(Apologies to a show I’ve never actually watched. I’m told that I should!) I’ve noted before that the average British woman seems to get more excited about makeup than the average American woman does. I stand by my original conclusion: “In my experience, Americans pay more attention to the overall effect of their makeup, while… Read More Beauty Abroad, Part 17: The Great British Swatch-Off
I didn’t learn to swim until my first year of college and still can’t traverse more than two lengths of a pool without having to rest. Strictly speaking, I’m the last person who should be laying claim to sea witchery of any kind. But that’s the great thing about makeup: it allows us to put… Read More Sea Witchery with NYX Liquid Suede in Stone Fox
The NYX Liquid Suede lipsticks didn’t spark my interest when they first came out last year. So many NYX products have disappointed me that I tend to approach the brand with skepticism, and the Liquid Suede line seemed like a hasty attempt to capitalize on the liquid-matte trend of 2015. And since NYX had been… Read More NYX Liquid Suede in Amethyst
I kept reasonably good tabs on new makeup releases last fall (self-destructively good tabs, even), but there were a few that escaped my notice. One new development was the addition of four shades to Revlon’s line of Colorburst Matte Balms. The new colors are Enchanting, a pinkish beige; Fierce, a warm cinnamon brown; Fiery, a… Read More Revlon Matte Balm in Fierce
Last summer, while working in the university archives, I wrote a post about some treasures I’d unearthed from the “archives” of my own makeup collection. In the spirit of my 2016 low-buy, I’ve decided to turn “From the Archives” into an ongoing, if not regular, series. Let’s get better acquainted with a product I wrote… Read More From the Archives: Maybelline Color Tattoo in Pomegranate Punk
Despite my no-buy, I’ve managed to acquire a new lipstick. My boyfriend teaches in the UK and asked me if I wanted him to bring me anything when he came to visit this month. He was actually the one who suggested that he might surprise me with some makeup from Topshop, and who was I… Read More Topshop Mini Lip Bullet Pyramid in Motel
2015 will certainly go down in makeup history as the year of the brown lipstick. Dark gothy brown, ’90s-style midtone warm brown, muddy red, and the strangest brown of all: a cool-toned gray-brown, often with a hint of purple. I don’t know why undead lips have become so wildly popular this year, but they’ve been… Read More Stress-Fueled Impulse Purchase #3: Topshop Matte Lipstick in Boardroom
Prior to this year, I felt ambivalent about Milani. It was the only cruelty-free brand with a decent selection in my local CVS (no NYX or Wet n Wild for this backwater), but its offerings included heavily fragranced, drying lipstick, sticky lip gloss, coarsely milled eyeshadow, and too-shimmery baked blush. 2015 has changed all that. I… Read More Stress-Fueled Impulse Purchase #2: Milani Matte Fearless
Guys, I miss beauty blogging. I miss it so much that in the week since I announced my semi-hiatus, I’ve worked on four different draft posts. I’ll open an empty post, add a title, write a few sentences just to give myself the feeling of blogging, then save the post to my draft folder and… Read More Stress-Fueled Impulse Purchase #1: Essie Leggy Legend
What were the odds that I’d review two lipsticks named “Crush” in three days? Pretty good, actually, since drugstore beauty brands love to name their lip products “Crush.” There doesn’t seem to be any color theme linking them together, either. Milani’s Amore Matte Lip Creme in Crush is dark brown; Maybelline’s Coral Crush lipstick is,… Read More Now for a Crush Worth Crushing On: Revlon Balm Stain in…You Guessed It
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