Name: NYX Round Lipstick in Perfect Date Purchased: August 2013 Grade: B Notes: The blunt self-congratulation of the name “Perfect” makes me want to start a line of self-deprecating lipsticks: “Good Enough.” “Decent Pigmentation for the Price.” “Let’s Be Real, This Is a Half-Assed Knockoff of a MAC Limited Edition Lipstick.” A name like “Perfect”… Read More Lipstick Chronology #29: NYX Perfect
Name: NARS Sheer Lipstick in Dolce Vita Date Purchased: Spring 2013 (and again on Monday!) Grade: A Notes: I did it! I repurchased NARS Dolce Vita after a few months spent trying to preserve the tiny nub that remained of my first tube. I have a weird psychological hangup about repurchasing makeup. A second tube… Read More Lipstick Chronology #24: NARS Dolce Vita
“His life was a constant war with insensate objects that fell apart, or attacked him, or refused to function, or viciously got themselves lost as soon as they entered the sphere of his existence.” This is Vladimir Nabokov’s description of Professor Timofey Pnin, the hapless protagonist of Pnin (1957), but it is also a perfect… Read More Noteworthy Neutrals: Revlon Sultry Matte Balm and Pink Truffle Lip Butter
Name: Laura Mercier Sheer Lipstick in Bare Lips Date of Purchase: Late 2011 Grade: B+ Notes: Bare Lips was my first high-end beauty purchase, and my first purchase—though, sadly for my grad-student wallet, not my last—from the Bluemercury a few blocks from campus. Unfortunately for poor Bare Lips, it’s become linked in my mind with… Read More Lipstick Chronology #8: Laura Mercier Bare Lips
Name: MAC Lustre Lipstick in Capricious Date of Purchase: August 2011 Grade: B Notes: Capricious was my very first non-drugstore lipstick, purchased from the MAC counter at the Nordstrom near my old high school in San Francisco. (How’s that for a panoply of prepositional phrases?) Capricious has a lustre finish, which means that it’s glossy… Read More Lipstick Chronology #7: MAC Capricious
Name: Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Mauvy Night Date of Purchase: June 2011 Grade: A- Notes: I promise that this tumblr will stop being a Revlon blog very soon; I just bought a lot of Revlon lipsticks in my early days of makeup collecting. No regrets, though. Drugstore lipsticks are great for figuring out what colors… Read More Lipstick Chronology #3: Revlon Mauvy Night
Auxiliary Beauty 