I'm a makeup addict, I'll admit it. I take joy in putting a full, heavy face of makeup on every day. Ever since junior year of high school, I've been watching makeup tutorials on youtube. Makeup gurus such as Jaclyn Hill, MannyMUA (Gutierrez), Laura Lee and more, along with tons of practice, have taught me how to ace a perfect look.

Since then, I've been purchasing name brand makeup products and trying out every possible look. The money from working that would usually be saved in an account is spent on hundreds of dollars of makeup, leading me to earn the VIB (Very Important Beauty Insider) status at Sephora.

I practically take all of my makeup everywhere I go; every vacation, every sleepover, and I even took most of my makeup to college. Every day, I do a whole routine of priming my face, covering my blemishes with green concealer, beating my face with foundation, then concealer.

After that, I contour and highlight my cheekbones. Next thing I do is my eyebrows, then I prime and set my eyelids with powder and primer, moving onto the eyeshadow -which takes me the longest- using an array of differently shaped brushes.

After my eyeshadow, I move onto my eyeliner which, depending on the day, I put on my upper waterline or wing it out.

After that, I put on mascara and spray my face with setting spray, which makes the makeup stay on the whole day. Yea, you get it- it's a lot and this alone takes me about 35 minutes to do.

I realized how much I was relying on makeup to cover all of my insecurities and I wanted to do something about that. I started wearing less makeup, only putting on a bit of eyeshadow and mascara, putting nothing on my face. After a couple of days, I began to just wear mascara and then I started to wear nothing. I continued to wear nothing for a week.

From that week's experience, I realized how much more confident I was without makeup.

My complexion also started to clear up because I wasn't covering anything up with makeup, letting my pores breath and be free.

I'll admit it was tempting at times. I felt my makeup staring at me, telling me to put it on, my eyeshadow screaming my name and my mind making new combinations of eyeshadows, the eyeliner brush telling me I need to practice my sharp lines. I could feel the contour kits telling me to put it on my cheekbones because I need to define them.

My highlighter — which I'm a bit obsessed with — becoming even brighter, it seemed, all because I hadn't used it in a week. I avoided the temptation much like someone avoids chocolate to brighten their complexion and get rid of blemishes.

Even though I still love makeup and I will forever be obsessed with making my eyes pop and my cheekbones sharper, I learned that I don't always have to rely on it to make myself feel better. I can be confident with or without makeup and although that week was tough, to not beat my face, I learned a lot about my skin and how to love it.