Fun fact: Men, actually, tend to like better a woman with a natural, fresh face. Of course, what men think is something you shouldn't give a f*** about. There are a lot of stereotypes regarding female beauty, and also male beauty has some of those. You think the nerdy, acne-covered guy with glasses felt really happy whenever he saw boys like him portrayed as the "loser" in every movie? Stereotypes are a reality and they're genderless, but you shouldn't give no crap about those.
If you felt like you had to wear make up for people to like you, for yourself to like your reflection in the mirror, then I'm sorry your experience was this bad. I don't blame you, I was there once, I made a huge damage to my own body because I felt like I had to be skinny, that everyone would like me then. I was oppressed by food, by clothes, by exercise. Then, like you, I freed myself, I discovered I could be fat and beautiful at the same time, one does not oppose to the other, and my confidence came back. I went back to dress however I wanted to, and now I can hear people calling me "fat" and ignore them because yes! It's true I'm fat, so? I'm also ******* beautiful.
After this new freedom, I started to actually care about myself, and you know where leaded that? Make up. I was the type of person that would just go inside a 50 cents store in the center of my city, look at a really ******* light powder, any black eyeliner and some eyeshadows. And I would just buy them and use them. I didn't care if the powder matched my skin tone, or if the eyeliner was waterproof, if it was good, what's inside that **** I'm putting in my face. Then I started to care, and started to learn, to play and to portrait myself as someone new, and confident and different. I started caring a lot about my skin, self care and my beauty routine. Now this is leading to food. I slowly care about that coke I just drank at my office (lol **** burnt), and the amount of trashy food. But not in the old way, when I felt horrible for munching a cookie. Now I feel like I want to be healthy, I want my skin to glow and I want to go outside and exercise and do stuff that will pamper my body, and of course I will keep on eating pizza and cookies and having "Saint Seiya and fast food" fridays with my girlfriend, but also I'm gonna have veggies and soups and vitamins and stuff that will make me feel good.
This freedom I wish it to everyone, but I'm a single person who went through some hard **** and had bad experiences. So are you, and I really hope you are enjoying this freedom. But don't come here and tell everyone how make up was the one thing that made you a prisoner of your own mind, just as I don't go inside fitness and extreme diet websites to say "hey guys stop being so concerned about this is bad" because they might enjoy it, they might be expressing themselves that way, they might be being free just like I am, and if they're not, they'll realize it soon enough, I hope, but I cant just butt in someone else's fun, lifestyle or art form.
I hope you are really happy now, tho. I hope you go outside wearing whatever you want and with the cleanest, freshest face ever. Nobody gets to tell you how to look, what to wear, who to be. Only you.
(First post on this site and its a long-ass lecture good job Victoria you started good.)