Product: NARS Sheer Lipstick in Dolce Vita Date Purchased: January 4, 2020 Grade: B+ I started this blog in early 2014 with a series called Lipstick Chronology, in which I set out to review all of my lipsticks in chronological order of purchase, musing on the circumstances in which I bought them and the feelings… Read More 2020 Lipstick Chronology #1: NARS Sheer Lipstick in Dolce Vita (New Formula)
No, that’s not a typo in the title. I started this post intending to write a list of my favorite new beauty products of 2020, but soon got bogged down in a Carrie Bradshaw-esque question (“I couldn’t help but wonder”): what did it mean for a beauty product to be good, let alone a favorite,… Read More My 10 Most 2020 Beauty Products of 2020
Here, as promised (look at me, keeping a blog-related promise!), is my review of the second item from my recent ColourPop order: the Blur Lux Lipstick in Slow Dance. Early in 2019, ColourPop introduced sixteen shades of Blur Lux Lipstick, a “matte lipstick formulated with soft blurring pigments.” This semi-sheer formula was designed to replace… Read More ColourPop Blur Lux Lipstick in Slow Dance
Earlier this month, I placed my first ColourPop order in over a year. Like many longtime ColourPop customers, I’d grown tired of the brand’s constant new releases and discontinuations of older products. Last spring, I discovered my holy grail neutral eyeshadow: ColourPop’s Super Shock Shadow in Truth, a satin-finish beige. I wore it almost every… Read More ColourPop That’s Taupe Palette
Fenty Beauty, like Rituel de Fille, is a brand that I started following years ago but didn’t get around to trying until 2020. I always liked Fenty’s bold, exuberant aesthetic, but the releases never seemed to line up with my makeup habits. Fenty’s flagship products were an impressively inclusive range of foundation (I don’t wear… Read More Fenty Cheeks Out Freestyle Cream Blush in Strawberry Drip
In December 2017, I celebrated passing my dissertation defense by ordering Pat McGrath Labs’ LuxeTrance lipstick in Madame Greige, which remains one of my all-time favorite lipsticks. For the next two and a half years, though, I didn’t pay much attention to the brand. Its price point was just too high for me, and its… Read More Pat McGrath Labs Lip Fetish Balm in Noir
Rituel de Fille is a brand that I’ve been following, but not actually patronizing, since its launch in 2014. I have a vivid memory of sitting on a bench during a break from my dissertation seminar in Washington, D.C., and scrolling through the newly launched Rituel de Fille website. The brand’s aesthetic seemed designed for… Read More Rituel de Fille Color Nectar Pigment Balm in Bloodflower
In the pre-coronavirus days, I used to claim—and, I think, believe—that I wore makeup primarily for myself. Of course, it was nice to get a compliment on my lipstick or whatever, but for the most part, I wasn’t wearing makeup to look more professional or more attractive; I was wearing it because I liked mixing… Read More Beauty Lately
One of the reasons I decided to resurrect my blog is, frankly, nostalgia. I never thought I’d feel nostalgic for the second half of grad school (or the first half, for that matter), but 2020 has made me nostalgic for almost everything before it. When I started Auxiliary Beauty in 2014, Obama was president, I… Read More An Old-Fashioned Lipstick Destash Post
Last September, I wrote what I thought would be my final post on Auxiliary Beauty. I had a few reasons for ending the blog: my demanding schedule, my increasingly utilitarian approach to makeup, and my desire to focus on other kinds of writing. The next six months gave me no reason to regret my decision.… Read More The Partial Resurrection of Auxiliary Beauty
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