I’m back! Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post: your kind words were much appreciated. I did what I needed to get done, and now I’m excited to return to blogging. I’ve missed it a lot! Missed it so much, in fact, that I kept a photographic record of all the makeup… Read More F(all)OTDs: An October Makeup Diary
Long time no blog! We reached Los Angeles yesterday evening, after a two-day drive down the Pacific Coast Highway. On the first (and more scenic) day, we covered the PCH from San Francisco to San Luis Obispo. The drive included lots of opportunities to pose for windswept photos on sand dunes: And a breathtaking “historic”… Read More The Pacific Coast Highway and an Antidote to SoCal Dryness: Sephora Rose Mask!
For a long time now, I’ve thought of myself as someone who takes risks with beauty. I know relatively few people who wear color makeup regularly, and even fewer who wear unconventional colors regularly. When you’re the only one in your group of friends who owns multiple purple lip colors, you start to feel smug… Read More Good Taste, Bad Taste, and the Fear of “Too Much”
Greetings from Birmingham, Alabama! I’ve been here for a few days to see my boyfriend, who is visiting his parents. This means, of course, that I’ve also been to Ulta. The company has no outposts near where I live, and I have yet to see one in San Francisco, where my parents live, so what… Read More AB Goes to Birmingham (and Ulta)
Happy Independence Day! (I took that photo last year in Chapel Hill, NC. The South loves its fireworks.) Now that I’m writing a dissertation on Renaissance English literature, few people know about my past life as an obsessive American-history nerd. Around the age of sixteen, I decided that I wanted to be a professor of… Read More Independence Day FOTD + PSA for Polish Lovers
I can’t believe how quickly these five weeks have passed, but today was my last full day in the UK. Though I still have several new products to review on the blog for my Beauty Abroad series, I thought I’d use this post for a brief roundup of all the makeup I’ve bought here. First,… Read More Beauty Abroad, Part 6: The Reckoning
Apologies for both my Beirut allusion and my ten-day absence from this blog. I was writing my second conference paper of the month, and then I was in Venice, drinking Campari and soda. I’ll probably never like Campari, even if I drink it while sitting in a Venetian campo watching little Italian boys kick a… Read More Postcards from Italy
I came early to my calling (pedantry). In that spirit, I’m joining with another doctoral student, Sylirael of The Painted Rogue, for a collaboration post on makeup in graduate school! (Or, I suppose, a pair of collaboration posts: this is mine, and you can find hers here.) Despite our disciplinary divide–I’m in the humanities, she’s… Read More The Character of a Painted Woman: Makeup in Graduate School
This month I took an important step toward beauty-blogging legitimacy and bought my first NARS eyeshadow duo: Habanera, an unexpected pairing of mint and plum. I wouldn’t mind that pairing in a cocktail, either; I’m sure I could find artisanal plum bitters somewhere in Brooklyn. Habanera is part of the NARS permanent collection. Its name… Read More Review (and Cocktail Idea): NARS Duo Eyeshadow in Habanera
Name: Revlon Colorburst Lip Gloss in Fire Date Purchased: Fall 2012 Grade: A- Notes: If you’re my friend for any length of time, you’ll eventually have to watch one of three films: The Draughtsman’s Contract, Revengers Tragedy, or Velvet Goldmine. If I really like you, I might make you watch all three. And since I’ve… Read More Lipstick Chronology #17: Revlon Fire (and a Tribute to Velvet Goldmine)
Auxiliary Beauty 