Beauty Opinion: When Beauty Isn’t Very Beautiful

The Thanksgiving time period always seems to inspire me to be more reflective, yes, on the things I am most grateful for and am blessed to have but also on some deeper questions i hold in life.

I would say I have been a lover of beauty my whole Earthly life, but by no means is this love limited to just makeup or even skincare products. Far from it. As an actor and singer, one of my main passions is musical theatre, and I consider it the nonhuman love of my life. By extension I also love opera and many a film and TV show and song. Since I am writer also, the sound of a well-crafted phrase also makes my heart patter and characters that win over my heart or challenge and broaden my perspective resonate with me for a lifetime. These forms of art are also true forms of beauty to me. And Indeed, makeup can be no different. The selection of colors curated for an eyeshadow palette is often the product of someone's handiwork and unique vision of how colors and textures will blend together and can be reinvented time and time again in the hands of anyone who uses the palette is indeed a great effort and something very exciting to the eye and our sense of aestheticism just as the smell of a perfume can be as beautiful as the look and feel of the flowers and other plants from which the fragrance is born. In how we apply our products and what combinations of color, texture, scent, and so on with which we choose to adorn ourselves can make us both an artist as well as art itself at once. To me, there is little more beautiful than this idea of self-expression and reveling in this type of beauty.

A pervasive feeling does strike me, though, when I think about how beauty-- as in the world of beauty products and the mass beauty industry-- distorts the truer or purer definition of the word. Human civilizations and human nature itself want to create and admire beauty. This is evidenced in the form of ancient cave paintings and monuments and cathedrals, madrigals and symphonies and rituals and ceremonies throughout place and time, and the practices of face painting and thereby makeup-wearing and self adornment are really not so separate from these things. Beauty and the passion for and pursuit of it is nothing new. It is not unnatural, nor is it in my opinion anything frivolous or anything at all negative. Even the beauty industry in and of itself does not give me much pause either as it is, despite the bothersome marketing and messaging, a way to acquire tools to make or enjoy beauty. But when we take a look at the deeper questions of why the beauty industry has become the powerful mega-giant that it has, I start to have concerns.

The reason for any industry existing that industry's promise to provide relief or happiness to a consumer. Food supplies sustenance, which gives us relief as well as pleasure. Travel gives us a break from day-to-day life and a chance to connect with loved ones in a novel way and experience new places and cultures. The relief and joy the beauty industry seeks to give and often preaches, however, is often one mired negativity and scare tactics such as trying to fix something that is perceived or could be perceived as being "wrong", deficient", or "not good enough" about a person. And even if one doesn't take it to this extreme, so many of us feel forced to wear makeup to feel presentable, to look good for our social group, workplace, or significant other. Nothing could be more devastating. And really, this only highlights the superficiality aspect of makeup and skincare and the like, and totally thwarts the concepts of self-care, self-love, expression, and all the other things the beauty we think of in terms of the beauty industry claims and should be about.

As we approach the end of this year and prepare to start a new one, I am thinking more and more ways to have and keep true beauty in my life and as a part of life in general, free of the constraints of societal pressures and bad messaging, and I encourage everyone here to do the same. Doing so will look differently for everyone. It could mean, wearing less makeup than you normally would, going makeup-free more days, indulging in more makeup and wearing it in ways different from your standard loo. It could be taking more time to read, to walk outside, to learn a new skill or craft such as cooking, painting, singing, or clothes-making. Whatever it is remember this. Beauty is something for everyone and can mean and include anything you as an individual soul want to. Do whatever brings, or whatever little, brings you pleasure and fun, and that feels genuinely right. This is a rule for beauty and for a beautiful life!