Time slips. One moment, you’re tracing eyeliner with steady hands; the next, your reflection feels like a stranger. Dyschronia—the eerie sense that time isn’t moving as it should—creeps in when you least expect it. Maybe it’s the lipstick shade you swore you just bought, now discontinued. Maybe it’s a compact once belonging to someone long gone, its mirror reflecting more ghosts than faces.
Makeup is a paradox of permanence and decay. It freezes a moment—a perfect red lip, a sculpted cheek—only to be wiped away, washed down the drain as if it never existed. And yet, traces remain. A deep-set crease where there wasn’t one before. A once-sharp cupid’s bow, softened with time.
We paint our faces to control the narrative, to grasp at a sense of continuity. But the mirror never lies—it only distorts, showing us versions of ourselves that shift and flicker like a bad dream. Who were you then? Who are you now? And which version will stare back at you tomorrow?
Ever caught your reflection and felt time unraveling?
