101 of Allure, Beautification & Style

Find the foundation from which you can grow.

By Théodore Chassériau (French; 1819 – 1856)

Volupta has touched extensively on the subtle aspects behind allure, glamour and the cultivation of beauty and style. However, I have also gotten many inquiries and e-mails asking if I could compose a short guide on the basic, pragmatic, foundations of these. Many said that their mothers, grandmothers or aunts never taught them even the basics and that the culture itself is bombarded with trends that make fashion or beautification a taunting pursuit and often nothing more but a race to demonstrate one’s value or status.

The status and trend approach is taunting because it takes away the pleasure from the rituals of beauty, glamour or style. Normally, these were cultivated among women and your grandmother, aunt or mother would reveal to you her secrets or give you the “holy commandments” of beautification and style. For example, mine would always tell me to never go out with my hair dirty or undone — it can be simple, just clean and well brushed but it can never be greasy or messy. Allowing it to grow into a shapeless mess was also something that I was taught against — if it is very long, they said, you need to give it a shape, a form, and take good care of it, otherwise it looks like a big mess. Another thing they would tell is to always make sure that my shoes are clean and polished and to always carry a wet wipe in case the shoes get dirty. Generally, the maintenance of hair and feet (and footwear) were very important. My grandmother loved red lipstick and shawls and she would give me recipes for tinctures, waters and oils.

A whole book of these could be written, but in short, it was not taught to me as a matter of trends or even of seeking to be attractive as such, and I never approached or viewed beautification in that manner. It was about dignity, self-respect and something so sacred to women that at its core it had nothing to do with men or attracting them (while not being against attracting men or making yourself attractive for men).

Looking presentable and being pleasant to engage with, beyond the inner/esoteric aspect, had its outer/exoteric aspect. In its exoteric aspect, it was taught as a form of generosity towards the others—when we look presentable, smell good, when we treat them with consideration and magnanimity—we elevate the reality of everyone else. It is a way of giving and of sharing of yourself, making sure that everyone who experiences you today, has a pleasant and enhanced experience. In this exoteric aspect, drenching yourself in oils before a man visits your bedroom is a ritual and form of generosity as well. And rather than painting a passive image of female sexuality, she is the one who subtly ‘does it all’, the one who is active and solar in the subtle realms (the realms that are traditionally viewed to really matter). She anoints herself, makes him erect by exposing her body to him, allows herself to be moist and receptive, allow herself to feel, and all of that, not as an act of a mere slavish submission to him but because she herself is desiring and ‘hungry’ and wishes to generously share of herself and her beauty.

If you come from an Islamicate culture, you may be familiar with the Friday baths and hammams, then the strolls around the town to have coffee, somethings sweet or a sherbet. It is in these female spaces that the gossip was spread, marriages and couples planned, but also where secrets of beauty and allure were shared. The beautification rituals were for most time, something held dearly in the collective feminine heart—when it was made a “product”, the virginity aka the complete internal motivation and dynamic of this reality, was stolen from this heart. But rather than abandoning that which is dear to us, we can simply take it back. Beauty, I believe, is not a luxury but an existential need.

I was a year old when I would put a dress and a pair of sunglasses on and demand of people around me to refer to me as: “Her Ladyship”, I started playing with make up at 8-9, and I would save pocket money to buy myself a high-end dress. I have taken inspiration from what I was taught—since the accumulated experience of ancestors is the very fertile soil from which we grow—but I also went on to develop my own tree, with its fully individualised fruit. In today’s article, I will give you some foundations and basics all rooted in my own experience rather than theory.