In my personal taxonomy, most makeup falls into one of four categories: 1) products that I collect actively (lipstick, eyeshadow, nail polish); 2) products that I own in limited numbers because I use them very slowly and/or don’t find them exciting (blush, highlighter, eyeliner); 3) products that I wear regularly but purchase only when I… Read More Gambles with Gloss: NYX Gingersnap and Revlon Rosy Future
Last month, NARS shocked many of its customers by announcing that it was expanding into China, whose government requires animal testing on all imported beauty products. Like most successful smaller beauty brands, NARS is already owned by a larger, non-CF brand (Shiseido, in NARS’ case), but it has not allowed such testing on its own… Read More Some Thoughts on NARS and "Cruelty-Free" Beauty
Glossier keeps coming up with new marketing strategies to put me off and new products to tempt me back in. No sooner had I planned a post on Glossier’s MLM-esque rep program than they released a fucking birthday-cake-scented lip balm with sparkles and holographic packaging. I have a price, and Glossier knows it. So this… Read More Glossier Birthday Balm Dotcom (Plus Another Rant)
I’m back with some makeup and some thoughts! New Makeup: L-R: Whirl, Metal Head, Men Love Mystery, Puff, Otherworldly. Swatches, same order. Glossier Cloud Paint in Puff: $14.40 (20% off) MAC Matte Lipstick in Men Love Mystery: $15 (15% off, plus tax) MAC Metallic Lipstick in Metal Head: purchased with Nordstrom store credit (usually $18)… Read More Low-Buy 2017 Progress Report: March
Earlier today, while scrolling through Facebook and minding my own business (well, other people’s business, if we’re getting technical), I came upon this Ulta ad: Okay. Okay. LET’S UNPACK THIS, as we say in the lit-crit biz. In one sense, this is your typical “#yolo buy all the things” message. I received a similar message… Read More Your Daily Memento Mori, Courtesy of Ulta
Yesterday I came across a very insightful post on r/MakeupRehab, titled “A thought on the fakeness of Instagram…” It’s a long post, so I won’t quote it in full, but the writer argues that successful Instagrammers like her sister, women whose posts feature them “in trendy places in even trendier outfits,” perpetuate an internalized misogyny… Read More On the “Fakeness” of Social Media
I returned last night from the academic job conference and felt so drained today that I didn’t leave the house once, which almost never happens unless I’m sick. (Today’s high temperature was about 12°F, too. That was definitely a factor in my laziness.) Now that I have some more time, I’m looking forward to writing… Read More 2017 Low-Buy Plan and Beauty Resolutions
The annual Academic Job Conference of Doom fast approaches (this is my second year preparing for it), and yesterday I had a dress-rehearsal practice interview with my advisor and another professor. This gave me an opportunity to test my interview makeup as well as my answers to questions like “But Machiavelli and Polydore Vergil are… Read More FOTD: Game Face
Earlier this year, I attended a department dinner in honor of a visiting speaker. One professor decided that the best topic on which to engage the graduate students near him was opera. He held forth about the various operas he’d seen recently in New York, and it turned out that quite a few of my… Read More Marc Jacobs Rei of Light and Bonus Super-Fun Class Anxiety
…oh, and two eyeshadows, but who cares about those? I took a lipstick inventory six months ago and got rid of six products. But that didn’t come close to eliminating all the lip colors I no longer wore, and I returned from my travels last month with a clearer sense of what I could trust… Read More I Destashed 15 Lipsticks
Auxiliary Beauty 