There’s a phrase people say when they’re being welcoming: “make yourself at home.” But as a kid, that sentence always left me a little confused. How do you “make” something feel like home when home never really felt like yours to begin with?
I grew up moving between 7 houses , back and forth, navigating the geography of divorced families and shifting routines. The furniture changed. The rules fluctuated. Even the guests (or lack thereof) in each home carried different expectations. I learned how to pack quickly, to travel light emotionally, to adapt. But comfort? Ownership? A sense of rootedness? That part stayed blurry. I became fluent in being guest-like: polite, flexible, contained, but rarely felt like I could exhale all the way.
It took years before I realized beauty could be part of the homecoming: a practice of returning to yourself.
When I began working in makeup, I started witnessing something subtle but profound. The moment someone looks in the mirror and says, “That’s me” because they feel seen. When their posture shifts, eyes soften, smile creeps in, that is beauty as homecoming.
Homecoming is the decision to stay with yourself long enough to build a new sense of belonging on your terms, in your skin, with your story.
Makeup helps because it lets you decorate the home that is you. To choose your palette, to name your style, to try something new and then wipe it off and try again. It’s all about settling in. About saying: this face, this body, this presence, it’s mine. And I get to decide what lives here.
So when someone says, “make yourself at home,” I no longer feel so lost. I know where to begin. I reach for my own reflection, I take a breath, and I let it be enough.
Because now I know: home isn’t a place you’re given. It’s a place you build. And sometimes, beauty is the brick and mortar.