So of course I stocked up on the brow gel I just discussed yesterday, but I also purchased several tubes of my absolute favorite lipstick, in my favorite hue, Royal.

And I decided to try out this bronzer, which sounds appealingly lightweight, too. I’ll report back.

One day after school when I was 13 or so and had nothing to do, I decided it was time to pluck my eyebrows like some other girls were doing. In pictures from around that time, it’s obvious I never needed to pluck: my brows have always been scant. But I had to do it anyway, and was completely clueless as to how it worked. Of course I ended up over-plucking, in an attempt to make both sides symmetrical (little did I know that this was a pointless exercise, because usually our brows are not mirror images of one another: “they’re cousins, not siblings,” as a makeup artist once informed me). Those brows never totally grew back, and now that I’m getting older they’re thinner still. For a long time I brushed on a pomade, but that began to look pretty fake and heavy to me, so I tried Air Brow from my new favorite natural beauty brand, Kosas, and it’s just perfect. My brows look much fuller—and naturally so. Plus, it’s so easy to use, and it comes in a whopping ten shades, which is about seven more than most brow products do.

One reason I don’t subscribe to the if-you-haven’t-worn-it-in-a-year-get-rid-of-it rule of closet editing is that you never know when some neglected piece in your closet—the kind you loved when you purchased, but then never knew quite how to pull off—comes off the bench and reveals itself to be a star. That is unquestionably the case with beauty products too, like this eyeliner—which I acquired a while back, then never used much because I prefer a pencil liner to a brush one, just because it’s less easy to screw up. But the other day, I tried it—just to see if I could work with the brush before tossing it—and guys, this stuff is a miracle. First off, it’s waterproof, so it doesn’t budge for hours. And second, the brush is both easier than I thought it would be, and tons more precise than a pencil.