We’re halfway through January, and that means it’s well past time to round up my top dozen new products of last year! I resolved to buy 40 or fewer new pieces of makeup and nail polish in 2022, but I ended the year at 47, one more than the previous year. Though I never felt… Read More My 12 Favorite Beauty Purchases of 2022
I’ve never taken much interest in holiday sets from beauty brands. They tend to feature excessive, tacky packaging, overpriced merch, and/or “universally flattering” makeup shades that I either already own or know I don’t want. Glossier’s Gold Kit, released in 2020, is a perfect example: $75 (seriously) for a gold-plated brass initial necklace and a… Read More Quick Review: Glossier Eye Stars Kit
Note: I purchased this product with store credit from my Glossier referral link. Thank you to everyone who has clicked on my link and helped me buy more products to review! Let’s talk about bronzer! For many years, I didn’t understand the point of bronzer, at least for me. My reasoning went like this: “From… Read More A Bronzer for Novices: Glossier Solar Paint in Flare
(Both Rs are silent, you plebe!) In recent months, there has been much chatter about the future—and the present—of Glossier. In January of this year, the brand laid off eighty employees, spawning a swarm of articles with titles like “What Went Wrong at Glossier?,” “How Glossier Lost Its Grip,” and “Glossier’s Fall by the Numbers.”… Read More Whither Glossier?
Throughout my life, I’ve found that odd-numbered years bring me more change than even-numbered ones, and 2021 was no exception to that rule, for both better and worse. However, one aspect of my life remained the same: I bought a lot of new beauty items, especially makeup. In fact, I bought more new items in… Read More My 12 Favorite Beauty Purchases of 2021
Note: I purchased this product with store credit from my Glossier referral link. Thank you to everyone who has ordered through my link and enabled me to test and review more products! I’m taking a break from my masked-lipstick series to review a new release that has received a fair amount of buzz in the… Read More Glossier Monochromes Eyeshadow Palette in Heather
Lidstar liquid eyeshadow seems to be one of Glossier’s most divisive products. Personally, I’m a Lidstar loyalist, and I wear my Lidstars especially often in the summer. A sheer, shimmery, sweat-and-humidity-proof wash of color is my ideal eyeshadow look, and that’s exactly what Lidstar provides. But the original Lidstar shade lineup, released in early 2018… Read More Glossier Lidstar in Branch and Bun
After releasing Skywash liquid eyeshadow in early 2020, Glossier went pretty quiet for about a year. The only products it debuted during the remainder of 2020 were a new flavor of Balm Dotcom, two new shades of Cloud Paint, and some highly questionable merch, including a $75 set containing a lip gloss and a gold-plated… Read More Glossier Ultralip in Ember and Trench
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
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
Auxiliary Beauty 