Lady Gaga is appearing on the front cover of Harper's Bazaar magazine with no makeup.

The 25-year-old singer is bare-faced for the October issue which was shot in black and white.

But the Born This Way singer says she does not have to have her face painted to really shine.

"Whether I'm wearing lots of makeup or no makeup, I'm always the same person inside," she said.

Gaga also revealed that although she causes controversy with her zany outfits and stage antics, she liked to shock people from a young age.

"I'm very free-spirited," she said.

"Even when I was a kid, I used to run around naked with the babysitter, driving her crazy."

Gaga shared the magazine image with her Little Monsters on Twitter saying that it was the "first Black and White Cover printed in 20 years".

But the controversial singer says that although the image is not her usual outlandish appearance she does not believe her bare-faced look is natural.

"I don't really view it as 'natural,' she explained.

"I think that artifice is the new reality. It's more about just being honest and sincere to the core of what you do."

"Don't you think that what's on the cover of a magazine is quite artificial?" she asked.

"There's this idea that it's all natural, but everything's been staged to look natural. It is also an invention. It's just that my inventions are different."

- AAP