It’s pretty amazing how you oftentimes find yourself right back where you started. It’s even more amazing when you realize that perhaps where you started was where you had it right. The philosophy of coming full circle seemingly applies to many areas in life. In this case, I’m speaking purely of a bright pink tube and vibrant lime green cap (that upgraded to black apparently); the now dubbed “American icon” on the beauty front, Maybelline’s Great Lash Mascara.

I found myself perusing the aisles of Target last weekend, deciding that rather than spending $20 on a tube of mascara at Sephora, I would try to get back to the basics. The goal was to find something comparable at a fraction of the cost. After about t-minus 2 minutes, I then decided I wasn’t going to spend the next 20 minutes being overwhelmed by the endless options over the next 4 aisles: volumizing, lengthening, nourishing, non-clumping, curves the lashes, large brush, small brush…Cover Girl, Revlon, L’Oréal (because you’re worth it!). I mean, is there really THAT much of a difference in black gooey liquid to literally have hundreds of options to agonize over?

Then I saw it. The bright pink tube, beamed at the $5.34 price tag, and I was transformed to my teen years when I remember first using Great Lash when being introduced to the thing called mascara. It was also what I remember my mom using religiously as a kid.

I’m a big fan of trying new things – especially when it comes to beauty, and I don’t mind paying a bit more when it comes to the right products. In many cases you get what you pay for. But at under $6.00 and still getting the job done, I’m re-thinking what it means to stick with what you know. While I liked what I had been using – Sephora’s Full Action Extreme Mascara – the cost, the simplicity, and the nostalgia of a pink tube brought me back full circle recently.

And while I know it’s just mascara, it’s funny how getting back to the basics…just works.