Beyoncé may have woken up like this, but I tend to wake up looking tired, a bit splotchy, and in serious need of some mirror time. But then there’s that rare morning when I groggily stumble to my bathroom, pry my mascara-crusted eyelids apart, catch my gaze in the mirror, and think, “Damn, I look good.” I know, I know… I just learned the importance of washing my face (thank you, Mackenzie), but everyone has those occasional rough nights—perhaps involving beverages that come “Texas-sized.” Sure, I might be aging myself, but if I’m adding a decade to my face by skipping the sink on my way to the pillow, I might as well embrace my quickly-developing cougar-ness.

So maybe it's not the best for your skin/eyes/face/whatever—and this may not even be the case every time I awaken post-drunken buffoonery—but sometimes sleeping in your makeup is the only way to make real that fabled lived-in, sexy, smoky eye that I used to think only existed in the world of Roitfelds. Now I can rejoice in the fact that there's a good chance I'll look even more dashing to an impromptu bedfellow in the harsh morning light than I did the night before.

—Elizabeth Brockway