Singer Alicia Keys' New Mantra? #NoMakeup
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) -- Lots of celebrities have taken off their make-up for quick selfies in fleeting moments of naked honesty, but R & B singer-songwriter Alicia Keys says she's going barefaced for good.
In an essay for the feminist newsletter Lenny, the 35-year-old songstress explains her epiphany came about through meditation and a photo shoot for her latest single, 'Common' with photographer Paola Kudacki.
"I'd just come from the gym, had a scarf under my baseball cap, and the beautiful photographer Paola (never met a Paola I didn't like) said, "I have to shoot you right now, like this! The music is raw and real, and these photos have to be too!"
The results were amazing. The singer has been posting dozens of #nomakeup selfies ever since.
In an interview for Fault Magazine, Keys describes coming to terms with her own her sense of beauty -- her hair, her skin, her body --- and accepting herself, flaws and all.
"I force myself to look in the mirror and own who I am and to own MY beautiful," she says. " So what that I have breakouts, or so what that my knees are pudgy, there simply is no perfect. Once I can teach myself that there is no perfect and that I am meant to have my FAULTS, that is when I become beautiful."
The response to Keys sans fards has been beyond positive. Her naked-faced photos have given more and more woman the courage to share their own #nomakeup selfies.
Keys says she hopes to God it's a revolution.
"Cause 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."
CBSSF.com writer, producer Jan Mabry is also executive producer and host of The Bronze Report. She lives in Northern California. Follow her on Twitter @janmabr.