When Aarushi Bajaj tested for Shyamili Das aka Shy, the lead in Don’t Be Shy, the Prime Video film produced by Alia Bhatt and her sister Shaheen Bhatt that released last month, she didn’t expect anything of it. “They liked me and started discussing budgets and dates, but I was like, ‘Yeah, this happens a lot.’ I didn’t think it would actually pan out,” the actor tells me over a video call. But it did and how.
Bajaj has previously had short stints in Aarya season 3 and Raat Akeli Hai: The Bansal Murders and appeared in ads for brands like Nescafé, Dell, and Closeup, but Don’t Be Shy marks a giant leap in her acting career. Her college-going character, Shy, is a quintessential Type-A personality who has mapped out everything she wants from life, only for it to all come crashing down. “What really resonated with me about Shy is the fact that she’s ambitious and is always trying to be the best version of herself. I guess that’s something we all want, right?”
Acting aside, both on and off screen what particularly stood out to me about Bajaj as a Gen Z newcomer is her unfussy approach to beauty and her beautiful natural curls—rare in a high-pressure industry that loves to put forth a highly curated image. But this confidence didn’t manifest overnight; in fact, Bajaj compulsively straightened her hair all through school. “I would dread that time of the day when my mom would brush my hair because it would become a frizzy nest. It hurt and I also looked insane, so I preferred to tame them with heat,” she recalls.
It’s been a long time since she stopped subduing her hair into submission. Below, the actor shares the curly girl method she swears by, why she won’t hesitate to rock a champi outside the house, and her favourite look on Shy that she would totally try IRL:
The secret behind my curls is my mom; it’s purely genes. She used to oil my hair when I was a kid; it’s something that has not left me. I am still a big champi girl and I feel that it’s very underrated, because people think it smells or looks bad, but I can fully pull an oily-hair look outside the house.
Growing up, I did not like my curls. I used to straighten my hair all the time, to the point that my school friends had no idea that I actually had curly hair. When I came to Mumbai, the straightening didn’t work because my hair was poufing up because of the humidity and I couldn’t keep using heating tools because I was burning my hair. One day, someone saw my natural hair texture and complimented it and that kind of changed things. I guess I have a lot of thanking to do to Mumbai’s humidity.
My haircare routine involves a lot of hydrating masks, because otherwise my curls get super dry. Right now, I’m experimenting with Bblunt’s curly-hair range, which I really recommend. I also use Curl Up’s curl-defining cream. When it comes to oiling, nothing beats the OG Parachute [coconut hair oil] or pure argan oil.
