You know that feeling when you blind-buy a lipstick, hoping that your instincts are right and the shade will flatter you and fill a hole in your collection, and it turns out to do both of those things? That’s a nice feeling. It’s not a particularly interesting or bloggable feeling, which is perhaps the reason… Read More Maybelline Inti-Matte Nude Lipstick in Naked Coral
Happy Easter! Full disclosure: I’m one of those secular assholes who welcome the Easter season not for its religious significance but for the positively pagan abundance of egg-shaped chocolate. Growing up half-Jewish, I couldn’t help noticing the difference in quality between Easter candy and kosher-for-Passover candy, which consisted (and still consists) primarily of coconut-covered marshmallows… Read More FOTD: Cyborg Easter Bunny ft. NYX Twilight Tint
I’m back with some makeup and some thoughts! New Makeup: L-R: Whirl, Metal Head, Men Love Mystery, Puff, Otherworldly. Swatches, same order. Glossier Cloud Paint in Puff: $14.40 (20% off) MAC Matte Lipstick in Men Love Mystery: $15 (15% off, plus tax) MAC Metallic Lipstick in Metal Head: purchased with Nordstrom store credit (usually $18)… Read More Low-Buy 2017 Progress Report: March
Earlier today, while scrolling through Facebook and minding my own business (well, other people’s business, if we’re getting technical), I came upon this Ulta ad: Okay. Okay. LET’S UNPACK THIS, as we say in the lit-crit biz. In one sense, this is your typical “#yolo buy all the things” message. I received a similar message… Read More Your Daily Memento Mori, Courtesy of Ulta
I was eight for most of 1996, but I remember that year quite well. In fact, I remember it as an especially good year in my young life. My parents and I had moved to San Francisco the year before, back when an assistant teacher and a busker at Ghirardelli Square could afford a nice… Read More Reverse Lipstick Chronology #3: Urban Decay Roach
Drugstore makeup has become a lot more interesting over the past few years, and I can’t help but envy people who are just getting into makeup now and have access to so many weird lipsticks at affordable price points. I’ve always been drawn to slightly eccentric makeup, but in my early twenties it was impossible… Read More Reverse Lipstick Chronology #2: Maybelline Smoking Red
Yesterday I came across a very insightful post on r/MakeupRehab, titled “A thought on the fakeness of Instagram…” It’s a long post, so I won’t quote it in full, but the writer argues that successful Instagrammers like her sister, women whose posts feature them “in trendy places in even trendier outfits,” perpetuate an internalized misogyny… Read More On the “Fakeness” of Social Media
SPRING BREAK WOOOO …oh, right. The weather may suggest otherwise, but I’m now on spring break. That doesn’t mean very much in ABD world, since I should technically spend every waking hour chipping away at my dissertation, but I’m still planning to use my extra free time (or the illusion thereof) to write some reviews… Read More Reverse Lipstick Chronology #1: MAC Whirl
I can’t remember getting as excited over any Glossier release as I did over the Cloud Paint cream blushes, which launched a week and a half ago (following a “soft launch” at the Oscars, because of course). Two days before the blushes dropped, I had a dream that I was looking at them in a… Read More In Pursuit of Pastel Pink, Part 2: Glossier Cloud Paint in Puff
For at least two years now, I’ve been searching for the perfect cool-toned pale pink blush, something that will give me that fresh-faced but slightly artificial k-beauty look. Here’s Jiwon of Spica for BNT International, back in March 2014: Source: Omona They Didn’t. Spica disbanded last month. 😦 And here’s Irene of Red Velvet for… Read More In Pursuit of Pastel Pink, Part 1: NARS Blush in Threesome
Auxiliary Beauty 