Happy Lunar New Year! January 22 marked the start of the Year of the Rabbit, which happens to be my own zodiac animal. (Yes, that means I’m nine months away from turning thirty-six, the age at which I’ve always assumed I’ll have all my shit figured out, though that seems increasingly unlikely.) I realize that… Read More MAC Retro Matte Lipstick in Ruby Woo: The Ultimate Red?
I’m now two months into the fall semester, which has been an especially busy one. My mantra for this year is “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” and that extends to makeup. (Ironically, it doesn’t extend to this post, which I’ve been tweaking for over a month now.) I’ve had to perfect a… Read More My Five-Minute Teaching Face, Fall 2022
Gucci Rouge à Lèvres Mat in 702 Anne Lilac, to be precise. LOOK AT HER. I don’t even have to write anything (but you know I will). Until this month, the most I’d ever spent on a lipstick was $38, for Pat McGrath Madame Greige at the end of 2017. Madame Greige was my reward… Read More I Bought a Gucci Lipstick!
It’s finally happened. Makeup from the era when I got into makeup, the early 2010s, has entered the “nostalgic” category in the popular imagination. Makeup ads and editorial looks from the 2009-2013 years have started showing up on my favorite beauty-of-yesteryear Instagram accounts. I mean, it makes sense: who among us wouldn’t rather be living… Read More The More Things Change, the More They Stay 2012: Revlon Super Lustrous Lipsticks in Pink Promise and Smoky Rose
Well, it’s been an eventful two months since I last posted. My partner and I took a wonderful trip to LA over spring break; then I returned to school, enjoyed a week and a half of maskless teaching, noticed that COVID cases were rising in the area, and decided to start masking again. I managed… Read More I’m Still Alive (and So Is This Blog)
This is the second post in a series of three. In each post, I’ll wear a supposedly indelible liquid lipstick throughout a day of teaching and track its performance under a New York Times-approved double mask: a surgical mask, ear loops tightened and ends tucked in, with a cloth mask on top. Check out the first post… Read More In Search of Maskproof Lipstick, Part 2: Maybelline SuperStay Matte Ink in Cocoa Connoisseur
This is the first post in a series of three. In each post, I’ll wear a supposedly indelible liquid lipstick throughout a day of teaching and track its performance under a New York Times-approved double mask: a surgical mask, ear loops tightened and ends tucked in, with a cloth mask on top. The second post… Read More In Search of Maskproof Lipstick, Part 1: YSL Tatouage Couture in Crimson Rivals
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
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
A perennial—possibly too perennial—topic on r/muacjdiscussion is that of the “white whale”: the product or collection that you missed out on and will forever pine after. My white whale is unquestionably MAC’s Give Me Liberty of London collection from spring 2010, released less than a year before I got seriously into makeup. It might as… Read More Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Dramatic
Auxiliary Beauty 