Looking back on both her Bachie TV appearances, Keira Maguire admits her face looked a little… different.
The 33-year-old first graced our screens on Richie Strahan’s season of The Bachelor, and then appeared on Bachelor in Paradise, but just before going on both shows, Keira had cosmetic procedures done that she told Mamamia changed her face.
“Just before I went on The Bachelor was when I first got Botox, but I didn’t get Botox in my forehead or my cheeks, it was in my jaw,” she said. “My girlfriend, who was an injector at the time, said I had a prominent jaw line and I was like ‘Oh, okay’ and for me at the time, I was a little bit naive.
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‘I asked ‘The Doll Maker’ what she’d do to my face’. Post continues below video.
“Because I got it just before The Bachelor, I looked at myself and was like ‘What’s wrong with my face? Why is it moving like that?’ and it’s because I had Botox in my face, but I didn’t realise it changed my whole face and what I looked like,” she said, adding that her face was frozen enough that she could not properly show her emotions.
Then before flying out to Fiji in late 2017 for BIP, Keira went to a clinic to get lip fillers.
Originally asking for a just quarter of a millilitre, the nurse injected eight times that amount after “panicking” when Keira questioned why one section of her lips looked different to the rest.
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Following a number of errors a total of two mls were injected. The nurse insisted they would go down but they didn’t, leaving Keira with oversized lips during filming.
Keira said she was still embarrassed by the photos from her time in Fiji and once she returned home, she immediately booked into a clinic to have the fillers dissolved – a painful procedure that left her with a lot of bruising.
She’d avoided lip fillers since then, but before a trip to London last month decided to get a quarter of a ml injected. It initially brought back bad memories.
“I almost cried because I looked in the mirror and my lips were so swollen, I had flashbacks of when I went on Bachelor in Paradise,” she explained. “I did this selfie, and I actually posted it to Instagram, and I looked back later and I had to delete it because I was like ‘I can’t believe that I’ve done this to myself again’.
“I literally had a panic attack and anxiety… It makes me feel really unnatural, I just don’t like it.”
Thankfully, the swelling went down as expected and her lips returned to a more natural size.
Keira first had her lips done aged 23, after her then-boyfriend's mum gifted her the procedure. She was 29 when she had her pre-Bachelor Botox, and has since had a nose job, breast augmentation and porcelain veneers.
It obviously hasn't all gone to plan, but given her experiences Keira is keen to pass on some words of wisdom to anyone else considering cosmetic procedures.
Her most important lesson?
"Less is more," she said.
"You want to enhance your natural beauty, not change it... When it comes to looking back, you're always going to regret decisions especially when you change your natural beauty and who you naturally are. If you're wanting to look your best, I highly recommend just sticking to the basics."
It is also very important to only do things for you, she said. You should never let anyone else pressure you into thinking you need something done.
"Just always feel like you can, when you walk in - whether to a dentist or a clinic - just always feel confident enough to say no and always make sure that you only leave with what you intended to go in there for, because leaving with other things - it's not going to make you happier."
These days, Keira gets comments asking what she's done to herself, or asking about cheek fillers, which she finds ironic because since her TV appearances, she's dialled back her procedures and said she's reverted back to her natural look (and she said those plump cheeks are down to regular facials and serums!)
She now gets Botox about every six months.
"The more work you get done, the more it's going to change your face. For me personally, I've just found that I not only feel better about myself, I get a lot more confidence because I have had less done."
Of course, being so transparent about her decisions has open Keira up to scrutiny - not just about her as a person, but specifically about her face. Mostly, it doesn't bother her.
"I don't really care what people think of me. I don't do it for anyone else, I only do it for myself... I can't help but be transparent, it's just my personality.
"I don't mind if people comment on my page to say 'Oh, your dress is ugly' or whatever, but when you're talking about someone's appearance I think people need to be a little more mindful. I've never had my cheeks done, so now you're personally attacking what I naturally look like - It doesn't hurt my feelings but imagine if they wrote that to someone who actually did get offended.
"When I look in the mirror in the morning, I know who I am and I don't think my appearance changes who I am as a person."
She was also mindful of influencing others.
"On social media there's so much pressure to be someone that you're not. I even remember when I had my nose done, I was living with a girlfriend at the time, and she goes 'Oh my god I feel like I need to get my nose done' and I was like 'Why do you feel like that?'
"This is my personal journey, and this is something I'm doing for me. I don't ever want anyone to think they need be doing anything to enhance or change anything that they don't naturally want to change."