tone

Skin tone is one of those really confusing things to figure out, but once you know yours, you’ll be set. Why is this important if you’re not wearing makeup? Well, wearing clothes in colours that complement your skin tone can help to balance out the natural undertones that you might use makeup to cover up. For example, I have a cool skin tone, which means I have a pinky undertone to my skin (see how it gets confusing?). This means, if I wear colours that are too warm (hot pink, orange etc) my skin just looks even pinker. So I’ll often wear blues, greens, black and white because they just work better with my natural colouring. FYI, if you have a warm skin tone, you’ll notice a more golden tinge to your skin. And you’ll look great in hot pink!

A post shared by LUCY SLIGHT (@lucyslight) on

3. Fake it ‘til you make it

And by ‘it’, I mean confidence. If you’re going barefaced but your skin just sucks, you’re probably the only one that’s going to notice, or care. That might sound harsh, but remember that we are our own biggest critics and everyone has something they feel self-conscious about. Stand tall, pull your shoulders back, put on some moisturiser (seriously, never forget this step), and shine like the beautiful babe you are.

This article was brought to you by SKIN by ecostoreGet the confidence to wear SKIN and nothing else. SKIN by ecostore is just what your skin needs.

Words: Lucy Slight
Photos: Supplied

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