Call a fuchsia cashmere sweater luxurious. Call a pair of chandelier earrings exquisite. Call particularly well-applied eye make-up alluring. Call cascading, waist-length hair lustrous. Call a light and toned frame petite. Call a straight, pearlescent smile inviting. Call slender, well-manicured fingers delicate.
But do not call them beautiful.
It is time to reclaim this word. It is time to make it sacred again. It is time to restore its deep meaning. It is time to re-capitalize it. She must be personified again: Beauty. She dwells within each one of us. But her Phantom runs rampant through the beauty isles of every Walgreens and Sephora we enter. Her Façade looms over us from every billboard. Do not be fooled by her.
True Beauty is like the moon. At times, she cannot be seen. She dwells within a secret. She reveals herself slowly. Her radiance bathes a dark world in calm light.
Light cannot be bottled and sold on the shelf of some store.
