What If Beauty Was Never Meant to Behave?
The older I get, the more fascinated I become by the history of ordinary things.
Not just great historical events or famous people, but the little things we do every single day without ever wondering where they began.
Take mascara, for example.
I recently found myself wondering when women first started wearing it. Surely it hadn’t always existed.
As it turns out, people have been decorating their eyes for thousands of years. Around 3000 BC, both Egyptian women and men lined their eyes with kohl. It wasn’t mascara as we know it today—it was much more like eyeliner—but it served a similar purpose. It drew attention to the eyes and created that striking, expressive look we still admire in ancient artwork.
Of course, some of the kohl naturally got onto the lashes, but that wasn’t really the goal. The purpose was a combination of:
beauty,
reducing glare from the bright desert sun,
and spiritual protection (they believed it helped ward off evil and disease).
So if you walked through ancient Egypt, you’d notice eyeliner much more than mascara.
Then, thousands of years later, in Chicago, another little piece of beauty history quietly unfolded.
A young woman named Mabel Williams wanted darker lashes and brows. Like many women of her time, she experimented at home, mixing petroleum jelly—Vaseline—with a bit of coal dust from the family stove. Nothing glamorous. Just curiosity and a mirror.
Her older brother, Thomas Lyle (T. L.) Williams, happened to notice what she was doing.
Instead of dismissing it, he wondered something remarkably simple:
“What if other women would love this too?”
He refined Mabel’s homemade idea into a product that women could safely buy, founded a company, and named it after the two things that inspired it:
Mabel.
Vaseline.
Maybelline.
I just adore that story.
Not because it gave us mascara, but because it reminds me that history is often made in the most ordinary places.
Not in grand laboratories.
Not in corporate boardrooms.
But in kitchens, bedrooms, garages, and bathrooms where ordinary people become curious enough to try something new.
Who could have imagined that one sister standing in front of her mirror would inspire one of the world’s most recognizable beauty companies—one that, more than a century later, is still helping women feel beautiful?
It also made me realize something.
Beauty has always evolved.
For decades, it seemed as though every woman was expected to wear black mascara, straighten her hair, hide her freckles, and smooth away every little thing that made her unique.
Lately, though, I’ve noticed something changing.
Celebrities are skipping mascara altogether.
Brown mascara is replacing black.
Women are proudly wearing their natural curls.
Freckles aren’t being hidden anymore. Some women are even drawing them on because they love the softness and individuality they create.
For years, beauty seemed to reward perfection.
Now it seems to reward authenticity.
I have to admit, I’m rather enjoying the shift.
I have naturally deep-set eyes, and mascara has always had a tendency to leave little smudges on my eyelids—especially if I’m outside walking or enjoying a warm South Carolina afternoon. These days I often skip it entirely or simply use clear mascara to brush through my lashes and brows.
Oddly enough, I don’t feel less polished.
I simply feel more like myself.
The same is true of my hair.
I’ve stopped trying so hard to make it behave.
Instead, I’ve learned to let it be exactly what it wants to be—big, curly, and just a little wild.
Perhaps that’s one of the unexpected gifts of getting older.
We slowly stop asking, “How do I make myself look like everyone else?”
And we begin asking, “How do I become the very best version of myself?”
One of my favorite examples is Shakira.
Her hair doesn’t simply frame her face.
It dances.
It has an energy all its own.
It moves with her instead of trying to stay perfectly in place.
Watching her perform during the World Cup reminded me that some things are beautiful precisely because they aren’t controlled.
Then, of course, I thought about my granddaughter, MaryReece.
She has what may be some of the curliest hair on the planet.
She definitely inherited it from her Honey… and from her Honey’s Honey before me.
I’ve always teased that any little girl with that much curl is bound to be full of curiosity, adventure, and mischief in all the very best ways. It’s almost as if her curls are introducing her before she ever speaks.
“Just so y’all know… this little girl came to explore.”
Now, I know curls don’t actually determine a person’s personality.
But they certainly seem to celebrate it.
One day, if she ever asks why her hair is so curly, I already know exactly what I’ll tell her.
“Well, sweetheart, our family has never made hair that behaves.
We make hair that dances.”
I hope she believes me.
Because I think that sentiment applies to much more than hair.
It applies to life.
A field of wildflowers isn’t beautiful because every flower stands the same height.
The ocean isn’t beautiful because every wave looks alike.
And curls aren’t beautiful because every strand stays perfectly in place.
They’re beautiful because they move.
Because they’re free.
Because they’re wonderfully, unapologetically themselves.
Maybe we’ve spent enough years trying to smooth away the very things that made us memorable.
Maybe the freckles, the curls, the laugh lines, the green eyes, the quirks, the stories, and the wonderfully imperfect parts of ourselves were never mistakes to begin with.
Perhaps they were the masterpiece.
🌼 Honey Note 🍯
The world doesn’t need another perfectly polished version of someone else.
It needs the wonderfully authentic version of you.
Wear your curls.
Wear your freckles.
Wear your smile.
Wear your story.
The women we remember most weren’t the ones who looked exactly like everyone else.
They were the ones who looked comfortably, confidently, and joyfully like themselves.
With love,
Honey 🐝
The sweetest freedom comes when we stop trying to become someone else and finally have the courage to become ourselves.
May your spirit dance as freely as your curls, your heart remain curious, and your life bloom as beautifully as a field of wildflowers that never once apologized for growing exactly as it was meant to.
Here’s another little surprise I discovered while wandering down the beauty-history rabbit hole. “Mascara” wasn’t named because of eyelashes at all. The word traces its roots through Spanish and Italian to an ancient Arabic word associated with masks and disguises. Isn’t it funny that one of the cosmetics most women now use to look more like themselves began with a word that meant just the opposite?
For centuries, cosmetics were often thought of as a way to change ourselves.
Today, many women use them simply to enhance what is already there.
