Naked Face Day

Today is the day. The day we're supposed to celebrate "Naked Face Day," the last day of Girls on the Run founder Molly Barker's 60-day Naked Face challenge. Technically, I had the official celebration yesterday. Since today I'm not going anywhere. Staying around the house doing spring cleaning and helping with the master bath remodel would not require makeup in any circumstances. It didn't seem fair for me to go makeup-free today. 


Without makeup, I helped with Abby's class Easter party. I saw her teacher and lots of other moms in the morning, all without mascara or powder or eye shadow. I picked up my high school buddy, Katie, and we all went to a very crowded McDonald's for lunch and then to the park to celebrate the first day of spring break. Later, I went shopping at Wal-mart. In my life, I've never gone to Wal-mart without makeup. Ever. Kind of sad, right? 


I was a little surprised at the outcome. First, I really didn't feel uncomfortable. Probably because of my exercise in not shaving. But also nobody close to me seemed to notice or care. As my daughter examined my makeup-free face for 5 full minutes specifically on a mission to find something "different," she came up empty-handed. Even my husband said he didn't notice a difference. Hmmmmmm..... I never thought I was putting on makeup for them, but it was interesting that I was still "mom," still me, no more or less pretty without the painted face.

It was fun. It was interesting. I learned a lot. Not just about myself but about girls and women, society and cultural standards. But later today when I take a shower, I plan to shave 60 days worth of hair off. And then I'm putting on makeup for dinner. Because it just makes me feel good. What will be different is that I won't always feel the need to wear makeup, especially for a run to Wal-mart, or to shave if I'm throwing on shorts, because at the end of the day, it doesn't change who I am. So I guess you could say I've come a long way. My confidence has not been shattered. Quite the opposite in fact!


Thanks Molly Barker for paving the way on such a worthwhile experience!


And without further ado, here's my naked face yesterday. Photo by Abby Denney. I turned all these photos black and white, because as I examined them in color, I found that the color was distracting me from the faces. What do you think? 

And here's part two of the story, and perhaps the most interesting part. My friend Katie, the high school freshman, read my blog post from Monday inviting anyone to participate in Naked Face day today, a Saturday. And she was inspired to do it ALL WEEK LONG! How amazing is she??? I would never have been so gutsy, so strong at age 15. So give her a shout-out, if you would! 

Here we are with our naked faces: 

And here's Katie with her naked face. She's beautiful, mostly because she radiates her inner beauty!

Yes, it's still adorable even when she does this: 

And here's Abby with her naked face. Well, her face is always naked. But I love this photo of her where the freckles and specks of dirt are nearly indistinguishable. And not only does she not care about makeup, she could care less about the dirt. We can learn a lot from 9-year-olds! As a side note, for the first time in her life, she asked to take a bath when she got home. She was absolutely filthy -- dirt all over from rolling in the gravel and leaves and grass in her hair. Later she admitted the bath wasn't because she felt the need to be clean of the filth...she was simply hot and wanted to cool off in the water. :)