Selma Blair opens up about why she 'stopped looking in the mirror'

Selma Blair has revealed she "stopped looking in the mirror" after starting her treatment for multiple sclerosis.

The 50-year-old actress has opened up about her approach to beauty, self and style in a new interview with InStyle, admitting that when her gruelling treatment started for MS, she didn't have much care for anything.

"After I had treatment, I'd honestly... stopped looking in the mirror," she said. "My hair was short, I was bloated, I had alopecia on my lashes and my face."

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She adds: "It was all so much effort – I sometimes don't see well – so I just stopped, and I didn't think I missed it."

When Blair was diagnosed with the condition in 2018, she experienced every symptom; vision loss is one of the first and most tell-tale signs.

MS sufferers can also experience muscle and joint pain, fatigue and impaired coordination, and these symptoms affect people at varying degrees across their life.

Though she had no interest in fashion or make-up while in the throes of her chemotherapy, the Cruel Intentions actress quickly realised that she was missing it a little bit.

Blair has always had a love for dressing up, regularly fronting red carpets with eye-catching numbers and chic silhouettes.

In her interview with InStyle, Blair even outs herself as a "fashion girl", adding: "I've never thought of fashion, makeup, really any of our ways of self-care and presenting ourselves, as frivolous."

She likened the moment she decided to pick up a make-up brush in the midst of her MS to "waking up again".

"It was a real turning point for me," she says. "It was like, 'OK, let's start waking up again.'"

Blair's emotional journey of diagnosis and treatment has been captured in the documentary Introducing Selma Blair, directed by Rachel Fleit.

The documentary follows Blair as she undergoes hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and as the world shifts due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The star is now in remission, but keeps things candid on her Instagram account, continuing to raise awareness of MS, and provide a safe space for others in the community.

Recently, she has been sharing plenty of photos with her new service dog, Scout.

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"This condition – or any condition of chronic illness or disability – is my story, and if that helps normalise, to open the door for other people to be comfortable telling their stories, that can also be enlightening and informative and helps to build new ways of love and support," she says in the documentary.