Actress Bianca Umali recently posted this photo with the caption:

"Girls!! Just wanted to share something with all of you. This is not to judge anyone... I noticed how make up seem so important nowadays. I honestly expect make up to be used occasionally. Not every single day. I have observed how a lot of females cannot leave their homes without putting anything on their faces. Well, yes, we all know what make up can do. And yes, make up is AMAZING. But what I'm sad about is that most of the girls I have observed are more confident about themselves WITH make up on than having LESS or NONE. Here's the thing we should ALWAYS remember. Papa 👆🏻 made each of us unique. Not only on the outside but also on the inside. So why not flaunt that beautiful face of yours without covering anything and leaving it how it really is? I dare every girl/female/woman who gets to read this to post a photo without anything (filters, make up, etc.) on their faces but a smile. Tag me. I want you, yes you, to show everyone that YOU are contented and confident with your natural beauty. What's the secret to being beautiful? S.M.I.L.E"

Though I'm sure she had the best intentions to encourage girls that is within her influential sphere to lessen the use of makeup and love the truest situation of her skin, it didn't come off that way. Rather, most considered the post condescending, shaming women who loves makeup and some even called her out for being fake because her skin is well-cared for by a pretigious derma clinic and not to mention she's born and bred beautiful.

These things didn't sit well with my fellow beauty enthusiasts and neither it did with me. This was my lengthy reply to her thread:

"My skin is at its most behaved since two years ago that I'm hardly used to it. That's because I was not born with beautiful skin. Even with dermatology skin centers providing me with the best skin treatments, I simply could not escape the pimply and porous skin DNA ingrained in me. If only I could but that technology is still not within my reach nor is it within my means.
But I try. I am not ashamed to bare my skin like her but she will never be the standard of beauty for me. Nor yours should be. We are beautiful for our hearts and our actions and not for our skin.
Baring my skin like this will only happen once in a while and not in polite society for sure. I've always said that the power is in me and not in my makeup. It's in my skill to manipulate these things as a painter does with a blank canvas and colors. My strokes made me beautiful. The strokes that were arduously practiced for years of falling in love with this art.
Don't ever ever feel ashamed in using makeup if you ever feel the need to cover a pimple, a line or a scar. Don't ever feel that you owe anyone an explanation for wanting to look presentable or owning 50 kinds of lipsticks (often in the same shade.)."

I admit that a huge part of me felt bad for having such a bad skin most of my life and I did envy girls who had the same flawless and pore-less skin like what Bianca has. Wouldn't it be nice to simple get up, forget the huge cystic acne that is crawling all over your face? But it isn't. People will stare, people will say bad things behind your back. They will prey on your already depleting confidence and to see women like her flaunt their bare beauty on makes you feel less. #RealTalk

As much as I would love to love it, I can't simply go ride the #NoMakeup bandwagon like Alicia Keys. Not when society dictates otherwise.

These women are women in power, Alica Keys with numerous Grammy's and endless stream of royalties and Bianca Umali with her endorsements, management team and Calayan freebies. It's just an impossible standard that they are bearing down our throats.

Makeup, though it started as a band-aid solution for most of us has evolved in much the same way as the what clothes does for the body. It's a way to express ourselves. It evolved as art, a livelihood, a hobby and what have you. If it boosts your confidence, good for you.

But should makeup define your worth? Never!

That surge of satisfaction every time you perfect a wingliner, own it! That fit pump in the air you do everytime you apply your liquid matte lippie flawlessly, own it. The brows and contours that deserve that #OnFleek hashtag... that could define you because that's a skill you've achieved. Very similar to a painter, an architect and a doctor who never stop at perfecting their crafts. Everything relies on your skills and it goes without saying that time, effort, money and even sanity are sacrificed in the process.

Makeup, these are just objects. They are nothing but pigments mixed together. You are what makes these things. Without your hands, your painstaking practicing would mean nothing. You mean everything to these small objects. Makeup does not give you confidence. You do. Your patience, your eagerness to explore new things, your fearlessness in finding out what works for you.

Do you get me? Do I make sense? Because what I would hate is to deliver a message to everyone out there that makeup is what is what makes you confident. It's really isn't. It's YOU!

Go bare or go fully baked and contoured! YOU DO YOU! #NoApologies