Mascara Is A Series of Tubes.

I bought some new mascara. It's going to change my life.

Some backstory: Conventional mascara is disgusting black goopy stuff that you paint on your lashes. For women like me, who have long but blonde lashes, a bit of mascara makes us look fifty billion times better. So I've been a devoted mascara user since age 15 or so, despite the fact that I actually hate the stuff, and it hates me.

I've tried about 20 different brands and colors, and they all irritated my eyes to some degree. Some were so bad I instantly tossed them (while violently clawing at my eyeballs, of course). Some were better, but were a pain to remove, such that even after using makeup remover at night, I would wake up with raccoon eyes.

Regular waterproof mascara practically takes a wrecking ball to fully remove, and when it finally dissolves, it dissolves into a black smear. Not nice.

Then a little trip to Sephora changed all that.

I found this amazing mascara that, instead of coating your lashes with a disgusting tar-like substance, forms tubes around them. It doesn't apply quite as well as conventional mascaras, and it takes a little time to set, but it wears fantastically. It dries into a tough, waterproof coating that doesn't flake or fade, and removing it is a snap - last night I soaked some cotton in warm water, pressed down, and slid off the tubes (which look like thick spider webs, don't make a mess, and don't get into my eyes). Every last bit of the mascara slides off with no painful wrangling. For the first time in ages, I woke up with no raccoon eyes. Hoooly crap.

Even as I sit here with a raging cold, my eyes feel amazing. For the past eight years, they have been constantly irritated, and for once they actually feel good - like I'm not wearing mascara at all. So although this mascara was expensive, it's totally worth not having painful eyes all the time. A winner in my book.

I also bought a fantastic new Smashbox eyeshadow trio, the Stila lipgloss I love, and a light pink, basic eyeshadow for everyday. I'm really not huge on makeup, but Jesus Christ, Sephora is like crack. I dropped a hundred bucks there without even thinking.

Oh well, at least I look purdy.

Kiss Me Mascara, $24 at Sephora.