Selena Gomez is reflecting on her own relationship with makeup over the years. While promoting Rare Beauty’s new highlighter blushes, Gomez spoke to Refinery29 Australia about how she copes with unhealthy societal beauty standards.

“There is a lot of noise out there and I do my best to ignore it; I’m really grateful to have wonderful fans and an amazing community,” she said. “My hope is that we all create a safe space to be ourselves, to be vulnerable, and to challenge unrealistic standards of beauty.”

Speaking about her own relationship with makeup, she said: “It’s become a lot healthier as I’ve grown up. I used to want to wear makeup to look older or look more like other people. Now I have a lot of fun with makeup—doing my friends’ makeup or my own. I want to accentuate the features that make me unique instead of covering them up.”

Back in late 2021, Gomez spoke to ELLE.com about how being a child star shaped her perception of beauty in a harmful way.

“I’ve been in makeup since I was seven years old. I feel like that kind of messed with me,” she said. “You’re so young and then working. I have professionals doing my makeup, and suddenly I can look 25 when I was 16, and it was crazy. Then I felt like, ‘oh, I look too young all the time. I should achieve that look more. I should try that.’ It just made me question my beauty for what it was.

“I’ve been a victim to wanting to change my face and do things because I see such like intense trends,” she continued. “I think the most rewarding part of creating this line [Rare Beauty] is that we create a place for people who don’t necessarily want to get work done or change their face. They just want to embrace what they are and what they have.”