How to Look Great with NO Makeup

Being completely bare-faced can be a vulnerable state for a regular makeup wearer. However, that’s no excuse to leave your makeup on as you sleep! Good news, there are things you can do to freshen, define and beautify your face without wearing any makeup at all!

1. Brows

If you’re blessed with full, bold brows in a naturally deep shade then all you need to do is keep them shaped…or simply leave them how God intended.

However, if you’ve got naturally pale, sparse brows (hi, over here), a good tint and perhaps microblading is a great idea. Buy yourself a home tinting kit, or get them done at the salon.

How to get great brows

Keep your brows gently shaped to suit your face and style preferences, and that’s all you need to do. Defined brows are, and always will be one of the best ways to naturally add dimension to your face.

2. Lashes

You know when you put mascara on and you feel instantly like yourself again? Same. Everyday.

Even when you’ve got a completely bare face, mascara adds depth and provides a subtle feature. However, you shouldn’t go to sleep with mascara-coated lashes unless you want irritated eyes and crumbly specks all over your face in the morning.

For pale lashes, a semi-permanent tint in a black or deep brown makes the world of difference. For already-dark lashes, either embrace your asset or go a step further and try lash extensions or a lash perm.

3. Lips

Whenever I have dry lips they look small, crusty and make the rest of my face look puffy and old. I know that sounds a little crazy…but surely you can relate?!

However, when I follow a regular lip exfoliation and treatment routine my lips are plump, soft, bolder in color, and they help the rest of my face too look balanced and streamlined.

Best lip exfoliants

All you need to do to keep your lips in date-worthy, morning-fresh condition is:

Scrub them gently with sugar and olive oil mixed together, every day (or most days, or when you remember)
Wear an SPF balm every day
Wear a rich, nourishing balm or lip treatment at night
Be extra stringent in windy, cold seasons
Remove liquid lippies with oil-based makeup removers, then scrub, then apply balm
In a pinch? Use your face cloth to gently exfoliate your lips in circular motions when you wash your face

4. Skin

When it comes to skin, as long as it’s clean, hydrated and nourished it looks good, whether it’s clear and smooth or blemished and textured. That’s my honest opinion.

Even if you’ve got breakouts happening all over the show, clean, fresh skin looks better than skin with next-day makeup clinging on for dear life. For sleepovers, be prepared with a small bottle of cleanser, a few cotton pads, micellar water, and moisturizer.

If you’re extra, like me, take a bottle of facial spray too. You’ll smell good and look glowy.

And the final ingredient? Confidence in yourself. Sure, there are things we can do to make ourselves feel fresh, awake and chic as hell, but at the end of the day (literally), we’ve got to embrace our faces as they are, zits and all. (And yes, I do see the contradiction here…but hey, we can be super confident and give our faces a no-makeup pep talk too).

P.S I don’t mean to suggest at all that being bare-faced is shameful or that you should feel any pressure to look a certain way for anyone but yourself. But…I’m a realist and I know that many of us do find being makeup-free quite exposing, especially in intimate or vulnerable situations. It’s less about impressing other people and more about feeling our best selves so we can thrive.

What are your tips for looking great with no makeup? Let us know in the comments below!

Gin Mabey

Gin is a beauty enthusiast with a passion for makeup she's had since kindergarten when she would raid her Mum's makeup drawer. When she's not playing with new products and writing about makeup, she's a theatre actress, director and producer.