Amor sin maquillaje

Pina is a makeup artist who lives with her grandmother and mother, who were also makeup artists, in Mexico City ever since she was widowed with her four-year-old son. She dreams of becoming a telenovela writer and in her spare time studies at Televisa's Writers' Center while writing her first telenovela, "Amor oculto" (Hidden Love). She falls in love with Héctor Ibarra, a very popular but arrogant and cruel actor who asks Pina to go with him to Miami. She refuses, so Héctor steals her telenovela script and registers it under his name. Pina stays in Mexico, pregnant with Héctor's child and deeply hurt by his betrayal. When Héctor returns to star in "Amor oculto", Pina is hired as a makeup artist on the same telenovela she wrote.

On the other hand, there is Lupita, Pina's mother, who was abandoned by her husband when Pina was a child and who returns 20 years later to ask Lupita for forgiveness, only to discover that another man is in her life and she will have to choose between them.

Verónica, Pina's grandmother, is a makeup artist who reminisces about her years at Televisa doing makeup and her shared experiences with actors working on telenovelas.

Filming of the telenovela began on 13 August 2007 and wrapped on 13 October 2007.^[5][6]

Miriam Giglio of People en Español opined that Amor sin maquillaje included a variety of telenovela clichés, stereotypical characters performed with overdone acting, and that the scripts were written by amateur writers.^[7]

Milly Cangiano of Primera Hora also criticized the writing of the telenovela by stating, "Amor sin maquillaje becomes monotonous and boring. I was hoping that to celebrate 50 years of telenovelas they would do something more glamorous, but from what we've seen, it's more of the same, with repetitive dialogue, long scenes, and worst of all, a great cast that they don't take advantage of".^[8]