Loving a House on Fire
Beauty as Possibility at the End of a World
Venus of the Mind is a weekly newsletter about beauty, culture, and magic.
Inside the Monthly Missive for February 2026
- A Question of Care and Justice
- Beauty as Possibility
- Up Next
A Question of Care and Justice
It feels cliche to quote MLK in February or any time of the year at this point. Enemy of the state while alive to a paragon of respectability politics while dead. Such revisionism requires a cultural flattening that has reduced his radicalism into the specter of a forever “dream.” Yet here I am, writing about Arabelle Sicardi’s The House of Beauty while Dr. King’s final book echos in my mind.
The stability of the large world house which is ours will involve a revolution of values to accompany the scientific and freedom revolutions engulfing the earth. We must rapidly begin the shift from a “thing” - oriented society to a “person” - oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered. A civilization can flounder as readily in the face of moral and spiritual bankruptcy as it can through financial bankruptcy.
_Martin Luther King Jr. Where Do We Go From Here? Chaos or Community?
In our house, the socio-political impact of beauty as industry is often obfuscated. Cross-culturally, contemporary aesthetic practices are largely gendered which renders interest in anything cosmetic as unserious, frivolous, unworthy of intellectual attention. In The House of Beauty: Lessons from the Image Industry, Sicardi pierces the veil and untangles the obfuscating illusion. Crafted with deep love for beauty’s potential to heal, yet clear-eyed about its equal capacity to harm, Sicardi’s reporting shows how the ways we choose to care for our bodies and express ourselves in the world, all exist within complex lineages of industrial extraction, market competition, geopolitical power grabs, and intersectional resilience. At the heart of this book is the very question posed by Dr. King in 1967 — our shared home is the world house and our home is on fire; how did we get here, where do we go now, chaos orchestrated by the few or community created by the many?
We’re in a network of connectivity with each other and the planet we live on. The brands we use and the ways they conduct business ought to reflect the fact that we all make each other possible. And the fact that we make each other possible means that we can help change each other too.
Beauty standards across regions have long been intertwined with colonial powers, and it’s those very colonial powers that protect the profits and interests of corporate institutions rather than the land we live on.
_Arabelle Sicardi The House of Beauty: Lessons from the Image Industry
Beauty as Possibility
Zoom out.
The United States is celebrating 250 years on stolen land.
Presently, ICE concentration camps litter the country; a new one was just proposed right here in Virginia. Federally sanctioned killers and kidnappers continue terrorizing in Minnesota. American Imperialism is now in Venezuela and a certain Estée Lauder heir is frothing at the mouth with anticipation for Greenland to be overtaken soon. There is never any public funding for healthcare, education, or art but there is always public funding for violence. Last year’s “big beautiful bill” increased national spending on military contracts. There was no contention over defense spending but plenty of arguing over SNAP benefits. Let the children starve while we focus on readiness for the wars we instigate abroad and the terror we generate at home. If the ways in which we apportion money denotes our collective values, then death as industry is America’s #1 priority.
Through longstanding arms deals with Israel, American taxpayer dollars funded genocide in Palestine. This current administration forsakes Ukraine and ignores Sudan but has decided to play empty “peace” games in Iran. In this timeline, capital moves freely across borders while human bodies are legislated into criminality despite freedom of movement being central to our species since time immemorial. Billionaires are welfare queens with endless tax breaks in any country of their choosing along with free access to our collective energy grids while we foot the bill in our income taxes and utility payments. The Covid-19 pandemic is not over but wearing a mask is considered excessive and vaccinations are discouraged. It is not a stretch to say we are at the end of a world. Slouching towards Bethlehem yet again.
Zoom in.
Breakfast: café con leche y una tostada. Wash the body. Brush, floss, and rinse the teeth. Shampoo, condition, comb and style the hair. Moisturize the skin. Pick a perfume. Put on an outfit where every piece is well-loved, thrifted, or inherited because true style is born from sustainability. Answer the emails, submit the projects, attend the meetings, schedule the appointments. Run the errands. Enjoy lunch at a spot where the locally sourced food always hits and the owners are still donating to aid for Palestinian refugees. Continue shunning every single beauty brand implicated in the Epstein files, it’s quite easy to do so. Re-up on Dieux skincare and Tanaïs fragrance during the window in which both brands are donating a portion of sales to organized aid plus legal council in Minnesota. Walk the dog. Marvel at the moon.
It’s evening, homemaker mode activated. Text the homies who are on the way back safely from a day of direct action, let them know that dinner is ready. Welcome everyone in to eat well. Barriga llena y corazón contento. Stay up late together, laughing into the night. Live while others die. Say I love you while others never get to say it again.
Zooming out and in, I remember the Prophet Isaiah’s vision, received as he witnessed the end of his own world (emphasis my own).
I will bring them to My secret mount and let them rejoice in My house of prayer. Their burnt offerings and sacrifices shall be welcome on My altar; for My House shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples.
_ Isaiah 56.7 (Nevi’im) JPS Tanakh Translation
Humans are frightful, always have been. Inconsiderate, greedy, bellicose, cruel.
Humans are glorious always have been. Thoughtful, generous, compassionate, kind.
These qualities cannot be spritzed onto a wrist or massaged into a face. Aesthetic injectors do not stock them. Cosmetic chemists have yet to find the formula. They are qualities both inherited and chosen, innate and cultivated. We can learn to be cruel and yet choose to be kind. In that paradox of free will, somewhere between reaching for glory while facing our horrors, that’s the space where beauty is found.
The House of Beauty invites readers to wade into that space. Through their crystalline writing Arabelle Sicardi holds up a mirror; they ask if we’re brave enough to look and then remind us that collectively, we can rebuild the world in any image we choose.
Up Next
The House of Beauty was our beauty book club read for January 2026. We were lucky to be joined by Arabelle during our meeting. Their generosity of thought throughout our conversation was delightful and enlivening.
In April, our Venus of the Mind book club for paid subscribers will gather online to explore Cholé Cooper Jone’s Easy Beauty. Per the publisher, this Pulitzer nominated memoir “weaves memory, observation, experience, and aesthetic philosophy to probe the myths underlying our standards of beauty and desirability.” We’re in for another richly layered conversation. Don’t miss out!
Upgrade your subscription below during the Valentine’s sale through February 28. Then, opt-out of the Bezo-verse by ordering Easy Beauty from bookshop.org where you can select a local bookstore to receive some of the revenue from your purchase. Alternatively, request a copy from your local library. A third space created by public funds dedicated to shared knowledge and the preservation of literacy?! Run don’t walk! Use it or lose it! If they don’t yet have Easy Beauty many libraries have an online portal where you can request new additions to their catalogs. Talk to your librarians and find out.💖
Dear Aesthete, thank you for being here.
Remember, stay hydrated, be present, and glow like only you can do.✨
Here’s to choosing thoughtful, generous, compassionate, kind. ❤️