Sarah Nicole Landry’s Beauty Evolution Began With Being Vulnerable

The content creator and model keeps it real with her followers and encourages women to accept themselves exactly as they are.

Sarah Nicole Landry / Courtesy of Brendan Wixted

We determine our beauty, not the eye of the beholder. From an early age, women are judged by their hair, the color of their skin, their clothes and their bodies. Journey with our SI Swimsuit models and other industry changemakers as they discuss their Beauty Evolution, how they came to accept, honor and embrace their bodies and beauty, and how they are rewriting the narrative on what it means to be powerful, beautiful and who they are meant to be.

Sarah Nicole Landry’s beauty evolution has been a public one, as she initially started her blog, The Birds Papaya, as a journal of sorts more than a dozen years ago. She describes being at her “personal rock bottom” at the time, and the mom and model began writing about her thoughts and feelings related to her body as a catharsis, not realizing how many other women felt the same way.

“When you share these moments with other people, you do feel less alone, but more than that, and for certain things like, for instance, stretch marks, which have now become something I’m known for, the very first time I shared them at that moment in time, I didn’t know that other people had them and experienced them like I had,” Landry tells SI Swimsuit. “They weren’t mainstream. They weren’t seen anywhere, and so it was a very isolating experience. So in sharing it and being vulnerable about it, by connecting with other people, not only did it help other people feel seen in their bodies, it helped me be seen in mine, and it helped it not be such a loud noise in my brain anymore and it helped me not hide anymore.”

Her ability to be publicly vulnerable is a huge part of her beauty evolution, and Landry says that meeting women in person who have been positively influenced by her willingness to share her journey has been hugely emotional—whether it’s a mom who is finally wearing a bikini on a beach vacation with her children or a woman who has at last accepted her changing body.

Sarah Nicole Landry / Courtesy of Brendan Wixted

“It’s so beautiful, and it also shows me that people who were stuck where I was for 10 years are now showing up in their lives and that’s what we all deserve,” she says of these meaningful interactions. “No matter where we’re at in our life and with our bodies, we deserve to live our life.”

As for when she feels most beautiful these days, Landry’s answer is two-fold.

“ One would be when I’m just in such gratitude and appreciation for myself and my body and really taking time to notice that. And I think the other time that I feel really beautiful is when I’m doing something that truly scares me and [am] stepping out of my comfort zones and feeling really empowered.”

One such instance of Landry stepping outside of her comfort zone, she has said, was participating in SI Swimsuit’s Miami Swim Week Runway Show at the W South Beach this past summer, an opportunity she nearly turned down due to feelings of inadequacy. Her consistent vulnerability and honesty have earned Landry 2.5 million followers and counting on Instagram, where her personal beauty evolution continues to inspire the masses.

“ I’m soft in my body. I’m soft in my heart. I’m soft in my emotions. I’m soft with other people. Like, I am a soft person. That doesn’t make me not strong,” she says. “That doesn't make me not tough. It doesn’t make me incapable ... and it took me a long time to not feel sorry about that.”

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