It’s year-end-roundup time once again! I found it harder to compile a best-of list in 2018 than I did in 2017, which suggests that I got better at avoiding impulse buys and zeroing in on products that suited my tastes and needs. (I’ll eventually get around to writing a snarky worst-of-2018 post, but it will… Read More My 15 Favorite Beauty Products of 2018
(I started writing this as an Instagram post, but I can type only so much text with my thumbs on a tiny keyboard before I have to move to the laptop. I’m old.) The end of the year has awakened the destashing impulse in quite a few makeup people I follow online. It makes sense:… Read More Last Destash of 2018
Note: I purchased these products with store credit earned through my Glossier affiliate link. Thank you to everyone who has clicked on my link and helped me buy products to review! Glossier’s Generation G lipstick is aptly named, though that aptness is accidental: the sheer matte lipstick is now in its third generation, having been… Read More Three Generations of Glossier Generation G
Inspired by Renee’s recent post on her upcoming yearlong no-buy, I’ve been thinking about how to reduce my own beauty consumption in 2019. I was particularly struck by Renee’s observation that her “interests are varied, but the blog is relatively linear–how might that change if I created more of the kind of content I really… Read More Thanksgiving Red: ColourPop Lux Lipstick in Liquid Courage
In the past five years or so, I’ve owned at least one dark lipstick in almost every color family: red, purple, pink, plum, brown, even blue and gray. Until this year, though, I had never bought a true black lipstick. Black lips were a little too predictably goth, too Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way. A… Read More Wet n Wild Liquid Catsuit in Shady Witch (and a New Wave Halloween)
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Bite Beauty has almost finished releasing a series of twelve Amuse Bouche lipsticks inspired by the signs of the zodiac. Bite started with Aquarius in January, and they’re now two signs from the end, having just revealed Scorpio on Thursday. (If you’re curious about Sagittarius and Capricorn, Trendmood… Read More Astrology by Bite: A Rant
These cookies are my humble attempt to replicate the ones that used to be (and still are, for all I know) sold at the coffee shop in my college library. Here’s today’s iteration, perfected over the past four years: I’ve tweaked the recipe a bit since 2014, so I thought I’d post an update for… Read More Pumpkin-Walnut-Chocolate-Chip Cookies 2.0
I’m back, bearing makeup! For the first time in the 4.5-year history of Auxiliary Beauty, I went over a month without blogging. A lot happened in those six weeks: I moved to a new apartment with my boyfriend; finished my summer job at a university office and began an adjunct gig in Jersey City; got more… Read More Glosses of Autumn, Part 1: Bite Prismatic Pearl Gloss in Rose Pearl
Since I’m moving this month and need to limit both my spending and my accumulation of new crap, I’ve put myself on a replacement-only beauty no-buy until the end of August. It’s been pretty easy so far: I’ve been so consumed with other problems that I haven’t had much brain space for makeup. But since… Read More My Best No-Buy Tips
Despite the flood of new eyeshadow palettes in the past few years, I own just a few: Modern Renaissance, Naked2 Basics, a nine-pan custom theBalm palette, and a magnetic palette containing, among other things, slightly less than half (five shades) of a depotted theBalm Nude ‘Tude. The newest palette in my collection is Modern Renaissance,… Read More Anti-Haul: Mauve/Plum/Purple Eyeshadow Palettes
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