If you happened to be watching Alicia Keys’ recent
performance at the Champions League Final, you may have noticed, amid the
furore about the length of her set, that she performed totally makeup free.
Given that approximately 380 million people were watching,
you could say this was a pretty brave move.
And the singer has now written a blog on LennyLetter.com
explaining why she has chosen to stop wearing makeup. In the powerful and very honest post, she writes about how
she’s spent years trying to conform to what society wants her to be, to ‘fit
in’.
‘We all get to a point in our lives (especially girls) where
we try to be perfect,’ she says, talking about the pressure put on women from
an early age to conform to society’s standards of beauty. ‘How about in junior high school? Where all the “pretty”
girls are wearing lipstick and eyeliner and mascara,’ she asks. ‘It’s another
moment where some piece of you realizes that to fit in or be thought of as
beautiful, you have to cover up to be a bit closer to perfect.’
She also reflects on her move to New York and the pressures
that came from trying to make it in the music industry. ‘I started, more than
ever, to become a chameleon. Never fully being who I was, but constantly
changing so all the “theys” would accept me,’ she explains.
But a period of self-reflection has led her to the decision
to stop wearing makeup, because, she writes, ‘I don’t want to cover up anymore.
Not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my thoughts, not my dreams, not my
struggles, not my emotional growth. Nothing.’
So, when she did a shoot with photographer Paola Kudacki for
her new album and single In Common, she posed without any makeup.
‘I swear it is the strongest, most empowered, most free, and
most honestly beautiful that I have ever felt,’ she says. She’s since appeared in shoots for Vanity Fair and Fault
magazine, wearing no makeup. ‘I hope to God it’s a revolution,’ she writes.
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