My mom is Chinese, born in Vietnam; my dad is also Chinese, born in China. They didn’t put a lot of pressure on us in terms of looks. My dad has a crease, but my mom doesn’t. I’m like a hybrid, I guess. Some days I have one crease, sometimes I don’t have any. Middle school was probably when I started to feel different. There were people who made fun of me by calling me a chink and pulling their eyes to the side. That’s when I was most self-conscious about my appearance — I wished I looked like a “normal” person. It was painful, but my friends are all Asian, so I wasn’t alone in it. And for the most part, I’ve mentally blocked out those experiences. When I started wearing makeup, I tried to copy what I saw in magazines and on TV, but what I saw wasn’t going to happen on my lids. Only in the past year have I learned to love and accept the way my eyes are. Funnily enough, it’s because of the K-pop band BTS. They’re men, but they get their makeup done and it looks good. I was inspired by the way their makeup artists work with their eyes to enhance their features instead of building different features on them. Their eye shape still looks like their eye shape instead of trying to be something it’s not. Some of my Instagram followers now say, “I love your eyes. I wish I could have monolids.” To hear people say they like my eyes — and to think about how different it used to be — makes me emotional.

A version of this article originally appeared in the January 2018 issue of Allure. To get your copy, head to newsstands or subscribe now.

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