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"In seventh grade, I was allowed to wear makeup, and to say it was a trial-and-error process would be an understatement. I matched my eye shadow to my outfits each day but took little care in matching my foundation to my actual skin tone. My eyebrows were overplucked, and my hair was overstraightened. I was a complete disaster. Actually, I was a reflection of an Orange County standard of beauty. As we grow up, we're taught what beauty is by what we see around us. It was pretty easy for me to blend in\u2014my skin tanned easily, and I was born with naturally blond hair\u2014 but I can't imagine how difficult it was for the girls who didn't fit the mold. It can be terrifying to wander through high school feeling different.\n\nWhen I moved out of Orange County, my tan faded, I stopped abusing eyeliner (for the most part), and I began experimenting more with my style, hair, and makeup. I learned a lot about myself and what looks good on me in the process. One of the best parts of growing up is finding the freedom to model yourself on what feels the most true rather than mirror what's around you.\n\nWhen I stumbled into the entertainment industry, it came with one big perk: a beauty team. I would spend hours prior to each photo shoot in a cloud of hairspray and powder, emerging as a new and improved me. The veneer of perfection you see on the small screen and in magazines is far from the truth, though. The industry's best hair and makeup artists can give us perfect lips and beautiful windblown waves. We're all spackled, whether to combat breakouts, dark circles, or wrinkles. Then, because that's not enough, a retoucher will take a magnifying glass to the final image and meticulously correct every errant hair. (I do make sure\u2014in both my new book and my previous book, Lauren Conrad Style\u2014not to go overboard with retouching. I feel strongly that the image I project should be what I actually am: a fairly normal girl with fairly normal problems.) We're surrounded by absolutely unrealistic ideas of beauty because girls in photos are, well, not real. They're the result of a hairstylist, a makeup artist, a manicurist, a personal stylist, a tailor, good lighting, correct angles.... And to get that one photo that makes the cut, sometimes a thousand or more need to be taken.\n\nSo, look at pictures of celebrities for artistic inspiration\u2014cool eye-shadow color combos, blush placements, unexpected ways to wear your hair\u2014but don't think for a second that you should look like them. Because nobody does, not even them.\n\nAdapted from Lauren Conrad Beauty \u00A9 2012 Lauren Conrad, out October 16."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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