Singer Lee Hyori recently appeared in a YouTube live broadcast hosted by makeup artist Hong Hyun Jung, a longtime friend and acquaintance. 

On this day, Lee Hyori, Hong Hyun Jung, and two fellow makeup artists answered questions sent in by viewers regarding beauty standards. Lee Hyori began, "Women deal with a lot of struggles when it comes to beauty, makeup, hair, and those kinds of things. But in truth, there are not many clear, to-the-point answers out there. They usually say, 'You're young so you're okay', or just, 'You're not too bad looking'. But today, we will give you some very definite, truthful answers."

One makeup artist then asked Lee Hyori, "Have you ever heard someone say to you that you're ugly, in your entire life? No, right?" To this Lee Hyori responded, "There are a lot of malicious comments that say that. I mean, I bet they don't mean it but still." Hearing this, the makeup artists scoffed and said, "They are only leaving those comments to pick on you, because they're jealous." 

Lee Hyori then confidently said, "In truth, because I was born pretty, I have never desperately struggled with my looks, not really." 

Next, when one makeup artist commented, "Beauty is all about confidence," Lee Hyori refuted, "That's not true. Looks are just looks. So what if you have confidence? To be brutally honest, looks are something that you are born with, to an extent. But also, to some extent, it's about how much you work on your outer appearance, especially after your forties, and how you carry out your life."  

Makeup artist Hong Hyun Jung also claimed, "To me, beauty is about confidence and the charm that I discover in my own, unique world view." However, Lee Hyori reacted to this with, "I hate it when people say that." Hong Hyun Jung explained, "If you have confidence or high self-esteem, or if you know what your strengths are and you flaunt those strengths to your advantage, you can shine even if you are ugly." Lee Hyori was not convinced, and argued, "That's just an ugly person who is shining [with confidence]."

Lee Hyori was then asked to give her viewpoint on beauty. She stated, "Well, for me, I generally think that people are pretty, and I look at the pretty aspects of them. Each person has good points and bad points. Now, not everyone knows what those good points are. And for an outsider to identify those points of yours, that will take too long. So it's up to you to find out what those are, and then work on making those good points stand out." 

Nonetheless, Lee Hyori also added on, "But to be honest, there are people in the world who are born pretty, and they are just the pretty people. I am a celebrity myself, so I encounter a lot of celebrities. So I've seen them, the ones who are just really pretty. They were born that way. I'm sorry for crushing your hope, but that's just the way it is," causing laughter from the makeup artists around her. 

Finally, Lee Hyori advised, "Say that you notice a bad point about yourself. Like with your body or something. For example, I think that my legs are very short. If you notice that, don't give up, but work on it. Instead of seeing your bad points as only bad points, use it as a motivator to work on yourself and make yourself a better person."