I’m back with some good lipstick and some even better tidings. First, the tidings: I’m employed again! I’ll be moving back east next week to teach English at a boarding school in New England. No fewer than four people have reacted to the news with some version of “That will be great novel fodder,” so I guess I have no choice but to write my own version of Prep or Never Let Me Go. Stay at a workplace just long enough to develop a gently satirical take on it, that’s my motto. I hope the kids are still into dark academia when I’m shopping around my manuscript. For now, though, I’m enjoying one last fling with crop tops and colorful makeup before I start my job, don my tweed blazer, and attain my final form of Preppy McPrepperson.

Which brings me to the subject of today’s post: the absurdly named Forget-Me-Naughty, one of the five lipsticks in MAC’s Summer 2021 collection, Botanic Panic. As soon as I saw this hydrangea-colored shade in its matching floral tube, I knew it had to be mine. And, because MAC’s LE collections no longer sell out in minutes, I had no difficulty making it mine. (It’s still available on the Macy’s website, if anyone out there wants to follow suit.)

Let’s be honest: one of the biggest reasons I bought Forget-Me-Naughty was the watercolor-inspired Botanic Panic packaging, and this “review” is little more than a flimsy excuse to show off all the photos I took.

I would have bought this shade had it come in the usual black tube (I would have, I swear!), but there’s something about MAC lipsticks in color-coordinated tubes that I just can’t resist. See also Eugenie and Lotus Light.

One day in late June, I woke up early to photograph Forget-Me-Naughty in the bed of hydrangeas outside the “Dental Arts Building” several blocks from my apartment, because beauty blogging is an art too, damn it.

Longtime readers might remember my love-hate relationship with Bite’s Amuse Bouche lipstick in Lavender Jam, a blue-leaning lavender similar to Forget-Me-Naughty. I loved the color but couldn’t stand the slippery formula, so I eventually gave Lavender Jam away. However, I never stopped missing that vivid, not-quite-neon, just-short-of-flattering-but-who-cares shade of purple. Forget-Me-Naughty is lighter and pinker than Lavender Jam, but it gives a similar effect, glowing against my skin just as blue and purple hydrangeas (or forget-me-nots, for that matter) glow against a cloudy sky. Also like Lavender Jam, Forget-Me-Naughty contains a hint of gray, which keeps it out of bright pastel territory.

A swatch (one swipe). As you can see, FMN is just shy of opaque:

FMN is lighter and much bluer than my other true purple lipstick, MAC Men Love Mystery. MLM (right) is also a matte, but FMN is slightly matte-er.

Formula-wise, Forget-Me-Naughty is a standard MAC matte: it’s on the dry, lip-line-emphasizing side, but it’s not drying, and it lacks the siliconey slip that annoys me in so many matte formulas these days. I find that I need a couple of layers to cover my lips completely. Even after two layers, I have trouble getting the formula to adhere to the inner part of my lower lip, which is not unusual for pastel lipsticks. However, FMN lasts a few hours on my lips, which puts it far ahead of Bite Lavender Jam for longevity, and it fades evenly with only minimal staining. It’s funny how much of a MAC loyalist I’ve become in the last few years, even as the brand has lost its former trendiness, but I genuinely can’t remember trying a bad lipstick from MAC—and I’ve tried about two dozen. (Weirdly, though, I’ve never tried anything but lipstick from MAC.)

Now for some shots of Forget-Me-Naughty on my face! If the colors look a bit off, it’s because I got a new iPhone recently and the camera, though sharper than my old one, pulls most of my photos slightly warm. To make the photos more color-accurate, I have to fiddle with the warmth and tint settings, and sometimes that makes the colors look even weirder, especially in selfies. So frustrating!

I usually wear FMN with Glossier Lidstar in Lily; for this look, I topped Lily with ColourPop Super Shock Shadow in Moon Daisy, a sheer, glittery sky blue that unfortunately isn’t showing up here but looked very pretty and Y2K-tastic IRL. I’m also wearing Illamasqua cream blush in Zygomatic (I bought a new one!) and Glossier Haloscope in Quartz.

And I mustn’t neglect to show off my adorable nightshade earrings from Alexis Berger, which I bought to celebrate my new job. Dark academia, here I come!

I don’t anticipate having much time for beauty writing in the coming months, but I know better than to announce a total shutdown of my blog, because we’re all aware what happened last time I tried to quit blogging. So let’s say that I’ll pop in here occasionally, just as I’ve been doing, and leave it at that.