Elizabeth Taylor Looked Entirely Different Without Makeup

Elizabeth Taylor is one of the most strikingly beautiful Hollywood stars of all time, her iconic violet-colored eyes having a lot to do with that. Of course, as was the case with many of icons of old Hollywood, she was seldom pictured sans a full face of glam (particularly once she was in her twenties), so seeing her without it certainly had us doing a double take. That said, makeup or not, there's no denying just how gorgeous the late actor was. 

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We'll start by pointing out that in a pic of Taylor washing her dogs as a teen, she was focused on the task at hand. That means her instantly recognizable eyes weren't visible, and it's possible that if she had looked up, she might not have looked quite so different from the glammed-up lewks we tend to associate her with. Still, the star's features weren't quite as dramatically carved-out, and it was a much more natural look than what we're used to seeing on her. 

Now, some might say that Taylor could very well have been wearing makeup in the pic, and we wouldn't rule out the possibility that she was rocking some very light glam. However, it is also worth noting that the actor herself once told Michael Kors she actually didn't wear makeup early on in her career. "When I was younger, for a long time I didn't wear any makeup in films," she shared as part of their conversation for Harper's Bazaar. Granted, Taylor's career did start when she was still a child, and it's possible that by the time the pic of her washing her pets as a 17-year-old was taken, that had changed. Either way, if we hadn't known it was Taylor in the pic, we wouldn't have guessed it was the "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" star. 

It may come as a surprise to some that many of the iconic glam looks Elizabeth Taylor was known for were done by the actor herself. While few stars do their own makeup, particularly for film and TV, Taylor was pretty adamant about it. As she told Michael Kors for Harper's Bazaar, she even did her own glam for "Cleopatra." "Alberto De Rossi prepared the sketches, but his back went out before filming began, and he had to have surgery. I had studied his techniques, so I copied what I had seen him do," she said, adding that she always did her own makeup for her films. 

Taylor also did her own makeup for awards shows, which was particularly risky given all the attention paid to stars on the red carpet. However, speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, the late actor's assistant revealed that she simply loved being able to do it. Of course, she would be fastidious in her application, and Tim Mendelson told the outlet it could take her as long as two hours to get everything just right. For one thing, he explained, it helped calm her nerves. However, he also shared that her team would go out of their way to get everything just right. Music played a big role in that, and could be anything from Michael Jackson to Andrea Bocelli. As Mendelson recalled, "Sometimes she needed the energy from the music and sometimes she needed the calm from the music."

As for whether or not Taylor had completely makeup-free days beyond her child star years, we haven't seen the pics to confirm or deny it. Regardless, there's no question she adored her glam and the ritual of applying it — even if her makeup-free face card was stunning all on its own.