My daughter, Pea, refers to lip balm / gloss / stick as “lip goo.” Whenever she sees me pull one out of my purse, she begs for some on her little lips, too. I giggle. Have I created a monster? I was the same way with my own mother when it came to the transformational magic of lip goo.

Some women, when they are down or stressed go shoe shopping. I go lip gloss shopping. Such as I did on Friday afternoon, as my mother had returned to Chicago and I was lamenting another weekend without my husband, who was, as it turns out, not missing us so much. He was out that afternoon with his friends on snowmobiles in the mountains of Utah, burning out belts on his machine and generally having too much fun. It was his 36th birthday, so of course he was entitled. But me? I headed out for the sole purpose of finding a new gloss. One that was going to change my life, because honestly, I always have that kind of hope when I’m in the market for a new lip product.

I once read that Bobbi Brown, she of natural make-up fame, said that she every woman should have one lip product that she can put on without a mirror. It should match the inside of your lips, that’s how you do away with the need for the mirror. It is your perfect, every day shade. A no brainer. Well, it was years ago that I read this, and I’ve been on a quest to find my no brainer lip color, without much luck. I am very picky, too, when it comes to lip products. I love Bobbi Brown’s make-up. What I do not love is her lip gloss. The colors are amazing, but the texture is too tacky for me. Hair glued to lips is not a good look for any woman.

On the advice of Lulu Fabulous, I headed to the Chanel counter to check out their Rouge Double Intensite. The colors were beautiful, very saturated but still very wearable. But as I was admiring my gorgeous new lips in the hand-held mirror, the sales girl said something like “and the beauty of it is that if you don’t take it off properly at night, you will wake up in the morning, look in your bathroom mirror and have a little shock… it’s still on.” Okay. Make-up remover, please. That’s not a selling point for me. I have commitment issues. Like I’ve said, I’m more about the gloss than the stick, anyway. So I decided to just pick up one of their awesome glosses, which I’ve been wearing for years. I’m not big on shimmer and sparkle, I don’t want to look like a teen-ager, nor do I want to look, as my husband so eloquently puts it, as if I “fell face-first into the craft table.” Their glosses, most of them, do have some shimmer, but it’s a grown-up and highly wearable shimmer. Over the years, I’ve bought and worn most of the line’s shades until there was nothing left in the tube. Again, unusual, since I do have commitment issues when it comes to my lips. This time, I opted for “Sarong,” and dare I say it? This might be the gloss that changes my life? It is my perfect match. It has a slight amount of shimmer and in the morning, when I put it on, I feel… incredible!

And little Miss Pea? She likes it, too.