Beauty Rituals

This essay is the first installment of a beauty series I will send throughout autumn. Expect interviews about makeup, hair, tutorials for people who don’t know what is going on, and more.

Having beauty rituals signified I’d reached adulthood. The women who raised me had their routines, and I cherished observing the performance. My family emphasized being presentable, but their ritualistic beautification seemed to exist outside the confines of beautifying ourselves for others. The rituals were meaningful when we took pleasure in them. 

My time came, and I rushed through the movements like an annoyance, forgetting that I had counted the days until my turn. My grandmother never rushed through her moisturizing routine. She’d sit on the stool at her vanity and care for each body part, crevice, and corner. 

I wonder whether my hurry is due to the business of motherhood or, my depression, or my forgetting the point.