Zooey Deschanel Without Makeup For People?s ?World?s Most Beautiful? Issue: Refreshing Or Forced?

Zooey Deschanel posed for People magazine's World's Most Beautiful for a section compiled solely of photographs of actresses without any makeup on. Of course, this look is a stark contrast from how Hollywood starlets typically appear in public, glammed up with layers of maquillage, hair extensions and designer threads.

I've gotten more comfortable with my looks as the years have gone on. All the things I like about myself go along with my flaws. I just have to accept those things, said the 32-year-old, famous for sweet, unassuming, retro vibe. She even spawned her own genus - adorkable.

Deschanel told People magazine about her beauty routine, which includes the use of natural products.

I put on sunblock in the morning and use organic stuff like Josie Maran, John Masters Organics and Clark's Botanicals. But I love dark eye makeup. It's stylized and evokes a certain era, she told People magazine.

The New Girl starlet looks clean and beautiful alongside portraits of fellow actresses Rose Byrne, Julie Bowen, Paris Jackson, Lily Collins, Jessica Paré, Sandra Lee and Paula Patton.

However, some took issue with the objective of People magazine's actresses without makeup spread.

It feels like a set-up, in a way: If you think she looks bad, aren't you just thinking as a member of the oppressively rigid society that keeps women feeling that they have to be flawless? And if you think she looks good, which, by the way, I do, then what is the point? asked Jezebel's Dodai Stewart. What is the 'what' here? Is the takeaway 'beautiful people still look beautiful without mascara'? Are we meant to revel in the wonder of the human form and throw away our Maybelline Great Lash, en masse?

Zooey Deschanel and the other actresses who dared to pose without makeup for the inside of the magazine looked drastically different from the World's Most Beautiful woman on the cover of the magazine, Beyonce.  

Of course they're not on the cover, wrote Stewart. The cover sticks to formula: Makeup, hair, lighting, Photoshop.

If the cover, or the entire issue featured women without makeup, it might be a lesson, reminding us how most of the images we see in magazines are based in reality yet completely unreal. But this way, it feels like bait, the kind that we, as highly visual creatures, can't resist, Stewart wrote.

Which is not to say that it's a bad idea to print photographs of celebrities without makeup, jarring us out of our glossy image haze. It's a good idea. I just wish it didn't feel like (or have to be) a stunt, she concluded.

Stewart also discussed the inclusion of Paris Jackson, Michael Jackson's 14-year-old daughter.

Don't we usually see her without makeup? Are we supposed to be gawking at her because she's beautiful without makeup, or beautiful, period? Is the lesson here that you don't need makeup to be beautiful? Because, uh, it helps that she is 14.

Others noted a similar facet of these sorts of features.

Like most of these types of shoots, it's framed in gimmicky language like 'bare is beautiful,' but then again, until magazines start shooting normal stories with no makeup on the people, it's not like they can let the fact of 'no makeup' go unremarked, wrote TheGloss's Jamie Peck.

What do you think of People magazine's World's Most Beautiful issue and the bare-faced actresses inside? Is it refreshing to see these stars this way or does it feel completely forced? Leave your feedback in the comments section below.