Why Addison Rae going makeup-free on TikTok is so important

In recent months, Addison Rae has uploaded several TikToks in which she’s gone makeup-free, leading to a simultaneous onslaught of hate and an outpouring of praise. But why is the influencer showing her natural skin texture important to so many people?

As the third most followed TikTok creator, 21-year-old Addison Rae is permanently in the spotlight. With over 80 million followers she is a celebrity in her own right, becoming the face of her own makeup brand, starring in films, and even releasing music.

She’s used to plenty of people watching her every move, but a video of hers posted on November 5 with over 30 million views found itself to more For You Pages than usual when she decided to go makeup-free, leading to a slew of hate from people who claimed the star looked “old.”

“I would never say she’s in her 20s, I swear she looks like 27/30 years,” one commenter wrote. “She looks older than her age,” said another.

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However, despite the onslaught of comments criticizing her makeup-free face, the negativity was outweighed by countless comments that praised Addison for showing her natural skin texture.

“I love how she represents that textured skin is normal,” said one viewer in a comment with over 85,000 likes, others dubbing her a “queen” for her honesty.

While showing her natural face in a video may on the surface appear to be rather inconsequential, just looking at the response in the comments is enough to prove that this is an issue that, while divisive, is hugely important to millions of social media consumers—particularly for TikTok users.

Although most photo & video apps these days have some form of beauty filter available, TikTok’s can be notoriously subtle. You can smooth your skin tone, whiten your teeth, and even add contour makeup, often so seamlessly that a passing viewer wouldn’t notice you were using a filter if they didn’t look closely.

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Combine those filters with the fact that many of us, particularly over the past couple of years, see more faces on their For You Page than we do in real life, it’s skewing our expectation for what ‘normal’ people should look like.

And for so many people, seeing someone who is hailed as conventionally attractive reveal her natural, textured skin is incredibly validating. Even if her bare face is used as the precursor to a makeup transformation, she’s not necessarily using the finished product to disparage her natural appearance.

Addison’s audience of predominantly teenage girls means that even something as simple as going makeup-free in a video or two can make a huge impact.

As commenters on the video pointed out, many of the negative comments about her appearance appear to have been posted by young teens, which is perhaps the most damning evidence of how deeply rooted society’s fixation on conventional beauty is, and how skewed our perception of ‘normal’ has become. By being unapologetic about their natural state and perceived ‘flaws,’ influencers could be helping to shift the narrative.

None of this is to say that Addison is a pioneer of the body positivity movement or anything quite to that extent. However, her position as one of the app’s most popular creators means she knows exactly the kind of negativity she will inevitably receive as a result of posting a video like that.

And her decision to post it regardless, whether she intended it this way or not, makes it all the more meaningful for her audience.