There’s a myth we keep feeding: that beauty should last forever, the goal is longevity and makeup should stay on through rainstorms, heartbreaks, and time itself.
But I keep thinking about daylilies.
In the garden, these flowers bloom faithfully for weeks. Each morning, a new bud opens like a secret being told. But cut one and place it in a vase, and its bloom will only last for a day. Just one day. The flower didn’t fail. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. That’s the difference between being rooted and being put on display.
Makeup is more like the cut daylily than we might admit. It’s not meant to be permanent. It’s a reflection of a moment, of intention, of who you were when you got ready that morning. We don’t criticize a flower for wilting at sunset. Why are we so hard on ourselves for needing to touch up our faces, or wipe their slates clean, by nightfall?
A face is a vessel. And some days, what we pour into it is color, care, and creativity. That makes it sacred and fleeting. We appreciate things when we know we can’t cling to them.
This is the kind of beauty that isn’t trying to be timeless. It knows it already is. It’s valuable because it was fully alive in the time it had.
If you’re wearing makeup today, let it be like the daylily—bold, unafraid, fully bloomed for the moment. Don’t beg it to stay. Let it rise in color and soften with time. And maybe, as a gentle reminder, cut a daylily and place it in a vessel. Watch how beautiful a single day can be.