Alicia Keys Launches New Makeup Collection with 'All Our Journeys in Mind'

Alicia Keys understands that embracing your natural beauty takes time.

Over the years, Keys, 41, has struggled with societal standards, a battle that prompted her pivotal decision to go makeup-free in 2016. However, Keys' bare-faced movement has since evolved into an idea that beauty is whatever you want it to be — and something that can change over time.

The "Girl on Fire" is helping to promote this message through the expansion of Keys Soulcare with the launch of color-skincare hybrids. Called the Make You collection, Keys is offering a tinted lip balm, a cheek tint and brow gel with the goal of enhancing your glow and maintaining skin health. The collection, which Keys debuted on the 2022 Met Gala red carpet, also includes a complexion brush.

"[My view of makeup] has completely evolved," Keys tells PEOPLE. "I've been wearing makeup since I was 16 years old when I started performing. I had really challenging skin and would break out all the time."

"I was in a new universe that I didn't understand," Keys says of breaking into Hollywood. "It was full of anxiety, pressure and stress and my skin just got worse and worse. I continued to have to hide it, and I did my best to cover it because people can be so nasty. After a while, I began to feel that I wasn't beautiful if I didn't have makeup."

Keys says that's when she began to rebel. "I was like, 'I don't have to do anything. I don't have to wear this on my skin.' That's how I felt at the time. That was my relationship to beauty... It was strained. But, it was through that moment that I got time to get to know myself."

Though Keys has welcomed makeup back into her life, it's on her own terms.

"I get to determine what's beauty to me. Nobody gets to tell me what that is, and I can't tell anybody what that is either. That's why my relationship with [makeup and beauty] has come to the place where it is," Keys tells PEOPLE.

"We're releasing this [collection] and we're calling it Make You because it really is in line with my entire journey — with all of our journeys."

"I feel like a lot of times we feel the pressure to be perfect, or the pressure to look a certain way. I definitely have felt that pressure, and I definitely have experienced that. So, along the way, I realized that the only beauty standard I should follow is the one that I create," Keys tells PEOPLE.

"I allowed other people's opinions or thoughts or even my own assumption somehow control me or make me subscribe to someone else's beauty standards... Some days you want to be completely free from anything on your face, other days you want to turn it up because that's how you're feeling and that's okay."

Furthermore, Keys desires to turn beauty routines into beauty rituals.

"If you're washing your face for five minutes, how can you make this a special experience for you? How do we become more mindful?"

Keys encourages this with soothing affirmations. "On the cheek tint, it says 'I choose my own path.' So as you use it, you're supporting this idea that you get to determine life for yourself. That's a big part of what Soulcare is."

Speaking to skin health, Keys says the Make You collection is "this connection between skincare and color... it's not just color, it's the this ability to mix skincare with your color."

The tinted lip balm is a vitamin-enriched product that is also infused with avocado oils to keep your lips supple plump. The cheek tint adds subtle color while maintaining hydration through the help of sunflower seed oil. The brow gel also softens skin with bamboo and hibiscus flower. The collection is currently available at keyssoulcare.com.

In addition to the new cosmetics, Keys Soulcare already offers a cleanser made with manuka honey, a powder exfoliator with lactic acid and an illuminating priming serum with niacinamide.

"Everything [within Keys Soulcare] is going to be helpful for your skin, and to me, that's what makes it different from any other brands out there," Keys adds.