Image source: Getty / Stefanie Keenan/ Jon Kopaloff/ Swan Gallet
Yara Shahidi is currently at a crossroads.After 6 seasons of her
“A lot of things are being discussed,” Shahidi told POPSUGAR. “I don’t have very clear movements, but [I’m] “I’m really looking forward to figuring out what I enjoy doing.” She’s been busy doing a little bit of everything, from set design to executive producing to booking a fair share of beauty campaigns. Her latest work is for the new Jean Paul Gaultier Divine Eau de Parfum However, Shahidi’s definition of this word is slightly different from the one listed in Webster’s Dictionary.
“There’s a quote from Marianne Williamson that she said about when you let your light shine and how you give people permission to do the same,” Shahidi says. For her, divine femininity is not about looking or acting a certain way, but about being “very comfortable with who you are, or at least striving to be just as comfortable, and giving those around you permission to be.” It’s the same thing as giving. “This is more or less how Shahidi has approached her beauty since her childhood.
Image source: Getty/Bob D’Amico/Disney General Entertainment Content
“Beauty is always about having fun,” says Shahidi. She started filming the comedy ‘Black-ish’ when she was 13 years old, but she had to quickly get used to spending her formative years in front of the camera. . She recalls experiencing breakouts (as many teens do) and layering foundation on her skin to hide them. Simply put, she felt incomplete without makeup on her skin, but her mother quickly worked to undo that subconscious programming in her. “Since then, she has been very free to approach beauty from the perspective of what she wants to express,” she says. “This allows me to approach beauty from a place of agency rather than a place of necessity.”
Most people express themselves through their hair, makeup, and nails, but for Shahidi, scent is an equally important medium. When she takes a whiff of her new Gaultier Divine perfume, she is somewhere by the water, surrounded by love and light. “There’s a really cool element to it, like being at the beach,” she says. “I’ve always been a fan of jasmine and lilac and light flowers that scent the air, so there’s something very familiar about this flower because of that.”
In case you haven’t noticed, Shahidi loves thinking deeply about her beauty choices. “I love references,” says Shahidi. “Actually, I was just showing a friend how many mood boards I have and her Pinterest albums.” One of her top beauty icons is Solange Knowles. Because, “she is an important example of being grounded in yourself and being able to achieve looks that most of us think we can’t even imagine.”
cate blanchett Like Josephine Baker, it is also a source of inspiration for her. “I showed my respect [her] “At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she’s someone we’ve always looked to for inspiration,” Shahidi says. She enjoys inviting people like Baker into the venue through her beauty, because it helps her respect another area of interest, and “[Baker] You deserve to be part of this conversation. ”
Image source: Getty/Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images for The MET Museum/Vogue
A theme that Shahidi recently explored in a Ted Talk is what happens to us if we follow our curiosity and don’t let external feedback control us. She’s gotten pretty good at blocking out noise now, but she knows what it feels like to try to force yourself to fit into a certain mold.
“I was on the speech and debate team in high school, and it was mostly young women from different backgrounds, BIPOC, and everyone was straightening their hair in preparation for the competition. “I realized that,” Shahidi recalls. I wasn’t told to do it directly, but it was like an unspoken rule. “I remember feeling like my curly hair was unfinished, unprofessional, less than perfect.” After recognizing this habit, she said, “I had to push through the discomfort. And eventually, I now feel like I don’t feel like myself without my curls.”
But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t occasionally try to “fit the role,” whether it’s on the red carpet or in other jobs. “We’re still working within those limits of what’s ‘beautiful’ or ‘attractive,'” Shahidi says. “There have been so many times I’ve shown up with the goal of being attractive and just felt uncomfortable. I didn’t respect who I was. And I didn’t respect who I was and what I thought people thought was attractive. I realized that what was important to me was that they were at ease with themselves, and I was able to pursue a different definition.”