First off, a confession: mascara and I have had a rocky partnership for the past twenty five years. I have hay fever that compells me to rub my eyes, I'm a crier, and I'm too lazy to find cotton balls and eye makeup remover every night. Once, in high school, I watched my friend's impossibly cool, older, very punk rock sister use a safety pin to seperate her mascara-clumped eyelashes. I went home and tried it, but I was no Joelle and quickly realized that bringing a pin that close to my eyeball was scary and made my eyes water.

About a year ago, my very favorite mascara ever was discontinued. I quite literally drove around town buying up EVERY LAST AVAILABLE TUBE (all of which were on final clearance and selling for about a third of what I had been paying, which sort of made up for the whole DISCONTINUED part). But I also started to think about how, one day, I would look in the drawer and realize that I needed to find a new mascara.That day has come, my friends.