Alex Nursall

If you’re like me, you have two minds about the holidays. On one hand, it means a month of parties, mulled wine, and deeply unhealthy finger food (which you then try to counteract by grabbing something off the crudité plate). On the other hand, it’s full of the stress of trying to prove your love to people via rampant gift giving. Some people are relatively easy to buy for, while others are more difficult and require way more thought than expected.

What better sums up the feeling of 2017—other than political turmoil, crippling extreme weather systems, and Hollywood’s unending and bizarre obsession with rebooting the Spiderman franchise yet again—than everyone’s favorite vaguely flavored drink, La Croix!

Hey there, interior design fans! We all know that there’s some real great stuff on the Apartment Therapy site if you’re trying to really jazz up your living space, but I’d like to walk you through a few of my personal design tips via the wonder that is Amazon shopping, the horrifyingly amazing finds unearthed in the marketplace’s deep crevices and all that they can add to a home. Let’s go (and prepare for a wild ride)!

While my love of makeup is well publicized, I’ve written little about my clothing habits. “Alex,” a strawman I’ve created for the sake of this piece would say, “What’s your wardrobe like? I’m sure it’s just as interesting as your lipstick collection [SPOILER: Not really]. Also, have you ever considered just giving up and wearing a uniform to work?

Last week, we introduced a new series in which we put cult classic beauty products to the test to find out whether they’re worth the hype. First, we set our gaze on the best-selling Maybelline Great Lash mascara; now, we’re tackling Baby Foot, an exfoliating peel for the feet made internet famous thanks to the many shudder-inflicting photos of molting skin posted by users.

我们都有那一刻,有人recommended a product to you in which they say, “Everyone loves this, it’s perfect. It cleared up my skin and made my lashes longer and crushed all my enemies!” There are a lot of cosmetics out there that have been heavily recommended for ages now, so it’s time we take a look at them and see if they really are worth the hype.

Okay, I’m going to be honest up-front: I want to tell you some sort of inspiring story about how, after years of stabbing myself in the eye with a liquid liner marker I finally mastered winged eyeliner or something. I want to write something about the triumphant moment where I held the liner aloft, a single tear welling up in my suddenly beautifully lined eye.

Pillows, aka those comfy things on your bed that you spend eight hours a night drooling onto, were first used around 7,000 BC in Mesopotamia. Originally only owned by the rich or upper echelons, with multiple pillows meaning that the owner was wealthy, important, and probably well-rested.

This is the true story of two friends, picked to flip-flop makeup routines (or lack thereof) for a day, have their adventures chronicled, to see out what happens when people stop being polite…and start getting real (okay, so it’s not really that dramatic.) Meet Alex and Colleen. Alex (left) is the a makeup-spreadsheet-wielding lipstick enthusiast; Colleen (right) is the cosmetics neophyte friend along for the ride.