Country Star Sara Evans: ‘I Do Put a Lot of Pressure on Myself to Look Great’

Sara Evans was born to be a country star. She grew up riding horses and working on a farm in Missouri. Evans started singing at the tender age of 4 years old, then went on to perform in local bars before her big break.

Now, she’s released eight albums, appeared on Dancing With the Stars, and most recently started her own record label, Born to Fly Records. Evans’s family has helped her along the way in her success. Her brother, Matt, plays bass and her sister, Lesley, sings backup in her band. She keeps it in the family when it comes to beauty too, and Evans’s hair and makeup artist is her sister-in-law, Kaelin. Now, her oldest daughter, Olivia, 14, sings backup vocals on her upcoming album, Words, set to drop on July 21.

While Evans is a country girl through and through, she doesn’t fit the stereotypical country star mold, and she owns it. “It’s so funny because [the ideal of what a country star looks like] has changed so much. It used to be all the big hair and rhinestones and all that, and I think I might have wanted to change that back then,” Evans told Yahoo Beauty at the CMA Fest in Nashville, Tenn. “But I am legitimately a country girl, a farm kid, so everything about it was very authentic to me.”

For Evans, confidence is the key to her best performance, and looking and feeling her best plays an integral role in that. “I have such dry skin, and I also have good legs, so I love to wear shorts and high heels, especially onstage. But there are times when it’s really, really hard to feel like you’re truly moisturized and that your skin looks great and it’s not going to go dry an hour after you put lotion on,” says Evans of prepping for shows. “And so the Jergens Wet Skin Moisturizer is just unbelievable and so time-saving. Because you put it on in the shower, then you get out and you dry off and you go.” The Wet Skin collection from Jergens and Curel is shown to end dry skin with regular use, so we see why her skin looks so hydrated.

At times, finding confidence can be challenging for Evans, who admits that pressure to look youthful can be overwhelming. “You have things about you that feel weird as you age and as people see you. Not that I’m old, I’m just saying, in some ways [being in the public eye] puts more pressure on you to look the same way you looked 10 years ago,” says Evans, mentioning her stint on Dancing With the Stars as a time when she felt such pressure.

She continues, “I think that’s self-induced stress that I put on myself … especially in weeks like [CMA Fest] when we come up and everyone’s here and you see all the artists that you haven’t seen in a while. I do think that I put a lot of pressure on myself to look great, and if I feel like I have a day where I didn’t look great, then I’m mad at myself.”

One of the things Evans does to boost her self-esteem is make sure her beauty look is on point. For her, that means having perfect brows. “I always try to keep an eyebrow pencil with me in my purse, just in case it rubs off. But I’ve gotten so bad that I will get up in the morning and I have no makeup on or anything, that’s the first thing I do, even if it’s the only thing I do, is put brows on,” she says, citing the Laura Mercier Eye Brow Pencil in Brunette as her go-to product.

“It makes all the difference in the world when you have no makeup on and you put brows on. Even if I’m only going to see my husband, it’s gotten to the point that I will never not color in my brows because I just look totally naked,” she says. Evans is interested in getting microblading, as she even sleeps in her makeup to avoid not having filled brows.

Keeping fit on the road is particularly important for Evans’s onstage confidence as well. “Being on tour for me, actually, I think makes me healthier. Because I am really self-conscious about, if I have to go onstage tonight, I have to get into these jeans, and I need to get in front of all of these people,” Evans says.

“Whereas being at home I can get more lax. I’m cooking and just home with the kids and we’re just going to watch a movie tonight and no pressure at all, I can just be in my sweatpants. But being on the road, I definitely up my game. Every time I’m on a run of shows I feel like I get better [about health and fitness] because of the pressure.”

Still, Evans feels like her strongest self when she’s with her family. She explains, ”When I have great mom moments, and my kids do something or respond to me in a way that I know all my hard work in mothering them and teaching them has paid off.”

For her, motherhood was a turning point that helped her come into her own. “Right after I had my first child, who is now 17, it just changed everything about me. I felt like, ‘OK, I am now the happiest I have ever been,’” Evans says.

“I felt so confident being a mom and I decided when I was nine months pregnant with him that I was going to be the cutest mom that anyone has ever seen. So right after he was born, I got in shape and grew my hair long and started getting ready to make my Born to Fly album. Becoming a mom gave me so much confidence and it grounded me so much, and it is still my favorite thing in life.”

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