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We all want to be *that girl*, but how do you get there when you wake up to a non-filtered face? How do I get *that girl* confidence, even when I have (totally not *that girl*) acne? Honestly, it’s taken a long time and there are still some days that I still feel insecure about myself. But, while everyone is beautiful, everyone feels insecure at some point. Even Influencers. Even celebrities. Even me.
So how did i find my holy grail secret?
When I was in middle school, I struggled with the way I looked. Specifically, I hated my skin. I can’t remember a day where I didn’t have acne covering my face. While I know now that there is nothing wrong with middle school me, at the time, it hurt my self confidence a lot to look in the mirror.
At this point, I started wearing makeup. I watched hours of YouTube tutorials on how to get the perfect cat eye, where to use bronzer, and *most importantly* how to cover up acne. But, if you’ve ever had acne, you know that makeup could only do so much.
As a perfectionist, I wasn’t satisfied.
Despite my at-home yogurt face masks, which were supposed to work miracles (crazy, I know), my skin wasn’t clear. I could still see a bit of texture here…and a bump there.
This is when I unlocked my holy grail secret
I was learning about camouflage and animal tendencies in a science class when it hit me.
I was probably never going to have perfect skin (to this day I still struggle with acne). However, if I couldn’t camouflage my insecurity, and let’s be real…there was no embracing it in middle school, I could emphasize something else.
From then on, when I was having a really bad skin day, I would pick a different feature that I liked, and emphasize it. A pimple on my chin? No problem. It’s a winged eyeliner day anyways. Mount Vesuvius on my forehead? I had a Ruby Woo (a bright shade of red MAC lipstick) grin.
Over time, I got more compliments on my crazy pink eyeshadow than (what I thought were) lingering looks on my skin. I felt better about myself. I enjoyed waking up and playing with makeup, even if the canvas wasn’t perfect.
So, that’s essentially the hack. When you’re feeling insecure about something, instead of hyper-focusing on it, find something else you like about yourself and emphasize it. This hack is applicable to makeup, but also other parts of your body. You can wear a loose sweater and cute jeans if you feel bloated, or a midi skirt instead of shorts if you don’t feel like showing off your tiger stripes (a.k.a. stretch marks) today.
You don’t have to love all of yourself all of the time
There’s a lot of toxic positivity out there that encourages everyone to love every bit of themselves 24/7, but like I said in the beginning, everyone feels insecure at some point. Sometimes embracing your imperfections isn’t an option. Sometimes you don’t have time, and prom is tonight and you know your friends will be posting pictures (in my experience, bold makeup looks do wonders deceiving camera lenses).
I’m just saying, you have options. You should try to love all of yourself, but you don’t always have to be perfect at it. I still don’t *love* my acne, but now I don’t hate it either. You are beautiful and you should feel beautiful every single day (even if you don’t have glass skin, freckles, a button nose, thin waist, or whatever else the current trend is). I hope that this hack helps you find *that girl* confidence like it’s helped me find mine.