Some friends and I recently got to texting about our skincare routines, something I hadn’t given much thought to in quite some time. I mean, I wash my face, of course, and have drawers full of sample products I dabble in when the mood strikes (some probably expired). I can’t honestly say I have any sort of consistent beauty regimen, though. I tend to find a cleanser I like and stick with it, and then maybe buy a serum or moisturizer that looks interesting on an endcap at Target.

It wasn’t always that way, though.

Thanks in equal parts to a fondness for The Babysitters Club book series and the luck of being the only teenager in a neighborhood of young families, I established a lucrative babysitting empire at a fairly young age which wound up bankrolling my collection of somewhat-overpriced clothes and age-inappropriate beauty products. At age 14, I was following a four-step skincare regimen twice a day and neutralizing my skin’s redness with green primer. By 16, I was carrying around a full face of Chanel cosmetics and an arsenal of matte MAC lipsticks in my makeup bag.

Somewhere in adulthood, probably around the time contouring/highlighting tutorials and botox treatments became accessible to normal folks, I lost most of my interest and inclination to swim in the sea of beauty products. Every once in while I would try out a trend – some argan oil cleanser or a cat eye – but nothing seemed to stick for too long.

Something about the conversation I just had with my friends awoke a desire in me to stick my toe back into the beauty product pool, though. I don’t think I’m quite ready for dermaplaning or animal-print eyeshadow but I am thinking about trying out some new products and exploring what’s out there. I apparently have a lot of catching up to do.

Now, where to start?