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10 MISS UNIVERSE Beauty Pageants Without Makeup

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The most glamorous pageant on Earth just showed up without a single swipe of foundation.

Every January, Miss Universe delegates spend hours under contour brushes, false lashes and hairspray before they ever step under stage lights. During the 65th Miss Universe cycle, staged in Manila in January 2017, a different kind of photo shoot went the opposite direction. Photographer Benjamin Askinas pulled contestants in front of his camera with zero stage makeup, zero styling products and zero retouching, and the resulting portraits circulated far beyond the pageant world.

• The bare-faced photo shoot was tied to the 65th Miss Universe competition, held in Manila, Philippines, in January 2017.
• Photographer Benjamin Askinas shot the contestants, including eventual winner Iris Mittenaere of France, without stage makeup, heavy contouring or hairstyling.
• Twelve delegates took part, with the portraits emphasizing freckles, natural skin texture and unedited features rather than pageant polish.

Benjamin Askinas Strips the Stage Away

Askinas built his reputation shooting pageant contestants in their most produced state — full glam, ballgowns, national costumes. This project flipped that formula. Contestants who’d normally be photographed mid-strut in the swimsuit round or evening gown competition instead sat for close-up portraits with bare skin, no lash extensions and no contour lines cut into their cheekbones.

The point wasn’t to catch anyone off guard. It was a sanctioned campaign built directly into the Miss Universe 2016 pageant cycle, meant to put natural faces next to the airbrushed version fans see on the broadcast. Freckles, uneven skin tone, and the kind of texture a ring light usually smooths out were left exactly as they were.

Iris Mittenaere’s Bare Face Before the Crown

Iris Mittenaere, the French delegate who would go on to win the 65th Miss Universe title on the Manila stage, was among the contestants photographed for the project. Seeing the eventual winner in the same makeup-free lineup as every other delegate undercut the idea that the crown goes to whoever has the most flawless glam team — it went to the same woman who showed up barefaced for Askinas’s camera days earlier.

Twelve delegates stepped in front of Benjamin Askinas’s lens with nothing on their faces but skin.

Photo Shoot Sparks Significant Public Backlash

Pageant coverage tends to fixate on gowns, sashes and scoring rounds, so a stripped-down set of portraits stood out precisely because it broke from that formula. The shoot leaned into the same conversation that’s followed the modeling world for years — the gap between a magazine cover and the person standing in front of the lens. Readers curious how that tension plays out elsewhere in the industry can look at how young talent approaches stepping into modeling in the first place.

It also landed at a moment when former pageant winners were already being reassessed years after their crowning moments. The same instinct that has fans checking in on where past modeling competition winners ended up applies here — audiences wanted to see the person behind the title, not just the version built for the stage.

The Contrast With Pageant Night

Set against the actual Miss Universe broadcast — hours of blowouts, spray tans and false eyelashes under stadium lighting — the makeup-free portraits read almost like a rebuttal. Mittenaere still won the title in full glam on coronation night. But the campaign made sure the record also included the version of these women with nothing added, freckles and all, before a single flashbulb of the pageant broadcast ever went off.