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"Andrea, 23, had gorgeous dark brown hair that fell below her waist when she decided to cut it off and go bleached blonde, \u00E0 la Michelle Williams. \"I'd always wanted 'boy style' hair, and I thrive on change,\" she says. \"But a guy I was seeing threatened to never talk to me again if I chopped it.\" She did it anyway (and she loves it!).\n\nOn red carpets, on blogs, and in magazines, edgy beauty looks are catching everyone's eye. But while pictures of Miley Cyrus's short blonde hair, Lana Del Rey's pointy nails, Rihanna's latest tattoo, and the faux undercut styles seen on the runway at Rodarte and Tracy Reese spread like wildfire on Tumblr, wearing these looks in school hallways or out in the real world can draw mid responses from parents, friends, and guys.\n\n\"I was a little afraid of how my mom would react to me getting so many tattoos,\" says Besia, nineteen, who's inked a robin on her shoulder, an Egyptian Eye of Horus behind her ear, a line from her favorite poem around her foot, the word float inside her middle finger, and a bumblebee on her wrist (her family calls her \"Bee\"). Luckily for Besia, her mom viewed them as acceptable forms of self-expression because she \"knows how much each one means to me,\" says Besia.\n\nAn ex-boyfriend, on the other hand, wasn't always so open-minded Last year, when Besia's then-boyfriend realized her latest tattoo was larger than he'd expected, he was upset at first. \"He didn't like most tattoos, but the fact that he eventually accepted mine\u2014 because he accepted them as a part of me\u2014meant a lot.\" Not that Besia would've changed her choice for him either way. \"If a guy can't see past something so surface, he's not someone I want to know,\" she says.\n\nIt's this kind of independent thinking that's picking up steam with the growing popularity of edgy beauty looks\u2014and 24-year-old The Man Repeller blogger Leandra Medine is psyched about that. \"The beauty trends that come with self-expression really speak to cultivating our own brands of self-confidence,\" she says. \"I just wish someone had told me it was OK to be weird when I was a teenager.\"\n\nPsychologist Jill P. Weber, Ph.D., says that alternative beauty choices are a way to form your own identity, which is a healthy sign of becoming your own person. \"It can cause anxiety because you're no longer the same as everyone else, which opens you up to judgment,\" she explains, adding that in our culture there's an unfortunate association between being \"pretty\" and conforming to a traditional idea of beauty (think Disney princesses, Barbie dolls, and Kardashians). \"But judgment is a small price to pay for having the confidence to be different and pleasing yourself.\"\n\nWhen Miley Cyrus revealed her now-infamous short haircut on Twitter, the site filled up with insults. Someone called it \"horrible,\" while others said she was trying to look like Draco Malfoy. Miley ignored the negativity, tweeting, \"never felt more me in my whole life,\" and adding, \"so happy, pretty, and free.\" Then, among the haters, supporters emerged. In a sentiment expressed by a slew of fans, one girl tweeted, \"I kind of freaked over Miley's haircut in the beginning, but I grew to love it after I noticed how amazing she felt about herself.\n\nAnd therein lies the key to pulling off any edgy look: owning it. \"Confidence is the most attractive thing in the world,\" says Eliza, sixteen, who recently dip-dyed her tips a vibrant turquoise because she \"felt like taking a risk.\" Turns out, she loves her new 'do\u2014and apparently, it's contagious. \"Dyeing my hair made me feel good, and it made others feel good too\u2014the bright color seems to lift people's moods because it's so different and unique,\" she says. \"I've gotten compliments from complete strangers of all ages\u2014 guys and girls.\"\n\nWhether it's a half-shaven hairstyle, bright-tipped strands, tattoos, piercings, or cool nail art, Medine sees out-of-the-box beauty choices as valuable dating tools that can help identify the duds who don't get you (and aren't cool enough for you) anyway. \"The concept of man repelling is actually a really hip, fluid, and subtle process of elimination,\" she says. \"There's not a more constructive way to weed out the bad seeds than by discovering who you are.\" Andrea, with the bleached-blonde pixie, agrees. \"If someone is bold enough or stupid enough to judge me for my style, I take it as a sign that I shouldn't waste my time on them.\"\n\nWith ombr\u00E9 hair and multiple piercings in one ear, Haleigh, nineteen, says, \"I've always been attracted to pushing past normal beauty boundaries.\" This past year, when she started college, she got a tattoo on her forearm that reads Remember who you are\u2014something her parents said to her when she was younger. She hung out with some boys who were surprised she got inked in such a noticeable spot, but it didn't faze her: \"Guys whom I have any interest in spending time around are pretty supportive and like quirky choices.\"\n\nWhen it comes to artistic expression, nails are 22-year-old Rebecca's preferred canvas. She experiments with all types of designs: cartoons, rhinestones, holograms\u2014anything that could be cool for a post on her blog, lacquerdreams.blogspot.com.au. She acknowledges that reactions to her beauty picks can be mid. \"Some over-the-top nail art can turn guys off,\" she says. But her boyfriend likes most of what she does, and even when he doesn't like a style, Rebecca doesn't let it stop her. \"When I first started doing nail art, I tried hard to please people,\" she says. \"Now, not so much.\"\n\n\"Confident girls are less reliant on their beauty to know who they are\u2014they discover other things, like their personality and talents,\" says Ken Paves, a celeb hairstylist who was recently commissioned by Disney to design an edgy 'do for the company's new cartoon heroine, Periwinkle (Tinker Bell's long-lost twin sister). To break the mold from the most popular female Disney characters with traditionally ultrafeminine looks, Paves gave Periwinkle a silvery blue pixie cut that communicates her individuality and rebelliousness. It also supports Paves' theory that every girl should go short at least once in her life. \"Women define themselves by their hair,\" he explains. \"You have to know that you can still be super beautiful without it\u2014that's a whole other level of owning it.\"\n\nSo, what if you want to rock an alternative beauty look but are afraid of others' reactions? \"Let it go,\" says Paves. \"It's cool to take a risk and not be defined by what everyone says you should look like.\" And remember that your appearance is yours to control. \"If you allow the negative reactions of others to impact you, you are no longer your own person,\" says Weber.\n\nAnd if you end up not loving your choice? Hair grows back and can be recolored, nails can be repainted, and you can restyle yourself from moment-to-moment\u2014that's part of the fun."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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