Beauty Beheld: A Retelling of Hansel and Gretel (The Classical Kingdoms Collection Book 3)

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Evolution is often cited as a reason women wear makeup: It’s ornamentation that catches the eye of potential mates. I wish I’d seen more women be so focused on physical exertion that it silenced whatever hum of self-consciousness they might have had. Men’s clothing was a health hazard, they claimed, which fell into line with its parent organization, The New Health Society, a group devoted to educating people about nutrition, “intestinal stasis,” and “helio-hygiene. You spoke so eloquently; it took all of my might not to jump up and yell, ‘That’s my future daughter-in-law! Still, luxe lashes aren’t a new invention of the beauty industry—women and men have indeed been thickening and darkening theirs since antiquity.

She enjoys her challenging work as a voice actor, has a supportive network of family and friends, and is expecting a proposal from her long-term boyfriend, Daniel. You can’t use oil-based makeup remover; you can’t let water stream down your face; you can’t sleep on your side (my solution here was to just sleep with my head on the pillow but my face off of it). My father was a bit more enthusiastic, going so far as to teach Sunday school, but even at 7 years old I sensed he was coming up with scripture role-plays out of community spirit, not devotion to Our Father And/Or Mother.

I wanted to look my best, but still wanted to look like me; emphasizing my eyes without wearing more dramatic makeup than I’d normally wear seemed like a good way to do that. The chances of me having gone on to become an actual athlete were always slim; that’s not how I’m wired, and nothing would have changed that. To paint Mary as anything other than beautiful would be an insult*, not only to the mother of the Messiah but to the strict notions of female sexuality that ruled the church. Although his parents dreamed of him becoming an MD, Daniel desired more hands-on patient interaction as a nurse practitioner.

Beautiful people aren’t necessarily having more sex, nor are they necessarily more confident in their appeal. My religious skepticism kicked in early, but Mary’s beauty was fact to me, even as I didn’t bother to distinguish between the “real” Mary and depictions of her. The politicization of certain aspects of sex has been beneficial in plenty of ways (think queer visibility and reproductive rights).The rural church a few miles down the road got to have real sheep, but we didn’t have the grazing room. Much to my pleasure, my eager nostrils were greeted by savory shredded pork simmering in a tangy sauce with a medley of sliced onions, chili peppers, and . And we need to see this, because when you’re in the act of wanting something badly enough, there isn’t room for self-consciousness. We are primarily a wedding hairstyling company based in Lexington, Kentucky, serving surrounding areas with stylists positioned in Louisville and Cincinnati. Her eyes danced as Daniel, my boyfriend of five years, walked in behind me, juggling my homemade iced lemon pound cake and a chilled bottle of wine.

For about a year now, I’ve had a question written on the whiteboard where I keep random thoughts, blog-post ideas, notes to myself, the occasional phone number. Finding a down feather wound between my false eyelashes from my pillow is probably my lifetime height of Luxury Problems—indeed, perhaps my lifetime height of luxury. If we come to see appearance as one of many forces that distinctly shape our lives, we might have a more genuine understanding of how the lives of extraordinarily beautiful people are affected by their looks—and of how the rest of us have our lives affected by the same. Daniel and I glanced at each other, waiting for the surprise dinner guest’s identity to be revealed. Continuing my march down the dark street, I squinted through a blur of cascading tears to request a rideshare.

The first time it happened, I was in Hell’s Kitchen, steeling myself against whatever the man walking toward me was sure to say. As I closed the oven door, a penetrating chill hit me, and I knew without lifting my head that her weighty gaze was on me. It’s one thing for Mary to be a virgin because she’s devoted to chastity; it’s quite another for her to be a virgin if it’s just that she couldn’t get laid.

Weariness about the fact that even if—let’s hand out the benefit of the doubt here—men who say things to me, and to you, really do just like the color of our scarves, there’s still a presumption that we want to know about it.

Appearance is in and on our bodies, lending the fallacies of beauty the impression of visceral truth. Prettiness seemed like something for other girls, the same way some kids had grandparents who lived in the same town or got to have Froot Loops every morning if they wanted. Leaving sex in the bedroom when appropriate doesn’t mean being less (or more) sexual, nor does it mean sneering at those who do make it more a part of their public persona. None of this was lost on me as a second-grader, who, fascinated as I was by the cleavage and teased hair I’d see on my parents’ night soaps, found Mary’s virginal prettiness a tad more accessible. I had been a virgin, and now I wasn’t, and these eyes were the ones I’d be seeing the world with from now on.