CVS is the first drugstore to allow makeup swatching in the beauty aisles

As I waltzed down the newly revamped beauty aisles of a CVS store in New York City’s Times Square this morning, I noticed something very different… something I have never seen before in the history of drugstore makeup and skin care: beauty product testers.

I repeat: CVS is the first drugstore ever to allow makeup and skin-care product swatching in store, which pretty much changes the game in terms of your beauty shopping. Mega beauty retailers, like Sephora and Ulta, have had this feature as a staple in their stores forever, but it makes more sense when you think about how many of those exist compared to the massive number of drugstores across the country—it’s certainly an expense. Yet thousands if not millions of people are buying their beauty essentials at the drugstore—so it’s a really big thing to offer.

“To encourage trial and discovery, we’re excited to have hygiene bars where customers can test and play with a variety of makeup and skin-care items,” says Maly Bernstein, vice president of beauty and personal care at CVS. “The hygiene bars can be found at several stations with mirrors and disposable applicators, and CVS Beauty Consultants will be on-hand to advise on products and ensure tester products are being used properly.”

Just so you know, this is the right way to apply a red lip:

As I said, this is huge. We all know the gems of makeup products and skin-care items you can score at the drugstore, but it’s particularly tough finding your perfect foundation shade or the lipstick hue you had in mind if you can’t try things on. To start this whole game-changing movement of drugstore beauty swatching, the so-called hygiene bars are rolling out into 50 stores in cities across the U.S. (in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, and Boston, among others) by the end of this year. Not only that, but the stores with this BeautyIRL, as they call it, have a newfound partnership with GlamSquad and its line of affordable products called GSQ by Glamsquad—which offers hair and makeup treatments right there in the store.

Make way—drugstore beauty is about to be even bigger than ever.

That said, here are the best drugstore mascaras that you can buy. And these are celebrities’ favorite drugstore beauty products for you to copy for yourself.