Here is a spotlight on some of my favorite articles that popped up all across the web for No Make-up Week.

“Because I know that I actually feel much more beautiful when I’m truly naked.  I just do.  It is my most truest expression of who I am and when I express my most authentic beauty.  Go ahead and say PFFT.  But for me, it is just the way that it is.” –Naked Jen
who also says “Still, I’m just as happy to put on parts of the costume to go to the grocery store and leave off the false eyelashes and the glitter, but I might be tempted to add a gummy bear bindi.

“Then Rachel’s post got put up on Jezebel and I was shocked at the negative feedback I was reading. Aren’t my fellow feminists the main readers of Jezebel? So why, when it came to make-up were they all you-can-take-my-freedom-but-you-can’t-take-my-MAC-lip-gloss?” Claire of Even Pretty Girls Need to Read asks. She gets into wearing make-up for boys and boys who don’t like you to wear it. This girl is full of good questions: “why does a make-up free face seem to beg for validation that it is still pretty?”

Rawr. I’ve always been a fan of men in make-up, and am shocked that by now there aren’t guy-lines carried next to the lady-stuff at Target. Zoetica agrees. “Somehow, make-up on men is still not exactly commonplace today. Sure, it’s around, it’s just not quite “normal”. Also check out the post showcasing amazing photography of tribal make-up.

“It took a lot of personal maturing before I could see that I was using makeup the wrong way. If I was being perfectly honest with myself, I was really quite weary of having two faces: the one that was artificially flawless & the other that was the plain, true me.” –Apricot Tea who also shared with us beauty tips for healthy no make-up ready skin.

A lot of girls came out of the woodwork, who don’t wear make-up. And as I’ve said this week, whether you wear make-up or not there is a story there. Kate at Eat the Damn Cake tells hers especially well. “By the end of college, I hated my inability to wear makeup. Why was I so bad at being a woman? Why was I so bad at making myself pretty? Why couldn’t I use the basic tools of my kind? I was like a caveman who couldn’t use a club. A wilderness explorer who doesn’t understand the compass. A Jedi who never learned how to wield a lightsaber.”

Sui at Cynosure isn’t afraid to go deep. “That day, he took me to Japantown. Out of nowhere, he grabbed my hand. He treated me to dinner. He drove me to the Golden Gate Bridge… and molested me. And called me fat. And told me I should wear make-up– I’d “look so much better that way, like a Japanese girl.” If I had to decide on the pivotal experience of my life that probably sparked the eventual severity of my body image issues, it was that night.”

Sex Blogger, The Beautiful Kind interviewed a guy who wears make-up.  A mostly straight guy who identifies as a gender bender. He says “My goal wasn’t to try to confuse other people, but to simply look fantastic.”

Hersteria is a beauty and relationship advice blog. But this aint your Mother’s sex and marriage advice…it’s your Grandmothers. She shares some retro goodies after this disclaimer: “Yes, I’m aware that Ms. Rabbit Write is a sex blogger, and a redhead at that. But, like our suffragette sisters before us (and trust me, some of them were total tramps), we must band together for the cause.”