This is why I never trust celebrities who go 'makeup free'

Alicia Keys and Pamela Anderson, I'm looking at you

Last year, I secretly eye rolled when Pamela Anderson made headlines for wearing zero makeup at Paris Fashion Week.

I didn’t want to rain on the pro-ageing parade, but to me the whole thing just stank of a publicity stunt and also, dare I say it, Pammy wasn’t the first. Kim Kardashian did it at the Balenciaga show in 2016.

Look, fashion weeks are the epitome of navel gazing. So, don’t for a second believe that any clothing or makeup decision made by the celebrities in attendance, hasn’t been poured over by an entire team of people.

I love her, like genuinely, I’m a huge Baywatch fan. I have a t shirt and a jumper with her face on, I’ve made a pilgrimage to Mitch Buchanan’s house for God’s sake.

But, would Pammy have got any headlines if she had turned up with a full face of makeup?

No.

I saw it as a mutual trade. Pamela gets free publicity/relevancy and every media outlet gets to pretend they are feminist allies, while knowing full well, the entire reason people are clicking, is to see what a 56-year-old former sex symbol looks like now.

Then, it all clicked into place. As, it was announced in January that Pamela had acquired a skincare brand with her sons.

Even with my initial scepticism, I still felt oddly betrayed by her announcement and it reminded me of Alicia Keys and her no makeup era.

In case you missed it, in 2016, Alicia published an open letter explaining that she was no longer wearing makeup as she didn’t want to “Cover up anymore”.

I remember this time period well, because I was working at Cosmo and that story was one of the top traffic drivers for our beauty section.

Unlike Pamela, I didn’t have that initial scepticism at the time. Instead, it came later, when Alicia started wearing makeup again.

You see, while Alicia was preaching about feeling empowered in her bare skin and we were all oohing and aahing over how good she looked, her no makeup, makeup prep was actually as in-depth as a full glam session.

Make no mistake, Alicia did not wake up like this. In fact, she still had a makeup artist who would prep her skin with facials, massage and ice rollers.

This lengthy prep was followed with products. Yes, a skin mattifier, fake tan serum and eyebrow pencil count as makeup. In fact, I’m sure there would have been some pin point concealer application as well.

I’m not gonna lie, with that knowledge, it really makes me cringe when I read the lyrics to her, Girl Can’t Be Herself song.

In the morning from the minute that I wake up
What if I don’t want to put on all that make up?
Who says I must conceal what I’m made of?
Maybe all this Maybelline is covering my self-esteem

You’re still wearing makeup. You just have an artist who can spend hours applying it, so it looks like you’re not wearing anything.

Not to mention the fact that there is nothing wrong with wearing it in the first place.

So, yeah. If, these celebrities going bare faced, makes you feel empowered, that’s great, fine, I have no issues with it.

But, please don’t compare your bare face to theirs and just remember, that with celebrities, nothing is ever what it seems.