The Thrill Of Your Best Friend’s Makeup Bag

All great love stories have a great beginning. Mine began with an email. Except, it’s not the kind of love story you’re thinking about. Mine is of great friendship with my best friend, Daniela Morosini, who you might know from her reporting at The Business of Beauty. The year was 2019, and I was working at New York’s The Cut as a social media editor and moonlighting as a beauty writer. Kathleen Hou, my then editor and now the Beauty Director at Elle, passed along Daniela’s name for Why Is Your Skin So Good, my column devoted to uncovering people’s skincare secrets. On October 8, I wrote to Daniela, “Hope you’re well. Could you tell me more about your skincare routine + beauty philosophy for consideration? Would love a list of the products that you use and how you got into skincare.” (It was only last year that I learned that she thought I was being passive aggressive from the tone of my email.) Little did I know that one short message would spark a years-long friendship that’s transcended an ocean—3,470 miles to be exact.

You see, I live in New York City and Daniela lives in London, where she grew up. That means maintaining our relationship requires a bit more work than your average friendship. There’s the meticulously scheduled FaceTimes and phone calls, the surprising care packages and snail mail, and most recently, Locket, an iPhone widget that lets you share live photos directly on a person’s homescreen. It’s always a bright spot in my day when I unlock my phone and see that she left behind a silly little selfie or encouraging note. And of course, because we’re both beauty-obsessed girls, we’ve left each other plenty of product recs and reviews, albeit short ones (Locket only lets you leave a note under 25 characters!), along the way. Ahead of Galentine’s Day this year, we wrote each other letters expanding our thoughts on the ones we can’t stop gushing over. I hope they inspire you to write your own best friend a sweet note, too, beauty products included or not.

Meanwhile, I’ve been dry brushing my body like crazy with my Tronque brush,

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