#TeenTalk: Feeling Confident Without Makeup

I am so so excited to announce a new series on my blog! #TeenTalk where my blogging friends and I share our experience and advice on situations that most teens go through. Ranging from living with acne to confidence with social media. I wanted the first post to be on something I personally know a lot of teenagers have to deal with. Not feeling confident without makeup on.

My Experience

Growing up I was not very girly, that is until I hit the teenage years and I was introduced to the world of clothes, makeup and boys lol. My friends first got me into makeup and taught me the basics of it all. I loved it, I used makeup as a way of self-expression but only on special occasions that is. Apart from that I never really wore makeup, until I went to high school. Suddenly I went from being pretty comfortable in my own skin to severely insecure about everything. The way I dressed and acted, but mostly about how I looked. As I was dealing with constant breakouts at the time ( gotta love puberty, not!).I went from rarely wearing makeup to it being an everyday essential, I would rarely leave the house without at least a little bit of it on. And on the days I had to go bare face I would feel so incredibly insecure and was constantly putting myself down.

I soon realized that something I had loved so much had turned into my biggest nightmare!! So I stopped, I stopped wearing makeup, I stopped wishing I looked like someone else and I stopped constantly putting myself down. Instead, I started focusing on clearing up my skin, I learnt how to do more no-makeup makeup looks for the days I did choose to wear makeup. And I also tried my best to work on self-love and excepting myself with and without makeup on.

I’m not going to lie, it wasn’t easy for me and there are still occasional days where I feel myself slipping back into old habits. But I have come so far and can easily go on with life without wearing it. And I do most of the time as I have since realised I hate the feeling of makeup on my skin! Makeup is back to being something fun I do on occasion to express myself 🙂

My Top Tips For Feeling Confident Without Makeup:

Less Is More: On the days you do wear makeup focus on enhancing your natural features instead of covering them up. A little bit goes a long way. I found wearing less of it helped me feel more confident on my no makeup days, as I rarely noticed a difference in how I looked without it.

Days Off: Focus on giving your skin days off from makeup if you are going to wear it. Your skin needs to breathe as foundation and other products are very heavy and can block your pores. Which in effect can make your breakouts worse and cause more to happen. I like to at least give me skin a day to breathe before wearing it again.

Skincare Is ESSENTIAL: Taking care of your skin is a must! after all, it is your bodies largest eliminative organ. So setting up even a basic skin care routine and sticking to it will be so beneficial. I found the only reason I wore makeup was due to my breakouts so once I focused on taking care and clearing up my skin. *check out my skincare routine here* I no longer felt the need to wear it!

Effort Into Outfits: Taking the extra time in the mornings to pick out an outfit you feel amazing in or doing a hairstyle that you love will just give you that extra confidence boost. Again you should not rely on these things for confidence but taking care of yourself is also a huge part of self-care that many of us skimp out on!

Loving Yourself: This admittedly is probably the hardest out of all the tips, but defiantly the most important! The only way you are going to feel confident without makeup is if you can love or at least except you as you are. There are many different ways to work on self-love but the main two that helped me were taking fewer selfies with makeup on and more without it. And mainly just watching the language I used when I talked about my appearance * making sure I didn’t put myself down and instead built myself up*

Open Up About It: Talking to someone about how you are feeling can help so much as you are your biggest critic. And the way you see yourself is never the way other people see you, your friends are able to see the light in you that you may not be able to see yet. (Aka they can see how truly amazing you are even if you can’t yet:) You may also be surprised to find that your friends feel the same way or have experienced similar feelings at some point.

I hope that you guys enjoyed the first post of #TeenTalk and that you found it in some way helpful. Please remember to kind to everyone because you never know what other people are going through and what could be triggering for them. I know I’ve had people make what seem like harmless jokes about my acne that caused me to become insecure. And adults making rude comments about me wearing makeup that in effect caused me to be insecure about wearing it. So, In the end, it didn’t matter what I did I was insecure and not to mention miserable! Only say things to others that you would like to have said about yourself 🙂

-Have you had confidence issues with makeup or know someone that has? And what sort of subjects do you want to see on #TeenTalk? comment down below I’d love to know!