When I first got into makeup, in the early 2010s, blush was an afterthought in the Western beauty community. Everyone had a couple of blushes, generally a warm pink and a cool pink, but beauty bloggers often fretted about the prospect of looking tacky or clownish or old-ladyish (never mind the ageism and internalized misogyny… Read More The Great Blush Inventory of 2021
Product: Urban Decay Wired Vice Lip Chemistry Lasting Glassy Tint in X-Ray Date Purchased: Mar. 1, 2020 Grade: B Let’s take a time machine back to the United States on the first day of March in the year 2020. After a shaky start to his primary campaign, Joe Biden has just emerged as the presumptive… Read More 2020 Lipstick Chronology #4: Urban Decay Lip Chemistry Tint in X-Ray
Last summer, I got rid of my Illamasqua cream blush in Zygomatic, one of my all-time favorite beauty products, which I’d bought in the UK in June of 2014. I hadn’t noticed a change in its appearance, smell, or performance, but I felt increasingly uncomfortable smearing a six-year-old cream blush on my face. Unfortunately, Illamasqua… Read More Tower 28 BeachPlease Luminous Tinted Balm in Magic Hour
This week I’m diverging from the 2020 Lipstick Chronology in order to review my first new lipstick of 2021: NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Red Square! I spent much of my January no-buy scouring the web for a replacement for Topshop Matte Lipstick in Rio Rio, which I bought and reviewed back in June… Read More A Red for Citrus Season: NARS Velvet Matte Lip Pencil in Red Square
Product: Revlon Super Lustrous The Luscious Mattes Lipstick in Shameless Date Purchased: Feb. 15, 2020 Grade: A Revlon has made some truly bizarre marketing decisions in the last decade. The brand built its reputation on lipstick and continues to produce such heritage shades as Cherries in the Snow and Fire and Ice, yet it went… Read More 2020 Lipstick Chronology #3: Revlon Luscious Matte Lipstick in Shameless
Apologies for deviating from my Lipstick Chronology schedule so soon after announcing it, but the last couple of weeks have been challenging. My grandmother passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly nine days ago, at the age of ninety-six. Between processing that shock and conducting a job search in a new field, I haven’t had a… Read More An Interlude
Product: Maybelline Color Sensational Creamy Matte Lipstick in Divine Wine Date Acquired: January or February 2020 Grade: A- My mother has strong opinions about my lipstick choices, and she’s not shy about sharing those opinions. She has expressed distaste for some of my favorite lip products, such as Pat McGrath Madame Greige (“washes you out,… Read More 2020 Lipstick Chronology #2: Maybelline Creamy Matte Lipstick in Divine Wine
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 Ten 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
Auxiliary Beauty 