Denial doesn’t always sound like No. Sometimes it sounds like Not yet. In beauty, denial shows up as a soft-focus lens we place over reality. Denial lets us …
beauty psychology
How Grief Shapes the Way We See Ourselves
Grief and beauty may seem like distant concepts, but they share a deep, tangled root: loss. Grief can dull beauty in the way our eyes appear …
The Anomaly
Our brains love patterns. They keep us safe, efficient, and comfortable. But when something doesn’t fit — an anomaly — we notice. That double-take is where fascination …
“If I Were You” — But You’re Not
People say “If I were you” like it’s a shortcut to wisdom.But if they were you, they wouldn’t be them anymore — with their history, preferences, insecurities, …
The Two Gazes
We think beauty is something we have, we are, and we keep.But in Beauty and the Beast, beauty is something else entirely: A war between two ways of looking. …
Beauty Beyond Diagnosis
One of the most rewarding parts of my work in beauty is about restoring confidence where it’s been shaken. Look Good Feel Better is a free, nationwide …
Your Face Is Not a Report Card
We’ve been taught to read our faces like grades — lines as evidence of stress, blemishes as mistakes, dark circles as failures. But the truth …
The Art of Maintaining What Makes You, You
Just as the Yale University Art Gallery is restoring Claes Oldenburg’s Lipstick (Ascending) on Caterpillar Tracks to its original brilliance, there’s a beauty lesson in preserving what …
Beauty, Belonging, and the Only Place You Can Stand
We spend so much of life asking “What is my place?”As though it’s a chair someone else has set for us and our job is to …
It’s Intimacy That’s the Bitch: Why Beauty Isn’t Just Skin-Deep
We often say beauty is pain. That it takes time, effort, discomfort — sometimes even a little blood or a lot of money. But what …