When Pamela Anderson showed up at Paris Fashion Week last week without makeup, she turned heads.
Every headline, every photo, every paparazzi shot. And there was tough competition.
After all, it was Paris Fashion Week, with wall-to-wall supermodels, fashion designers and celebrities.
How telling it is in our current world that a woman’s face without makeup causes a stir, something so rare that it makes international news headlines.
Jamie Lee Curtis, who like Pamela is experiencing something of a renaissance, responded to the fresh look by declaring that the natural beauty revolution had begun.
“@pamelaanderson in the middle of fashion week with so much pressure and posing, and, and, this woman showed up and took her place at the table with a blank face. I am so impressed and shocked by this act of courage and rebellion,” she wrote on Instagram, and her statement resonated.
Since lockdown, my relationship with makeup has changed in a very natural way.
I didn’t wear makeup for most of quarantine. Why worry?
We weren’t going anywhere or doing anything, so putting on makeup seemed like a silly chore to add to the list when you were already busy with existential crises and homeschooling.
When we eventually started going out again, dressing up, putting on makeup, it all seemed a little strange.
After such a long time without makeup, I was already used to my ugly face.
It feels so noticeable, unnatural, too strong, like I’m pretending to be something and the world is pretending not to notice. That’s what I believe the anti-aging industry is all about.
I no longer liked the way makeup looked and felt on my skin and stopped wearing it. I started doing facials and peels—things that made my skin look better without makeup.
Now I never wear makeup on a regular day. I run around school, do household chores, work, and all this without makeup. If I need to go somewhere, I’ll put on a little. But just the basics, basically my life without makeup.
Perhaps my reluctance to wear makeup has something to do with aging.
My face looks different as I get older, and the flawless, brown-eyed foundation look I used to prefer doesn’t work so well anymore when there are so many tiny tributaries that makeup can fit into.
I recently sent a friend a photo of an outfit. I was interested in her opinion, so I took a photo of myself wearing it, and my friend texted me back saying, “You look so young,” in response to my makeup-free face.
I think I look exactly my age, and that’s fine, but looking at Pamela Anderson’s natural face last week, I found myself thinking something similar.
She looked like a 56-year-old woman, but she also looked youthful, or perhaps young would be a better word.
Without any makeup, perhaps something of our younger, makeup-free, true selves finds a way to emerge.
Jamie Lee calls it a revolution, but I call this increasing avoidance of makeup a decline in power, a kind of reverse glow where removing the heavy makeup that has become de rigueur for young girls and women becomes a power move.
I love that Angela Scanlon doesn’t wear fake tan on Strictly and instead embraces her naturally pale skin. “It took me 15 years to come to terms with the fact that I have pale skin,” she said recently.
“You don’t have to fake a tan to feel confident. “I want to show that for me, feeling sexy depends on how much of myself I am, not how orange my legs are.”
Likewise, a photo of Saoirse Ronan recently surfaced in which she looks radiant, her face covered in natural freckles.
So maybe Jamie Lee is right. Perhaps the revolution is happening gradually, wiping off makeup with a napkin.
Perhaps after contouring, flawless makeup and social media filters, our eyes are now craving freshness. Or perhaps we’re finally tired of the labor-intensive beauty standard.
It’s somehow fitting that Pamela chose to imagine her makeup-free life in Paris, the home of natural beauty, a place where every woman has a dermatologist and treats her skin with the utmost respect, a place where you work with your natural hair color and their features. find your beauty.
It’s about accepting and embracing yourself rather than putting yourself down to fit a narrow beauty mold.
In an interview with Pamela said of her decision not to wear makeup: “I’m not trying to be the prettiest girl in the room. It’s just freedom, it’s a relief.”
She later wrote on Instagram: “There is beauty in self-acceptance, imperfection and love.” It seemed like a worthy mantra for modern women.
There is something revelatory about allowing ourselves to be perceived as we are, it is an act of extreme vulnerability, but it is also an act of strength and power because allowing ourselves to be our natural selves and be perceived as who we are , – this is freedom.