From editing her pics to trying to hide her Filipino heritage, the PLL star gets real about her beauty journey.
If you follow Shay Mitchell on Instagram, there’s likely one word you’d use to describe the “Pretty Little Liars” star’s account: goals. From her amazing fashion posts to her vacation photos and glam red carpet snaps, her feed is full of stunning photos and enviable life moments. But behind every post, there’s a story: and the actress wants you to know what’s real about it all.
Shay has always been honest about the editing and proper lighting that goes into her own personal photos AND the version you see of her on TV and in magazines. But in a new interview, the actress dove further into her personal perception of true beauty.
“Even before social media, I was always upfront with everybody about the professional lighting, the two hours of hair and makeup, and every tamed flyaway. There’s no way I would want people to think that one photo doesn’t get edited,” Shay shared. “There is a fine line with that because you need to celebrate what makes you unique, too. We’re all such different-looking human beings and that’s what’s beautiful. I don’t want to completely filter myself to unrecognizable limits.”
The reason why Shay feels this way is because when she was younger, she felt like she had to look different to be beautiful. The Canadian-Filipina actress admits she couldn’t relate to others’ images of beauty, and she tried to hide her heritage.
“One of [my] growing pains [was] when I looked at magazines, I thought, ‘I don’t look like any of these girls,'” Shay explained. “In high school you’re comparing yourself to other people, you’re growing up at a rapid pace, and everything is kind of new. My advice now is to celebrate your unique look, whatever that is. Celebrate that, make it yours.”
The star says one of her biggest beauty mistakes ever was “trying to conform myself to being something I wasn’t.”
“All my friends in high school had blonde hair and blue eyes, and I wanted so badly to fit in. So I dyed my hair blonde; I wore [colored] contacts; I straightened my hair because it’s naturally wavy; I stayed out of the sun as much as possible to not get tanned,” she explained. “I was trying so hard to be everything that I wasn’t. I wish I could’ve just told my younger self to enhance what you have.”
We love that Shay is opening up about her own beauty journey, because we can all relate in some way. Her words are true: we should all celebrate what makes us special!
