Counter Intelligence: Pro Tips for Getting the Best Results When Shopping for Beauty Products

“I’m looking for a foundation that will give me the appearance of pore-less, flawless skin,” I hear myself saying to a twentysomething beauty advisor at Sephora recently.

Truth? Uttering those words makes me feel vulnerable. It also makes me feel like a fraud. As a former women’s magazine editor who spent years in the epicenter of beauty (let’s just say I had an entire closet in my apartment devoted to the free products I regularly took home), I know too much about this stuff. At a very deep level, I understand how little it costs to make a $27 lipstick. How good cosmetics—including foundation—are not miracle workers, but merely hardworking art supplies. And even more importantly, how the youthful, pore-less sales associate staring back at me with her perfectly cut-creased eyes has one job to do, and that is to sell me a bottle of very expensive foundation.