Celebrities everywhere are going without makeup for #NoMakeUpMonday and thousands of people are joining in. I don’t really wear makeup these days since I have grown comfortable in my skin, or so I thought.

The other week when the Doyle Center was holding the No Makeup Monday event, I had my picture taken at the booth and wrote that wearing no makeup made me feel beautiful. Since then, I have been doing some thinking and realized that I only take selfies and post them on social media if I’m wearing makeup. These selfies are few and far between, since I usually don’t take them, but in every one, I have on my “second face.” In high school, I wore makeup all the time to make myself feel more confident and boost my self-esteem since I had very little back then.

So what has changed between then and now? For one, I am in a long term relationship. Being in this relationship, my confidence has gotten a huge boost and I’m more comfortable with who I am. He loves me for me and he’s told me that he likes it better when I don’t wear makeup. Secondly, I am in an in hall leadership position. I stand up in front of a group of my peers every other week, no makeup on and I don’t care. I’m totally comfortable with it.

Even with all of this, why can’t I post a makeupless selfie on social media? Why don’t I feel like my makeup less selfies are good enough? I guess I could say that I’m scared of other people ridiculing me online for how ugly they believe I am. I shouldn’t care if people hate the acne scars I have or the mole under my chin that sometimes looks like a pimple. I shouldn’t care if my eyebrows are perfectly plucked, that my freckles stand out or that you can see the small scar on my eye. Nobody should care, but we do and that saddens me. Everybody should feel comfortable with who they are.

What you’re saying is, we can only feel comfortable with who we are if we don’t wear makeup? Yes and no. Love your looks with and without makeup. Don’t just love the one with makeup. Love yourself without it and give yourself that extra confidence boost with makeup. Don’t feel like if you go without makeup that you are a pale face, monster blob, that needs to put on ten thousand layers of cover-up and mascara just to look good. You are beautiful, with or without your second face. So, let’s post those makeup less selfies and help each other love ourselves.