The Medicine of Beauty

On vitality, aging, and keeping your own face.

When I was a little girl, I loved digging in the dirt for special rocks. I mashed flower petals and leaves into imaginary potions. I was endlessly curious about history, anthropology, and the natural world — and at the very same time, I adored dress-up, crafting, and sneaking into my mother’s closet to try on her clothes and jewelry. And don’t even get me started on all the fascinating things tucked into her medicine cabinet and cosmetic bags — the makeup, the skincare, the tweezers. Oh my.

I’ve never been able to wear something — on my body or my face — that is beautiful if it’s uncomfortable. And I’ve never been comfortable in something that doesn’t feel beautiful, even when it’s just a pair of sweatpants.

From early on, beauty, comfort, and nature were never separate for me.

For a long time, this felt like a contradiction — a real dissonance. How could I be devoted to natural medicine, authenticity, and simplicity, and also care deeply about aesthetics, polish, and presentation? How could I reject rigid beauty standards while still loving beauty itself — good skincare, thoughtful style, and the feeling of being put together?

I pine for polish — not just in the crystals I buy from the witchy shops I frequent, but also on my fingernails.

I avoid heavy baubles and can be allergic to trends, yet I never want to be completely out of fashion. If I have a bad hair day, I am simply having a bad day — full stop.

At the same time, I fill my mind and heart with the distilled wisdom of ancient traditions — teachings that remind us we are more than our bodies, more than our thoughts, more than our appearance, and that we are never meant to be reduced to how we look.

I do not consciously commit myself or others to the beauty standards set by industry.

And yet — as Miranda Priestly so perfectly articulated in The Devil Wears Prada during her now-infamous cerulean monologue — we are all influenced by industry, whether we want to be or not.

So where does that leave those of us in the middle — those who, like me, care deeply about both beauty and authenticity?

Especially now, when the conversation has moved beyond the absurdity of “anti-aging” and into something more troubling: attempts to erase the very nature of our faces. Freezing, flattening, and reshaping ourselves until both the young and the ripening begin to look increasingly alike — too smooth, overfilled, and disconnected from movement, expression, and life. Whether it’s twenty-somethings or sixty-somethings altering their faces in these ways, it gives me pause.

This question landed particularly hard for me because my work has always been about helping people understand who they are, what they believe, and how to feel at home in the bodies they have. My days in clinic are spent asking the same essential question: how do we play the hand of cards we were dealt — genetically, structurally, emotionally — with intelligence, compassion, and care?

And when I began to witness the cultural expression around beauty drift further and further away from self-recognition — toward faces that felt increasingly uniform, overly filled, and less responsive to the subtle movements that communicate our humanity — I felt it collide directly with the work I do every day.

It is in these quiet, human subtleties — yes, even the ones on our faces — our realness, our expressiveness, the visible imprint of a life lived, that we unwittingly push back against the broader cultural demand for perfection: not only in how we look, but in how we work, how we parent, and how we show up in the world, particularly for women, who are so often expected to be flawless in order to retain respect.

This brings us to a tricky intersection. On one side is the question I’ve been naming — how do we remain in relationship with beauty without losing ourselves? On the other is an equally important truth: when someone does not feel at home in the body they inhabit, they deserve access to care that helps restore comfort, safety, and agency. Let me be very clear about that part first.

First: I fully support reconstructive surgeries and procedures that help to restore individuals following a medical event, an accident, illness, or trauma. Full stop.

Second: I deeply respect that not everyone feels comfortable in their own body. If someone chooses a cosmetic or medical procedure — large or small — to support alignment, safety, self-expression, transition, healing, or confidence, I hold that with respect and care.

Not one of us lives in someone else’s body; we cannot know what it is like to be them when they look in the mirror or move through the world each day.

With that said, let’s return to the tension I’m naming.

The itch I’m describing — the one I couldn’t ignore — is the growing cultural pressure to erase every crease, every fold, every sign of time. The quiet messaging that tells us our laugh lines don’t belong, that our eyes shouldn’t tell stories, that aging itself is a mistake.

The day my gorgeous friends began to believe that the lines around their eyes and mouths had no place in their lives broke my heart.

I signed up for cosmetic acupuncture training the very next day.

Because I want my friends, my patients, and my daughter to grow up in a world where keeping your own face is allowed — and expected. A world where vitality is celebrated without demanding self-erasure.

Do I still freak out when my eyebrow droops too much? Absolutely. When I stop looking like me, I feel unsettled in my own skin.

I’m hypermobile. My structure moves more than average, and I don’t love that — especially when it shows up on my face. I like feeling good about how I look, and I want you to feel good about how you look, too.

And I want you to look like yourself while doing it.

Yes — there is a way to engage with vitality without waging war on time.
There is a way to honor vanity without letting it run the show.
There is a way to work with nature, not against it.

Your face, your hands, your hairline are living, breathing parts of your story. And damn it — we are going to help you write a good one.

That’s why I created Vitality Medicine at Marigold.

Not to promise youth.
Not to sell perfection.

But to practice the medicine of beauty — where vitality matters more than vanity, and expression matters more than erasure.

For me, everything in my life pointed toward a path that included both natural medicine and beauty. They were never meant to be separate.

You don’t need a new face.
You don’t need to age backward.
You don’t need a medspa.

You can come see me — in my warm, grounded office — where I take the entirety of you into account while we work on the skin, hair, or facial changes that are making you feel itchy in your own body.

I’ve got you.

And by the way — you’re already gorgeous.

Vitality Medicine at Marigold is our newest offering; so hot off the press, it’s not even listed on our services page yet! Our first Vitality Medicine patients will be receiving microneedling. If you’d like to be part of our inaugural Vitality Medicine schedule, email us now or call 301.244.8652, and we will get you set up in the New Year!

If this kind of reflection sparks something for you — if you’re curious about what “ease” might look like in your body, home, or health — come join my newsletter community. That’s where I share the full juicy stories, the deeper layers, and the “how to really do it” part.