Milani Showy Sea-Green nail polish, new this spring, is the Holy Roman Empire of polishes: neither showy nor sea-green. It is, however, extremely pretty. To me, “sea-green” implies something brighter and bluer; this is a muted, slightly dusty jade or pistachio green, a very unusual color for a nail polish. I can’t think of another… Read More Review: Milani Showy Sea-Green
Name: Revlon Colorburst Lip Gloss in Bordeaux Date Purchased: September 2012 Grade: A Notes: I’ve been having a major lipgloss moment. This winter has been unusually long and cold (15°-25°F below average on most days), and my lips, chronically dry to begin with, have not been happy. They’ll be fine for a day or two,… Read More Lipstick Chronology #15: Revlon Bordeaux
Names: Maybelline Color Sensational Lipstick in Make Me Pink; Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Primrose; MAC Cremesheen Lipstick in Creme Cup Date of Purchase: Spring-Summer 2012 Grades: A-, A, A- Notes: Auxiliary Beauty lives, barely. I suspect that I surrendered my beauty-blogger credentials this past week, while scrambling to finish a fellowship application that was… Read More Lipstick Chronology #14: Three Mod Pinks (MAC, Maybelline, Revlon)
Name: Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Black Cherry; NYX Round Lipstick in Black Cherry Date of Purchase: Summer 2012 Grades: C+, A- Notes: Why are there so many lipsticks called Black Cherry? Can makeup companies really not come up with another name for a blackened red? As fall 2012 approached, I began searching for a… Read More Lipstick Chronology #13: Two Black Cherries
Let’s just get it out of the way: this liquid lipstick looks like a vibrator, right? Buying cruelty-free makeup is more difficult than it should be, especially when you’re on a budget. Recently, though, I’ve been making more of an effort to do so. I’m a vegetarian for ethical reasons; I feel like a hypocrite… Read More Milani Spring 2014 Reviews: Pink Rave and Sweet Grapefruit
Name: Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter in Raspberry Pie Date of Purchase: Summer 2012 Grade: B+ Remember the rapturous hype when Revlon released its Lip Butters in late 2011? More moisturizing than a lip balm! More pigmented than a sheer lipstick! Burn all your other lipsticks in a colossal auto-da-fé, these are the only ones you… Read More Lipstick Chronology #12: Revlon Raspberry Pie
Name: Maybelline Color Sensational Lipstick in Nude Lust Date of Purchase: Jan. 25, 2014 Grade: A- Notes: In the first part of Don Quixote (she began, like a totally normal beauty blogger), Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza meet a group of prisoners sentenced to hard labor. The galley slaves are chained together, which… Read More Review: Maybelline Nude Lust
Name: L’Oreal Colour Riche Lipstick in Fairest Nude Date of Purchase: Summer 2012 Grade: B Notes: A white lady complaining about a dearth of cool-toned nude lipsticks will not, and definitely should not, get much pity. Nonetheless: why are there so few cool-toned nude lipsticks pale enough for me? I’m not even the coolest of… Read More Lipstick Chronology #11: L’Oreal Fairest Nude
Name: MAC Amplified Creme Lipstick in Up the Amp Date of Purchase: April 2012 Grade: A- Notes: Lots of purple lip colors on the blog recently! Up the Amp was my very first, inspired by tumblr bloggers like Arabelle Sicardi of Powder Doom. In that post, Arabelle is wearing OCC’s lip tar in Belladonna, but… Read More Lipstick Chronology #10: MAC Up the Amp
I’ve been carrying my tube of Maybelline Vision in Violet all over the Eastern seaboard this weekend, reminding myself repeatedly to return it to CVS. I’m a poor grad student; a $9.50 lipgloss, especially one that I won’t wear often, is hard to justify to myself. And yet. It’s an opaque blue-toned purple lipgloss! A… Read More FO(lger)TD
Auxiliary Beauty 