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This is another girly post, so feel free to skip if this is not your thing.

So, I’ve confessed that I’ve been having fun with cosmetics lately. It’s just plain fun and is kind of hard to explain to those who aren’t interested, like the majority of the male gender, for example. There is this world of girls on youtube who do product reviews and makeup tutorials and things. Some of whom don’t know much more than you or me, and some of whom are seriously good. Anyway, these little video topics go around like “products I can’t live without,” “products I regret buying,” etc. One of my favorites was “favorite drugstore products.”

I LOVE CVS. I am a loyal CVS shopper. As anyone who is a loyal CVS shopper knows, you can get a significant amount of “free” money from their extra care card thing, and they often have truly crazy sales, especially on cosmetics. They do buy one get one half off a lot, but if you look out for it, they also often do buy one get one FREE on various cosmetic brands. And if you don’t think buy one get one free cosmetics is amazing, you are mad and should go see a doctor to be treated for madness.

In my twenties, I was a teacher and a grad student and then a girl who lived on my own, so I never had a lot of extra money to spend on fancy products, nor did I have a lot of interest in them. I was a drug store makeup girl all the way, except for a few select things, like my Lancome eyebrow pencil that I have used for more years than you need to know. It’s really just this year that I’ve been trying some more higher end and Sephora brands, which has been totally fun. But I am still a big fan of drugstore shopping, especially at CVS. Walgreens has these crazy buy one get one free sales too and a really large department, but in my experience it’s not really fun to shop there because their beauty section is designed based on the assumption that everyone is a shoplifter, and I can’t fully enjoy myself while looking at silly products with someone watching me. Also you know I love Target dearly, but they don’t have the same kinds of amazing sales on health and beauty stuff.

Part of the point of this is for you to share your favorite drugstore products because getting recommendations from other people is fun. So, on to my list:

Cetaphil cleanser and moisturizer. Cetaphil is kind of a cult classic so this isn’t particularly original, but I’ve been using this skin routine for the past five years or so and they’ve been my best five skin years, so…coincidence? Hmm. I first heard this stuff recommended by a celebrity who I’m embarrassed to name. I’ll just say she’s on a show about middle aged housewives.

I don’t generally care all that much about my hair and I feel fine when I’m not wearing much makeup, but I really do care quite a bit about my skin. I just don’t feel good when my skin looks bad and I’m not one of those people with naturally clear and well-behaved skin, so I’m very diligent with my skin care routine. I mix it up sometimes with face wash and moisturizer, but Cetaphil is my staple that I use every pretty much every night, and my skin generally stays happy. It was recently pointed out to me that Cetaphil contains parabens, but then, most beauty products contain parabens, which is probably why I’ve been putting off finding out what parabens actually are.

Okay. This is Cover Girl (ultimate finish liquid powder) foundation. I tend to think of Cover Girl as one of the lower end drugstore brands, probably because it’s one of the cheaper ones, though they seem to be a little hipper lately because of the Lash Blast stuff. But you have to just trust me on this one — this foundation is awesome. I have repurchased this many many times for years. And I have a fancy Lancome foundation that cost a lot more, yet I use this Cover Girl foundation pretty much every day. It takes about ten seconds to put on, it blends in, evens everything out, covers everything up, doesn’t irritate or cause breakouts at all, and is just awesome. I’ve tried other drugstore brands for this cream foundation kind of thing and this one is the best. I really use this everyday and love it.

I like to try different mascaras and there are lots of great drugstore mascaras. But the one that I always have and always buy again is this Maybelline Lash Discovery, and the reason is because see how skinny that brush is?? It’s perfect for your lower lashes. I often use another masacara for the top but always this one for the bottom (although this looks good on the top lashes too). I ran out of this a week ago and was annoyed every morning trying to do lower lashes. This is just the BEST for that purpose. I always get the waterproof, even though I think I read somewhere that you shouldn’t use waterproof every day because it’s more drying, but I like the comfort of knowing that I’m not going to have black streaks on my face if I happen to click on a sad news story, which happens all the time. I think my sister may have introduced me to this.

About a month ago I got this lipstick, Loreal Colour Riche in Nude. It’s a PERFECT creamy matte nude lip color. It’s just a little bit of color so you don’t look undead but really subtle, and then you can use a gloss to make it do pretty much anything. I’ve worn this most days since I got it. I like Loreal for lip stuff. Revlon, not so much. I recently bought a Revlon “creamy” lip gloss that was so gooey and sticky that I just threw it out.

I’ve tried many many lotions for my grossly dry winter hands, and this is the winner by a long shot. This is the only one that seems to really work. Not a big fan of the Vaseline intensive care lotions that are just really thin. They just can’t handle it. I’m positive my sister introduced me to this one. She also introduced me to Bobbi Brown and Laura Mercier. Who knew she was my biggest beauty product influence?

Also one more thing even though it’s not really drugstore. I’ve always been a fan of Vaseline for serious moisturizing, and I recently discovered this Unpetroleum jelly, which is basically the same thing but a little more natural and vitamin-filled. I’m loving it. I realized that I tend to not really moisturize around my eyes (since the Cetaphil stings like hell if it you accidentally rub it in there), and fancy eye creams cost a fortune, so I’ve been using this around my eyes and it feels soooo good. I ordered mine from Amazon. But Vaseline would do the trick as well.

I’ll also mention that Revlon does have very good blushes. I always used their matte blushes and loved them. Recently I’ve tried Nars and Benefit blushes, and although I like them, I still use my Revlon ones and will probably go back to them. I just don’t see enough of a difference to justify the huge difference in cost. The Revlon ones look just as nice and stay on all day. I’m sure there’s some quality difference, but I can’t see it with the naked eye.

I don’t think I’ll go back to using drugstore eyeliners. The nicer ones I’ve tried are just a lot more creamy and not so rough on the eyes. I also haven’t found any great drugstore eyeshadows, but I haven’t tried many, so recommendations are welcome. I haven’t tried a lot of the cheapest drugstore brands like Rimmel, NYC, etc because I tend to be a believer in “you get what you pay for,” so if an eyeliner costs 99 cents, I’m thinking it may not be something I really want to be putting near my eye. Maybe I’m wrong?

Okay so…those are my favorite things from the drugstore! I know this is a silly, girly post. WHO CARES. Please post your favorite drugstore stuff in the comments…