First Impressions
I first encountered Dr. John Vervaeke’s work during a late-night rabbit hole on YouTube, searching for something that would cut through the noise of endless beauty tutorials and product hauls. His voice, calm yet urgent, immediately pulled me in. He wasn’t talking about contouring or the latest hyaluronic acid serum. He was talking about beauty as if it were a matter of life and death—a sacred occurrence of truth. That phrase, “occurrence of truth,” stopped me cold. In my world, beauty is often reduced to a flawless finish, a smooth surface, a filter that erases every pore. But Vervaeke was suggesting something radically different: that beauty is not about appearances that mask reality, but about appearances that *disclose* reality. It felt like a breath of fresh air in a room that had been sealed tight with cynicism.
He opened his lecture by referencing the ancient association of beauty with the sacred, quoting Augustine who called God “beauty ever ancient and ever new.” For a moment, I felt a pang of recognition—that fleeting sense of transcendence I sometimes get when I see a perfectly aged patina on a copper pot, or the way light catches a dust mote in a sunbeam. That’s not just “pretty.” That’s something more. Vervaeke was giving me permission to take that feeling seriously. He wasn’t being preachy; he was being philosophical, but in a way that felt immediately relevant to how we live and consume today.
The Deep Dive
Vervaeke’s central argument is that modernity, particularly through what philosopher Paul Ricoeur called a “hermeneutics of suspicion,” has systematically eviscerated our capacity to experience beauty as a genuine disclosure of reality. Thinkers like Marx, Freud, and Nietzsche taught us to be deeply suspicious of appearances—to see them as deceptive, masking hidden agendas. This has become second nature. We scroll through Instagram, knowing that every image is curated, filtered, and staged. We are “very sus,” as Vervaeke says with a wry smile. But he points out a crucial logical flaw: to call something an illusion, you must have a standard of what is real. The hermeneutics of suspicion is parasitic on a more fundamental way of relating to appearances—one where they *do* disclose reality. That, he argues, is the ancient notion of beauty.
He contrasts this with what he calls the “aesthetics of the smooth.” Look around you: your phone, your watch, your laptop, even the floors and lecterns in modern buildings—everything is designed to be smooth. It’s consumable, non-challenging, and instantly gratifying. There’s no resistance. Vervaeke connects this directly to pornography, which he calls the epitome of the smooth aesthetic. In pornography, the other is completely objectified, offering no mystery, no challenge, no need for insight. It’s pure consumption without connection. This is a powerful analogy for so much of our beauty culture: the endless pursuit of a poreless, hairless, line-free surface. We want our skin to be as smooth as our phone screens. But that smoothness, Vervaeke argues, is empty. It’s flat. It doesn’t disclose anything real; it only confirms our own desire for easy pleasure.
What, then, is the alternative? Vervaeke introduces the idea of “mystery” as distinct from a “problem.” A mystery novel is a problem: once you know who did it, you’re done. But a true mystery—like the question “Does time take time to happen?”—deepens the more you engage with it. It doesn’t resolve; it opens up. Beauty, in the ancient sense, is like that. It’s a perceptual experience that reveals a deeper reality, one that you can never fully exhaust. It’s the opposite of the smooth. It’s rough, textured, and demanding. It requires you to be present, to be vulnerable, to let the world touch you.
Real Results
So what does this mean for someone like me, a beauty editor who has spent years chasing the next perfect primer? It means I’ve been asking the wrong questions. I’ve been focused on how a product looks on the surface, not how it makes me *feel* or what it reveals about my own relationship with my skin. Vervaeke’s lecture has shifted my perspective. I now think about the texture of a product not just in terms of how it smooths, but in terms of what it invites. A rich, slightly gritty scrub that requires you to massage it in for a few minutes—that’s not smooth consumption. That’s an invitation to be present. A serum that has a distinct, natural scent—not a generic “fresh” fragrance—that evokes a memory or a place. That’s an occurrence of truth.
I’ve started experimenting with this in my own routine. Instead of reaching for the fastest, smoothest moisturizer, I’ve been using a balm that warms up in my hands and has a faint, earthy aroma of chamomile and beeswax. It takes a few extra seconds to apply. It’s not instantly absorbed. But that moment of warming, of smelling, of pressing it into my skin—it feels more like a ritual than a step. It feels more real. My skin looks the same, maybe even a little less “perfect” because the balm leaves a slight sheen. But I feel more connected to the process. That, I think, is the kind of result Vervaeke is pointing toward: not a change in appearance, but a change in our experience of reality.
The Honest Truth
Let’s be clear: Vervaeke’s lecture is not a beauty tutorial. It’s a dense, philosophical talk that draws on Plato, Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Byung-Chul Han. If you’re looking for a step-by-step guide to achieving glass skin, this is not it. In fact, his critique of the “aesthetics of the smooth” might make you feel a little uncomfortable about your own beauty habits. I know it did for me. I love a good smoothing primer. I love the feeling of a freshly exfoliated face. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. The problem arises when that becomes the *only* way we understand beauty—when we lose the capacity to see beauty in the rough, the challenging, the mysterious.
Also, Vervaeke’s language can be academic. He uses terms like “hermeneutics” and “ontology” without much explanation. If you’re not familiar with philosophical jargon, you might find yourself rewinding a few times. But that’s kind of the point. This isn’t smooth content. It’s not easily consumable. It requires effort. And that effort is part of what makes it worthwhile. If you’re willing to sit with the discomfort of not understanding everything immediately, you’ll come away with a genuinely new way of seeing the world.
Pro Tips
To get the most out of this lecture, I recommend watching it in a quiet space without distractions. Don’t multitask. Let yourself be challenged. Take notes. Vervaeke’s ideas are like a good mystery—they deepen the more you sit with them. Pair this lecture with Byung-Chul Han’s book *Saving Beauty*, which Vervaeke references extensively. It’s a short, punchy read that will reinforce and expand on the ideas presented here.
For beauty creators, this lecture offers a powerful antidote to the relentless pressure to produce “smooth” content. Think about how you can incorporate elements of mystery, challenge, and realness into your reviews and tutorials. Don’t just show the final result; show the process, the imperfections, the moments of uncertainty. That’s where beauty truly lives. Use textures and scents as storytelling devices. Ask your audience not just “Does this product work?” but “What does this product reveal about your relationship with yourself?”
Final Verdict
Would I recommend this video to beauty creators? Absolutely, but with a caveat. This is not light viewing. It’s a philosophical deep dive that will challenge your assumptions about what beauty is and why it matters. If you’re open to that, it’s transformative. Vervaeke offers a vision of beauty that is sacred, meaningful, and essential to addressing the deeper crises of our time. It’s the kind of content that stays with you long after the video ends, reshaping how you see everything from a dewy highlighter to a weathered stone wall. This lecture is perfect for anyone who feels that something is missing in our current beauty culture—and who wants to find a way back to the real thing.
