Pretty Little Liars star Shay Mitchell hasn't always been a trendsetter after suffering a hair nightmare as a pre-teen.

The fashionista's look has lit up the screen on her hit TV drama series, but Shay endured an awkward start to her teens following a haircare mishap.

"When I was about 12 years old, my best friend and I tried to straighten my hair with a clothing iron," she told PeopleStyle.com. "I was like, 'Wow, let's really get it straight!'

"I didn't have all the fancy straightening irons that I have now, so I went and used a good ol’ clothing iron. I told her (friend) to press harder because she wasn’t getting it straight enough. Suddenly there was this horrible smell. It was my burnt hair that was half on the iron in a knot!

"I was traumatised. After that, I’m crazy about what I do to my hair."

Nowadays, stylish Shay reaches for the coconut oil whenever she needs to add a little heat to her tangled tresses, adding, "I like to use a lot of coconut oil, and let it just sit overnight. When I come out of the shower, I put my hair in a braid sometimes and I just let it air dry."

And the actress also likes to make sure her hair smells as good as it looks: "Beach sprays are something that I love. Jen Atkin has a new line out, Ouai, and I was so excited by it. It smells so nice that (it) doubles as a perfume. And it just gives it that great texture to hair. I keep telling her, 'Thank you for coming out with these products, they smell so great!'"

Shay is also big on cosmetics - she recently recruited the Kardashians' go-to guru Patrick Ta as her personal makeup artist.

"I was trying to find people who get makeup the way I like mine to be done - there is a certain technique," she told PeopleStyle. "I was looking at the faces that he did and although all of these girls were so naturally beautiful before he started doing their makeup, he enhanced their features and that’s what I loved."