In The Heretic, two doors stand before us—one marked Belief, the other Disbelief. Step through one, and you commit fully to what you’re told. Step through the other, and you reject it outright. A simple choice. Or is it?
Truth rarely lives behind just one door.
Beauty and makeup exist in this same in-between space. Some believe beauty is inherent, something you are. Others see it as a construct, something you create. But what if it’s both? What if, like those doors, beauty is less about either/or and more about yes, and?
For too long, we’ve been given a rigid script:
- Natural or fake
- Authentic or deceptive
- Empowering or superficial
But real beauty—the kind that actually moves us—doesn’t exist in absolutes. It’s found in contrast, in duality, in the quiet space where things don’t have to be one thing or another.
Makeup can be artifice and truth. It can be transformation and self-recognition. It’s illusion, but it’s also storytelling—an extension of who we are, who we’ve been, and who we might become. To try and box it in, to say it’s only this and never that, is to miss the point entirely.
Maybe the question isn’t which door do we choose? Maybe it’s about recognizing that beauty, like belief itself, is meant to be explored—not confined.