Discovering the beauty of imperfection
I have long oscillated between disgust for my own perceived ugliness and an obsession with beauty — as with many aspects of my life recently, I have been examining this viewpoint, trying to make sense of it, and evaluating if it is worth holding on to.
Lately, I’ve been questioning my aversion to “ugliness.” Not just in myself, but in the physical world around me — a cluttered countertop, an overripe fruit, an off-center photo frame. It isn’t always about seeking perfection; I learned long ago that is a losing game. In fact, the very idea of it now feels uncanny — like an AI hallucination of what life is supposed to look like.
Real life is disorderly. The Japanese embrace wabi-sabi as a design aesthetic, honoring natural imperfection. French perfumers add animalic musks to lend complexity to fragrances that would otherwise be too saccharine. Turkish rug weavers intentionally create an off-kilter stitch as a reminder that only god is perfect. In all of these examples, the inclusion of something out of place is intentional and desirable. And yet, there’s still a threshold beyond which imperfection turns to undesirable disorder and disorder to something that simply feels… ugly. So what even makes something ugly? What does it mean to be beautiful?
Beauty as a survival skill
I’m learning that beauty and ugliness are simply two sides of the same coin — neither inherently more valuable than the other. Both deserve acknowledgment.
Still, I can’t help but wonder where my distaste for ugliness came from. Maybe it’s ancestral — a protective instinct passed down through generations. Perhaps my great-great-great-grandmother survived because she looked at the spotted berries and thought, those look wrong. Maybe my ancestors’ revulsion toward the “ugly” saved their lives.
If so, then this instinct — this aesthetic alarm bell — was once a survival mechanism. But is it serving any purpose for me now?
In more recent evolutionary history — say, my own — I learned that beauty was a commodity. A kind of social currency that opened doors, softened judgment, and drew approval. As a young girl in the 90s and early aughts, the era of thin blonde perfection, I didn’t fit the standard. So I found power in being labeled “exotic.” I learned where that kind of beauty was valued, and avoided places it wasn’t.
It was a kind of survival, too — not of the fittest, but of the prettiest.
Letting Go of the Control Beauty Had Over Me
In adulthood, I have taken that instinct to extremes. From obsessing over home decor to costly beauty treatments, I felt like every aspect of my life needed to be curated to perfection. Now, I’m learning to let that go gradually — to release the control that both beauty and ugliness once had over me.
What’s helped is realizing that I’m safe and loved no matter how I look. My husband swears I’m most beautiful when I’m undone — hair messy, no makeup, comfy loungewear, bundled in blankets and eating pizza (what I refer to as my cave troll state). I used to think he said that just to be nice. But he’s been so persistent, so sincere, that I’ve come to believe it.
The same goes for my family and friends — those who loved me when I was at my unhealthiest and most depressed, far from my “best self.” Decades of them consistently showing up for me and loving me have proved to me that beauty isn’t necessary for survival, and perfection isn’t a condition for love.
Adornment: the gentle art of honoring your inner essence
And what does all this have to do with jewelry?
For me, adornment is a gentle extension of beauty — a form of creative expression that doesn’t seek to change who we are. Unlike makeup or clothing, it doesn’t alter or conceal our features.
Jewelry doesn’t modify your body — it honors it. It accentuates rather than confines.
Adorning ourselves is not an act of hiding. It’s an act of revealing — of expressing what lives inside us through small, shimmering symbols of story and soul.
Adornment is how we remember our beauty, not define it.