As a girl, perfection seems to be something we all strive for in some point in our lives. We want perfect hair, perfect teeth, to be tall, to be thin, to have the best clothes, and our make up to be flawless. Why can’t this perfection come in the form of what we look like naturally?

The standard Alicia Keys is showing for girls and women everywhere is nothing short of an act of strength, and confidence. Why should we have to conform ourselves to these idealistic beauty standards? As a young girl, I couldn’t wait to wear makeup like the older girls had. They were so pretty, all the boys liked them, and they looked like they could be on the cover of glamour magazine. Every girl has that standard set, whether it was from personal experience, or influence from the media. No matter where it was coming from there was the pressure that what you came with, just wasn’t good enough.

Who exactly set these standards? That covering up your natural beauty was what was best? Who started this example? Who is to blame? Do we blame the media? Do we blame the cosmetic companies for glamorizing the fact that you need longer lashes to look more beautiful, or that lipstick makes you more appealing? During the hot summer months, I always go without make up. Not just because I’m lazy and its one less step for me in the morning, but I can literally feel the humidity and my make up melt off my face in the heat. As these summer months are closing, and I caught wind of this natural beauty phenomenon, I decided to extend my no-makeup movement. I took my nail polish off my nails, toes and all (which is a huge step for me because I had always hated the way my feet and toes looked.) I had time to realize that I am in charge of the way I choose to feel about all this. That I am beautiful enough to go natural, but I can hear those other women… “Well you can pull of the natural look.” Correction, anyone can pull off the natural look, it’s just becoming comfortable enough in your skin to do that.

Alicia made a really amazing point when asked why she even started this movement. “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.” I couldn’t agree to that statement more. We, as women are more than the makeup we put on our face. We are more than the blemishes we are ashamed of. We need to be in control of our own beauty standard, and set our own goal of perfection. Every mark upon or skin was put there for a reason, every freckle, every mole, every curve, indent, what have you. That is what makes you incredibly unique next to the next person. We should be celebrating our natural beauty, because it’s what makes us who we are. It’s not something we should be hiding, or ashamed of.

It’s time to uncover, it’s time to get over these insecure, superficial thoughts about ourselves, and we need to start learning to love ourselves for what we see in the mirror. Not the image of pressure and perfection society needs us to be. Now, this isn’t me preaching that makeup isn’t something to have, because I can admit it, I love makeup. This is just about the fact that we put too much pressure on ourselves to be this perfect image society puts pressure on us to be, to be our original selves. Who we were born to be, not society needs or wants us to be.