Hi friends! Can I be honest with you for a second?

Last Tuesday night, I found myself sitting cross-legged on my bathroom floor at 11 p.m., staring at a pile of products I’d bought because the internet told me I needed them. My hair was half-wrapped in a towel, I had a clay mask drying on my face, and I was trying to remember whether the serum I’d just applied was supposed to go before or after the moisturizer I’d already put on. I laughed out loud at myself. Like, actually laughed. Because somewhere along the way, taking care of myself had turned into a part-time job I never applied for.

If that sounds familiar, pull up a chair. I’ve been wanting to write this one for a while.

The Messy Truth About My “Testing” Phase

For the past couple of years, I’ve been testing products and sharing my honest thoughts here — which sounds glamorous until you see the state of my bathroom counter. I’ve got half-used bottles of things that promised me the world and delivered a mild rash. I’ve got notebooks full of scribbled notes like “day 3 — smells like a candle, not in a good way” and “day 11 — okay actually this one’s kind of working??”

Here’s what I’ve learned the hard way: the messy middle is where the real information lives. Not the first-day excitement, not the polished photos. The unglamorous stretch where you’re genuinely not sure if something is working, and you have to decide whether to keep going or call it.

I used to think the honest reviews were the ones that ended in a clear yes or no. Now I think the honest reviews are the ones that admit most things land somewhere in the middle.

How I Finally Stopped Overthinking Every Choice

I used to be terrible at picking between options. Two similar products? I’d read forty reviews, make a spreadsheet (I wish I were joking), and still feel paralyzed. My friend Maya once watched me agonize over two nearly identical tote bags for twenty minutes in a store before she gently took both out of my hands and said, “Emma. They hold things. Pick one.”

She wasn’t wrong, and it stung a little.

What changed for me was a small mental shift: I stopped asking “which one is best?” and started asking “which one is right for me, right now?” Those are completely different questions. “Best” is a trap — it implies there’s one universal winner, and if I pick wrong, I’ve failed some invisible test. “Right for me” is so much kinder. It accounts for my actual life, my actual budget, my actual energy levels on a Tuesday night.

A few things that genuinely helped:

• Giving myself a decision deadline. Ten minutes of research, then I choose. No spiraling.
• Asking whether the difference between two options would even matter in a month. Usually it wouldn’t.
• Remembering that a “wrong” choice is just information, not a character flaw.
• Noticing when I was researching to feel in control rather than to actually learn something.

The Little Things That Actually Made My Days Easier

While I was busy overthinking the big decisions, it turned out the tiny ones were quietly changing everything. I’m talking embarrassingly small stuff here.

I started laying out my clothes the night before. Not in a cute, aesthetic way — just a pile on the chair. But mornings stopped feeling like a scramble, and that changed my whole mood before 8 a.m.

I started keeping a running note on my phone of things I actually needed to buy, instead of trying to remember them in the store and coming home with three candles and no toothpaste. (Yes, that happened. More than once.)

I started saying no to one thing a week. Just one. A coffee invite I didn’t have energy for, a project that wasn’t mine to carry. The first time I did it, I felt guilty for hours. The tenth time, it felt like breathing room.

None of this is revolutionary. That’s kind of the point. I spent years looking for the big overhaul, the life-changing system, and it turns out the life-changing part was just a bunch of small, boring, repeatable choices that added up.

What I Actually Want You to Take From This

If you’re in a season of testing things — products, routines, decisions, whole versions of yourself — I hope you’ll be gentle with the process. It’s supposed to be messy. The mess isn’t a sign you’re doing it wrong; it’s a sign you’re actually paying attention.

You don’t have to find the best option. You just have to find what fits your real life, on a real Tuesday, with your real energy. And if you get it wrong? You learned something. That counts too.

I’m still figuring it out over here, one half-used bottle at a time. But I’m doing it a lot more kindly than I used to, and honestly? That might be the whole win.

🤍