I’m back with some good lipstick and some even better tidings. First, the tidings: I’m employed again! I’ll be moving back east next week to teach English at a boarding school in New England. No fewer than four people have reacted to the news with some version of “That will be great novel fodder,” so… Read More MAC Matte Lipstick in Forget-Me-Naughty
Before I start my review, let me welcome you to the new home of Auxiliary Beauty! After years of swearing to migrate my post archive from Blogger to WordPress and purchase my own domain, I’ve finally followed through, and I’ll be making my old blog private in a week or two. Please bear with me… Read More ColourPop Lilac You a Lot Palette
For the past few years, I’ve been performing two beauty-related rites of spring. The first rite involves destashing a bunch of lipsticks (more on that soon). The second rite consists of searching for a pinky-red coral lipstick and a lavender blush. Those searches usually end in failure, though for different reasons. There are thousands of… Read More ColourPop Spring 2018 Butterfly Collection, Part 1: Face Duo in Winging It
(Settle in. This will be a long post.) First, some personal news: I defended my doctoral dissertation earlier this month and now have a Ph.D. in English! At my university, the dissertation defense (our official term, hilariously, is “Final Public Oral”) is a pretty lowkey affair. It consists of a 30-minute presentation and another 30… Read More Pat McGrath Labs LuxeTrance Lipstick in Madame Greige
This is, what, the third purple lip color I’ve reviewed in the last month? Oh, well. I don’t think it’s possible to be a lipstick-loving k-pop fan without developing a curiosity about Korean lip tints. I’d had my eye out for a tint since last year, but most of the tints available in the US… Read More Too Cool for School Milk Tint in Milky Lavender
I own between fifty-five and sixty lipsticks, more than a few of them purple. It’s rare that a mainstream brand releases a lipstick unlike any I own, and even rarer that a mainstream brand releases a purple unlike any I own (yes, I’m using a lipstick junkie’s definition of “unlike,” but still). So when Bite… Read More Bite Beauty Amuse Bouche Lipstick in Lavender Jam
Early this month, just after returning from England, I started my summer job in the university archives. These archives house documents related to the history of the university, over a century’s worth of senior theses, and the lifelong correspondence of some prominent alumni. My job for the summer is to reprocess the papers of one… Read More FOTDs: From the Archives
…or, How AB Flouted the Resolutions She Made Just Five Days Ago. In my defense, I got this lipstick at the end of December. (Nor did I spend my own money: my mom bought it for me, if you must know.) But I had already planned out my resolutions for 2015, and one could argue,… Read More Maybelline Color Sensational Rebel Bloom Lipstick in Lilac Flush
Few things can induce me to brave midtown Manhattan on a Monday afternoon, but lavender blush is one of them. Tony Moly is a Korean drugstore brand that has recently made inroads into the American market, most notably through Urban Outfitters, which sells a surprising number of Tony Moly products online. Over the summer, the… Read More Spacegirl Incognito: Tony Moly Cristal Blusher #04 Milky Violet and Broccoli Sheet Mask
Or, more properly: Kiko Long Lasting Stick Eyeshadow in 16 (£6.90) and Infinity Eyeshadows in 270 and 251 (£5.90 each). The fact that the number 251 is attached to lavender is playing havoc with my synesthesia, but 6 is purple and 7 is green in my mental bouquet of numbers, so 16 and 270 are… Read More Beauty Abroad, Part 5: Intro to Kiko (Eyeshadow Swatches and First Impressions)
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