Demi Lovato Reveals the One Thing She'd Tell Her Teenage Self About Beauty (and It's Advice We All Need)

Demi Lovato is opening up about how beauty standards influenced her teenage self.

In a new exclusive interview with PEOPLE, the singer-songwriter (who uses she/they pronouns) spoke candidly about what advice she would give her teenage self — and about how beauty standards shouldn’t impact how you see yourself.

“What I would tell my teenage self is I would say don't hold yourself to anybody else's standards but your own,” the “Cool for the Summer” singer, 31, said. “And if your own becomes too critical, then look within yourself and try to find that self-love. I think it's really important to find self-love no matter what age you are.”

Lovato has been in the limelight for most of their career — at just 10 years old, she starred on Barney & Friends, and after a career-making stint on Disney Channel, eight albums under her belt, and some time as an X-Factor judge, Lovato has had time to think about what beauty and age means in the music industry. 

For Lovato, spending so much time on sets has given her a lot of opportunities to learn about beauty and makeup from the best of the best.

“... The best beauty tip that I've gotten from someone on set is to never sleep in your makeup,” they revealed. “I never did that anyways, but to hear it over again was just really important and kind of stuck with me. I never sleep in my makeup. It doesn't matter how late the night goes, it doesn't matter if I'm up until the morning, I take my makeup off and I do my skincare routine and I'm very diligent about it. I'm just past that.”

The singer and actor has also been candid about her struggles with bullying, addiction and mental health — in a previous interview with PEOPLE, they revealed that people would write “hate petitions” about her and would say hateful things on social media while they were in the throes of addiction. Now, Lovato has better ways to deal with hate online.

“My relationship with social media has evolved over the years from looking to the internet for validation to not looking at internet comments at all,” Lovato said. “If I happen to see something negative, it doesn't affect me the way that it used to. And I don't know if that's just with age or how many years I've been in the public eye, I just don't let it sit with me the way that it used to. It doesn't hold power over me the way that it used to.” 

She continued, “I keep it positive. I'll post, but I won't do a deep dive in the comment section. I have an understanding that the people that are commenting mean things lack awareness or they lack self-love and respect because anybody that's navigating from a higher sense of good, they're not going to comment anything like that on someone's page. And if they really love themselves, they're not focusing on other people. So I have compassion for the haters online too.”

Among Lovato’s many career updates, they’re now a brand ambassador for the anti-wrinkle injection, Xeomin. For the singer, receiving rejections for wrinkles isn’t a shameful thing — even if certain fans seem to think she’s too young for them.

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“I love the product and it's a smarttox, so it only gives you the ingredients that you need to achieve your best results,” Lovato said. “... Also, the campaign really resonates with me because I've always believed in making choices that are empowering and being true to yourself and owning the choices that help you look and feel your best self.”

“It's authentic to me to share my experience because I am so transparent with my fans all the time and I think that as I get older, I wanted to share this with my fans because I'm always transparent and this is just something that I decided to be transparent about,” Lovato added. “It normalizes it.”

“So don't listen to naysayers or whatever that may try to tell you how to do your own beauty routine. I would just say listen to what makes you feel comfortable in your own skin,” she finished.