What These Celebs Look Like With No Makeup

It's become so expected for celebs to have that unattainable airbrushed look that they often garner praise if they ever dare to bare their skin. Some stars spend small fortunes on their makeup routines, so skipping the spackle every now and then can be a smart financial move. We know we'd want to make a $60 bottle of foundation stretch just a bit longer, at least, but maybe every drop of that flaw-obscuring fluid isn't as precious when you're Kim Kardashian. There are other upsides of going makeup-free, however, like eliminating the risk of suffering a makeup disaster.

Some stars take getting all dolled up very seriously, such as country singer Dolly Parton. Speaking to People about what it would take for her to leave her house without a stitch of makeup on, she joked, "Death! You'd just have to see me laid out on a stretcher." In her memoir "Behind the Seams: My Life in Rhinestones," she even admits to leaving her makeup intact while she sleeps (via ET).

While Parton's perpetual full face of makeup is an important part of her identity as an artist, other stars give their fans occasional glimpses of what they look like when they haven't been painted and powdered by their glam squads. Sometimes, they might even snap a selfie when their undereye circles are really popping or when they have a pimple or two — and showing their fans that they aren't flawless can actually make them even more adored. 

Jada Pinkett Smith likes to take breaks (and no, we're not talking about her marriage to Will Smith). In 2018, she told "Today" that her workplace face and the one she wears during her downtime are not one and the same. "I try to give the skin a break. Less is more," she said. The proof is on Jada's Instagram page, where she can be spied rocking little to no makeup in a sunlit selfie and a video about writing her 2023 memoir "Worthy." 

For Jada, it's important to get her face completely makeup-free after work. In a 2020 Instagram video, she revealed that one way she removes all of the residual gunk from her skin is by steaming it. "I do that at least three to four times a week," she said. Jada fills a bowl with boiling water, leans over it, and drapes a towel over her head to trap the steam. Her one-to-two-minute steaming sessions aren't the only way she uses H2O to get her dewy complexion. "I drink at least 8-9 bottles of water a day (sometimes more)," she wrote in the caption.

On YouTube, Jada demonstrated the far more complex skincare ritual she performs after she finishes filming projects that likely put her skin under a lot of stress, such as "The Matrix Resurrections" movie. In addition to steaming her skin multiple times, she uses a pre-cleanser, microdermabrasion machine, pore mask, and homemade avocado honey mask.

For "Wizards of Waverly Place" alum Selena Gomez, it's important that her fans believe in makeup magic. She owns a cosmetics company, Rare Beauty, so completely shunning makeup and embracing her natural beauty wouldn't be a smart business move. The "Ice Cream" singer has, however, treated her Instagram followers to a trio of selfies in which her face appears to be unenhanced by makeup. 

According to Gomez, there was a time when she wouldn't have felt comfortable letting her fans see her without makeup. "I think there's a point where you become like you need it, and I felt like if I didn't have it on, I wasn't pretty," she told Allure in August 2023. The "Only Murders in the Building" star eventually reevaluated the role cosmetics play in her life and developed a much healthier attitude towards them. "Makeup is meant to be an accessory," she said. "It's not meant to be something that you need, and I definitely don't need it to feel pretty." This fresh perspective made it more fun for her to experiment with different beauty looks.

Mehdi Mehdi, Rare Beauty's chief digital officer, told Fast Company that Gomez's struggles with feeling insecure about her appearance inspired her to build a beauty company that didn't make her fans feel that way. This brings us back to those February 2023 makeup-free selfies. By being relatable and not filling her Instagram page with airbrushed perfection, Gomez has forged a connection with her loyal customers that's not just skin deep.

Gal Gadot doesn't just play a superhero; the "Wonder Woman" star possesses the superhuman ability to look refreshed and alert without the assistance of concealer, shimmery highlighter, and mascara. In 2017, she shared a photo on Instagram of her makeup-free face. She revealed that her husband, Jaron Varsano, snapped the pic while she was recovering from one of those exhausting mommy moments where chaos reigns. "Sleepless night, colic 3 months old baby and an early wake up by my 5-year-old," she wrote in her caption. "Went to the garden to get some fresh air with my coffee to help me wake up." Gadot added that she was feeling pretty blissful afterward, which may help explain why she looks so radiant. 

While the circumstances of that stressful morning likely left Gadot with little time or energy to spare for putting on makeup, she regularly forgoes cosmetics by choice. "At work they put makeup on me, but I don't like to wear makeup day-to-day," she told InStyle in 2022. However, the former Miss Israel became a global brand ambassador for Revlon in 2018, so she occasionally talks about the beauty products she uses when she does decide to apply her own makeup. "I put on [foundation] that I mix with lotion, and I just put it on with my fingers," she later told Allure. "Then I use a little bit of eyeliner, a pen eyeliner, rouge, and mascara. I just want to look fresh."

Kelly Ripa is refreshingly honest when it comes to the cosmetic procedures she's experimented with to look camera-ready. In a 2014 appearance on "Watch What Happens Live," she gave Botox a glowing review. "It's cut my getting ready time in half," she said, per Us Weekly. The talk show host explained one way the injectable made applying makeup easier by adding, "Suddenly my eyelids are no longer resting on my eyelashes."

A few months prior to her "WWHL" interview, Ripa didn't have to worry about her mascara application getting messy while prepping for an episode of "Live with Kelly and Michael." She lost a bet on the Super Bowl outcome and upheld her end of the agreed-upon terms by appearing on the show sans makeup. "I labored under the delusion that I looked OK without makeup until I came out here and I went, 'Oh my God!'" Ripa said to the audience, as recapped by E! News. According to Ripa, her skin might be in better shape if she went without makeup more often. "I've been wearing television makeup for 33 years, and I can tell you with complete surety that it's the most damaging thing there is for skin," she told Glamour in 2022.

Ripa can be seen giving her skin a breather in some social media photos, such as a 2020 Instagram selfie with her husband, Mark Consuelos. While Botox might smooth out frown lines, the snapshot proved that Ripa can still smile wide.

Anne Hathaway is one of those stars who possesses the rare ability to stun by spending less time on her face. When she shared a rare selfie on Instagram in January 2023, the comments section was inundated with praise for her flawless, makeup-free complexion. "The only skincare routine I need is yours, what have you done every day since your 20s," one admirer wrote. Hathaway credits the work she puts into pampering her skin for how great it looks without generously applied concealer and foundation. "I found that the longer I've made skincare a priority, the less makeup I wear," she told Vogue that August, adding, "I find that in my life, I'm really happy just being in my skin."

We're just guessing that most skincare companies considered Hathaway a big "get" due to her dermis' smooth and even appearance, and just months after she shared that fresh-faced selfie, Shiseido announced that "The Idea of You" star was its newest brand ambassador. Hathaway later told People that she's become a big fan of the high-end beauty brand's Uplifting and Firming Eye Mask, which costs $85. Eye masks are apparently a product she likes to splurge on, as she also sang the praises of Chantecaille gold eye masks ($195) in a 2019 Allure interview. The actor also shared some of her biggest beauty concerns, one of which was eye-related. "Dryness, redness, crow's-feet. (F***ers. I mean, aging is a gift.)," Hathaway said.

As a model, Bella Hadid's face has served as a canvas for a lot of creative makeup artists, so she's learned all sorts of useful tricks on how to use cosmetics to her best advantage. She's also partnered with some big beauty brands, including Dior Makeup and Charlotte Tilbury. However, she wasn't passionate about makeup growing up.

Bella's mother, former model Yolanda Hadid, is perhaps best known for appearing on "The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills," and fans of the series likely associate her with the glammed-up housewife aesthetic. But Bella told Coveteur in 2018 that Yolanda had a different approach to beauty before the Bravo cameras became a part of her life. "My mom grew up on a farm in Holland, and I never really saw her applying her makeup; it wasn't something [where] I woke up in the morning and she was getting her makeup done," she shared. Speaking to Into the Gloss, Bella said that her cosmetics education didn't begin until she started modeling.

Bella also told Coveteur that one of her biggest discoveries during her makeup journey was that thin eyebrows can be filled in. But while she's become a big appreciator of the transformative power of makeup, she'll still pose for a makeup-free photo at the doctor's office or film a TikTok video from bed right after she wakes up. In the latter February 2023 clip, Bella even pointed out some facial puffiness. "It just feels like everything is sagging," she complained.

Grammy-winning artist Kim Petras was willing to let fans see her before she got all glammed up in a 2022 Vogue video. Like so many of our favorite pop stars, Petras likes to have fun with her makeup. The "Unholy" singer's spider-like eyeliner at the 2023 Brits was a Halloween dream, and in 2021, she celebrated her birthday in bold blue eyeshadow outlined with tiny crystals. However, for Vogue, she was demonstrating her everyday makeup look. As she applied products, Petras spoke about how her relationship with cosmetics has changed. She revealed that she used to view makeup as something she could use to alter the appearance of features that she didn't like. "I think that's definitely something I've been going through, just kind of using makeup as hiding in the beginning of my career," Petras said. "I don't do that anymore, and ever since then, I feel better about myself." Nowadays, the star uses makeup to draw attention to the features that she likes.

Petras previously told Glamour that she's obsessed with makeup for a number of reasons. "I write better songs if I have a face on," she said. The hitmaker also treasures her trove of cosmetics these days because her former school in Germany didn't let her wear makeup. "Makeup has been really important to my journey, especially being transgender," she said, adding, "It's a form of self-expression and it can change my mood."

Rihanna's fans have been begging for new music for years, but who needs to go through the trouble of recording and promoting a record when your cosmetics empire is thriving? As the reigning queen of Fenty Beauty — which Forbes valued at around $1.4 billion in 2021 — you'd think that RiRi would always be a walking advertisement for her beauty products. However, the "Work" singer let her natural beauty do all the work when she posed for her "first selfie of the year" in 2020.

Growing up in Barbados, Rihanna spent her teenage years being similarly fresh-faced — but not by choice. "Lipstick in Barbados? Not unless I was a bridesmaid in a friend's wedding," she later told Essence. "My mom wasn't flexible. I wore no makeup." Ironically, her mother was also responsible for getting her hooked on makeup. One of the rare occasions on which Rihanna was allowed to wear it was when she entered a beauty pageant. Her mother, who once worked behind a makeup counter, was responsible for her beauty look. "I will never forget the feeling I had after seeing how even my skin looked when she put foundation on my face," RiRi recalled.

As for that dewy glow that she always seems to possess with or without makeup, Rihanna told Elle in February 2023, "I do everything I can to stay hydrated, from applying moisturizers to drinking coconut water — it's really the only way to save your skin."

"I Hate Love Songs" singer Kelsea Ballerini definitely doesn't hate makeup. She became the face of CoverGirl in 2022, and she filmed her first-ever makeup tutorial for her YouTube channel in 2020, revealing that it was something her fans had been asking for. The country-pop star has since become so adept at doing her own makeup that she no longer brings a makeup artist with her when she's touring. "I have picked up enough along the way where now it's something that I just enjoy having my me time doing," she told People.

While Ballerini might be stoked about doing her own makeup for performances, she later told InStyle that she doesn't like spending too much time applying it during her downtime. "I just want to protect my skin and throw on a quick brow and cheek and go," she said. One product the singer rarely goes without is mascara; it's something she can rely on to make her look refreshed when she's giving her skin a breather.

Ballerini wasn't always a fan of a quick, low-key beauty look. She struggled with feeling insecure about her appearance without makeup, so the full-on glam look became a security blanket that she couldn't leave home without. But makeup eventually became something fun, not necessary. "Now for me, there are days where I'm fine to go out with no makeup and I don't feel any less me or pretty," she told People. Ballerini proved this by posing for a bare-faced bikini selfie in September 2023.

Julie Chen Moonves can attest to makeup's ability to sculpt facial features. The "Big Brother" host has admitted to getting eyelid surgery, explaining in a 2016 Glamour essay that an agent once told her it was the only way she would be able to advance in her career. Racism in the news industry was the reason for this; basically, the Chinese-American anchor would be discriminated against for having monolid eyes. Because she'd undergone one cosmetic procedure, some people apparently assumed that she had other work done. 

"I do not have cheek implants and I did not take fat out of my face. I did not have chin surgery, I did not have a nose job," she said during a 2013 episode of "The Talk," as recapped by Insider. Chen Moonves explained that what viewers were noticing was her makeup artist's contouring work, and she used a makeup-free photo as evidence that the shape of her cheeks, chin, and nose hadn't changed since before the eyelid procedure.

This wasn't the only time Chen Moonves let "The Talk" viewers see her without makeup; all of the co-hosts gave their makeup artists a day off in 2012. "When I go out without makeup on, I feel confident about it now," Moonves wrote in her Glamour piece. "I'll Instagram pictures without makeup, whereas eight years ago, I would never have dreamed of that. But now I actually kind of like the way I look without makeup better."

"America's Got Talent" judge Sofia Vergara always looks glamorous while deciding whether ventriloquists, comedians, sword swallowers, and even singing dogs are some of the biggest talents in the home of the brave. But she was ill, not dressed to kill, when she took to Instagram to show off her rosy cheeks in 2017. "Hm ... I just realized that 102 fever gives u the perfect shades of pink," she wrote in her caption. The actor tagged CoverGirl to let the brand know that she would like a blush to match her feverish flush, and she used a hashtag to explain that her illness was the result of "shooting in the rain in Rome."

It appeared as though Vergara had no makeup on in her selfie, which is a rarity for the "Modern Family" star. She confessed to People in June 2023 that the natural look isn't for her. "I like it when I've done an hour and a half of hair and makeup. More is more!" she said. Vergara's also not big on experimenting with cosmetics, saying that she never jumped on board the contouring craze popularized by celeb beauty influencers such as Kim Kardashian. 

"I've been doing my same makeup since I was 15," she said. "... I always have eyeliner on, and lashes and lipstick. Even in the morning I put it on." Vergara also uses a product from her own beauty brand that keeps her cheeks from turning pink in the sun: her Toty Illumina CC cream with SPF.

"The Illusionist" actor Jessica Biel is one of the celebs who isn't fond of makeup sorcery. "When I see myself in pictures with makeup on, even to this day, I think it looks weird," she told Vogue in 2010. "My eyes get squintier and smaller." Biel added that she can't remove her makeup fast enough once Hollywood events are over and she's no longer obligated to look like a movie star.

However, when the star shared a makeup-free selfie with her Instagram followers in 2019, it was meant to be more than just a look at the real Biel. In her caption, she explained that she was supporting Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model Kate Upton's Share Strong campaign, which encouraged people to share uplifting messages on social media and celebrate what they find empowering. "Spreading some self-love today with zero filter and zero makeup for my girl @KateUpton. She's on a mission to encourage everyone to feel strong and love themselves," Biel captioned her selfie. Her husband, "Cry Me a River" singer Justin Timberlake, reacted in the comments by revealing that he fully supports her preference to be bare-faced. "I like you better with no makeup on," he wrote. 

However, some commenters suggested that celebrities going makeup-free might not be the best way to make others "love themselves." One message read, "When I see your no-makeup selfie and compare it to my own I don't feel better about myself, I feel worse."

Former Miss World Priyanka Chopra Jonas told Harper's Bazaar in 2018 that she learned a helpful makeup removal trick from her mother during her pageant days: She just slathered on some coconut oil and wiped her stage makeup away with a towel. Another all-natural method the "Quantico" alum still uses to clean her skin is blending yogurt and turmeric together to make an exfoliating scrub. "You'd be amazed at what it can take off your skin," she previously told Into the Gloss.

While some of us might commit the cardinal beauty sin of sleeping in our makeup, it sounds like Chopra Jonas probably isn't staining any pillowcases. "My skin is being 'traumatized' all the time with all this makeup, which is why cleansing is supremely important," she said. Like many celebs, Chopra Jonas also gives her skin an occasional break by forgoing a full face of makeup. However, she's discovered a fast way to perk up her appearance using a single product. "When I was younger, I used to take berry lipsticks like raspberry red or whatever, and I would use them as stains on my lips and on my cheeks," she said. "... I still do it now, all these years later. It's my go-to fresh face for when I don't have to wear makeup." 

But when Chopra Jonas snapped a close-up selfie in 2018 and told her Instagram followers that it was a "no makeup kinda day," it looked like she even decided to skip the red lip.

As a competitive dancer, "Dancing with the Stars" host Julianne Hough had to wear heavy stage makeup so that the judges and audience could see her facial features while she was performing. In a 2015 interview with People, she said that she saw an added benefit to piling on the beauty products: She wanted to hide her acne. "I think we tend to feel comfortable and it becomes a sort of security blanket to have a lot of makeup on," she mused. Hough was still a fan of that "Toddlers & Tiaras" glam when she joined the cast of "DWTS" at age 18. However, she later toned her beauty look down, which made her realize that the dramatic eye makeup, fake tan, and all that jazz were doing her no favors. "I think I look older than I do now," she told People in 2016. "I've definitely gone for a 'less is more' standpoint [today]. I cut back on hair and makeup and all that stuff."

Hough once told SoCalPulse that she often skips makeup completely when she's not at work, and she gave fans a peek at what she looks like during her downtime in a 2019 Instagram selfie. "The best days are the ones spent with no makeup on, in workout clothes, at home with loved ones," she captioned it.

While Taylor Swift isn't afraid to post makeup-free selfies on Instagram, Swifties have grown accustomed to seeing her with her signature beauty look: bright lipstick and immaculate winged eyeliner. She has some tricks for making both look their best. In 2011, the "Anti-Hero" singer told Allure that makeup artists had taught her how to boost her lip color's staying power. "They put on the red lipstick, then blot it with a tissue, then they put powder over the tissue and sort of press it onto your lips. Then re-apply," she said. As for ensuring that her cat-eye lines are never crooked, Swift later told Redbook, "I do the outer corner flick first: I follow the curve of my lower lash line and draw it on as if it's an extension of that. Then I draw along my top lid and connect it to the flick."

Swift's eye makeup is such an essential part of her makeup look that the hitmaker once did something that she had to know was trouble. "I once used a Sharpie as eyeliner in an airplane bathroom because I didn't have any with me. I don't recommend it," she admitted Refinery29 in 2012. We assume that removing the permanent marker from her eyelids was a challenge — once she got around to trying. Swift confessed to Allure that she often forgets to wash her face before bedtime. However, Swift's makeup appeared to be missing when she dressed up like an elf for Christmas Eve 2015 in a since-deleted Instagram post. We're hoping Santa left some eyeliner in her stocking.