But what if you could have only one of those items? Uno. A single, measly beautifier to make you look good, or at least better than your unadorned self. What would it be? Which one can't you live without?
I'm embarrassed to report that getting ready for work this morning, I used 18 hair and makeup products,* not counting the perfume I spritzed on the way out the door.
And if I had to pick just one? After much deliberation, I voted for eyeliner. What about you?
To find out others' must-haves, I stopped 100 women (and one young man) shopping at Sephora — a chain that carries a head-spinning 200-plus brands of beauty aids at more than 250 locations across the country.
By far the most frequent choice of those I talked to was mascara, picked nearly twice as often as the closest contenders (eyeliner and foundation).
And almost everyone's favorite mascara color — this was true of women of every age, race and hair color — was blackest black.
"Mascara is everything to me. Everybody knows me as the mascara queen," said Haley Rolf, 18, a college student from Minnesota. "I couldn't go anywhere without my mascara. In between classes I just whip it out. It's fun to put on. It soothes me," she says. And, no, she doesn't even need a mirror to apply it.
Asked to pick a single product, Rolf's friend Alisha Magee, 17, said, "Oh, that's hard!" leaning toward mascara but finally voting for eyeliner.
Lacey Moak, 19, loves pear-flavored lip balm that she buys at Gap but her No. 1 choice is NARS blush in "orgasm," a best-seller at Sephora.
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