Alicia Keys just launched her #makeupfree campaign in an effort to empower all women to accept their natural beauty. Peep her raw and un-cut shots, plus get a sneak peek behind-the-scenes of Beyonce’s “Formation World Tour” stop in Chicago inside….
Here’s Alicia Keys like you’ve never seen her before.
The multi-Grammy Award winner just kicked off her #makeupfree campaign in an effort to encourage all women to learn to accept and love their natural beauty.
The 35-year-old singer penned an essay for Lena Durham’s Lenny Letter where she opens up about the pressures women face to be perfect at all times and how going makeup free has empowered her.
In the letter, Alicia reflects on how hard it was for her growing up in Hollywood as often times she felt she “was not good enough for the world to see” and how that started to manifest insecurities within herself.
She writes:
“Every time I left the house, I would be worried if I didn't put on makeup: What if someone wanted a picture?? What if they POSTED it??? These were the insecure, superficial, but honest thoughts I was thinking. And all of it, one way or another, was based too much on what other people thought of me.”
She says she grew tired of how women are being brainwashed to believe they have to look a certain way in order for society to accept them. She continues:
“Before I started my new album, I wrote a list of all the things that I was sick of. And one was how much women are brainwashed into feeling like we have to be skinny, or sexy, or desirable, or perfect. One of the many things I was tired of was the constant judgment of women. The constant stereotyping through every medium that makes us feel like being a normal size is not normal, and heaven forbid if you're plus-size. Or the constant message that being sexy means being naked.”
The “28 Thousand Days” singer says she was hesitant about going makeup free, but decided she would start this revolution after walking into one of her first press shoots with Vanity Fair for her new album.
"It wasn't until I walked into one of my first shoots for my new album recently that the issue was front and center again. I'd just come from the gym, had a scarf under my baseball cap, and the beautiful photographer Paola (never met a Paola I didn't like) said, 'I have to shoot you right now, like this! The music is raw and real, and these photos have to be too!'"
"I was shocked. Instantly, I became a bit nervous and slightly uncomfortable. My face was totally raw. I had on a sweatshirt! As far as I was concerned, this was my quick run-to-the-shoot-so-I-can-get-ready look, not the actual photo-shoot look. So I asked her, 'Now?! Like right now? I want to be real, but this might be too real!!'"
Now, Alicia has embraced her natural beauty and says she will no longer hide behind makeup or anything else that's holding her back.
“’Cause 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.”
After shooting the raw and un-cut spread, Alicia said she felt empowered and she wants other women to feel it too. She concludes:
"I felt powerful because my initial intentions realized themselves. My desire to listen to myself, to tear down the walls I built over all those years, to be full of purpose, and to be myself! The universe was listening to those things I'd promised myself, or maybe I was just finally listening to the universe, but however it goes, that's how this whole #nomakeup thing began. Once the photo I took with Paola came out as the artwork for my new song "In Common," it was that truth that resonated with others who posted #nomakeup selfies in response to this real and raw me."
Nice!
You can read the full letter here.
As she continues on her #makeupfree campaign to promote her upcoming album, Alicia is letting her fresh face shine on the newest cover and spread for FAULT magazine:
When asked what was her “fault,” she gives the perfect response: “I’m learning to try and let go of the word 'perfection.' It’s not real and it’s a word that tears us down. There is no way to be perfect and no fun in being perfect. You can’t be happy unless you let yourself be vulnerable and make mistakes because we’re always evolving. No one knows it all and I damn sure don’t know it all! I force myself to look in the mirror and own who I am and to own MY beautiful. So what that I have breakouts or so what that my knees are pudgy, there simply is no perfect. Once I can teach myself that there is no perfect and that I am meant to have my FAULTS, that is when I become beautiful.”
We agree!
Peep more shots from her spread below:
Gorge. You can check out the full interview here.
Meanwhile, her husband Swizz Beatz fully supports her new endeavor and is busy gushing over his wife's beauty on social media:
#BlackLove.
For another dose of #BlackGirlMagic....
Here's a behind-the-scenes sneak peek at Beyonce during her "Formation World Tour" stop in Chicago for the 2nd night. Get your FORMATION fix above.
Mrs. Carter’s next stop is in Foxborough, Massachusetts tomorrow (June 3rd) at Gillette Stadium.
Photos: RCA / Paola Kudacki/FAULT magazine/@zoltantombor