Greetings from Birmingham, Alabama! I’ve been here for a few days to see my boyfriend, who is visiting his parents. This means, of course, that I’ve also been to Ulta. The company has no outposts near where I live, and I have yet to see one in San Francisco, where my parents live, so what… Read More AB Goes to Birmingham (and Ulta)
Happy Independence Day! (I took that photo last year in Chapel Hill, NC. The South loves its fireworks.) Now that I’m writing a dissertation on Renaissance English literature, few people know about my past life as an obsessive American-history nerd. Around the age of sixteen, I decided that I wanted to be a professor of… Read More Independence Day FOTD + PSA for Polish Lovers
Namely, two nail lacquers–Clique, a chartreuse creme (£5) and Brazil, a rainbow glitter topcoat (£6)–and the new Chameleon Glow in Wax + Wane (£8). Are ampersands no longer cool, Topshop? First up is the Chameleon Glow, which Topshop describes as an “[a]mazing dual pigmented, multi-use powder; can be used as an eyeshadow or a facial… Read More Beauty Abroad, Part 8: A Taste of Topshop
Sorry for the infrequent posting recently! No sooner had I recovered from jet lag and returned from my conference in York than I was felled by a bad cold. It’s now been six days; the fever is long gone, but the hacking cough and general malaise remain. We went to Oxford yesterday, my first time… Read More Beauty Abroad, Part 2: Barry M Nail Paints in Sugar Apple and Shocking Pink
I rely on drugstore beauty brands for colors I feel ambivalent about, which means that I’ve amassed quite a few orange and warm red lipsticks from Revlon, Milani, and Maybelline. And, surprise, I’m still ambivalent about oranges and warm reds on my complexion. Is this because they really don’t suit me, or because I never… Read More Mandarin Lips and Mannequin Hands
Yeah, you try coming up with a synonym for “nail polish” that begins with “S.” Also, please note that this post contains way too many photos. After an especially brutal winter, spring toyed with us for weeks and weeks before settling in. Throughout March and early April, we suffered through alternating two-day periods of “hmm,… Read More Seven Splendid Spring Shellacs (Plus a Topcoat)
It’s hard to resist a $4 nail polish when you’re armed with a $4 CVS coupon. I’d been wanting a black-glitter topcoat for some time, and was drawn yesterday to Maybelline’s Street Art polishes, which feature matte colored glitter in addition to black: there’s a very pale pink, a neon pinky red, a yellow-green, and… Read More Review: Maybelline Nighttime Noise
Milani Showy Sea-Green nail polish, new this spring, is the Holy Roman Empire of polishes: neither showy nor sea-green. It is, however, extremely pretty. To me, “sea-green” implies something brighter and bluer; this is a muted, slightly dusty jade or pistachio green, a very unusual color for a nail polish. I can’t think of another… Read More Review: Milani Showy Sea-Green
I’ve been accused of owning a lot of nail polish. Those built-in shelves are the best part of my apartment. (The mice are the worst.) We often hear about the dangers of impulse buys and the benefits of looking at swatches and reviews before committing to a fancy bottle of nail polish. But the polishes… Read More Mini-Review: Essie Stylenomics
Name: Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Cherries in the Snow Date of Purchase: August 2011 Grade: A Notes: It’s snowing! I didn’t plan for this post to intersect with Winter Storm Janus, but isn’t it nice how that worked out? (Addendum, a month after writing the post: If I’d reposted it on blogspot yesterday, or… Read More Lipstick Chronology #6: Revlon Cherries in the Snow
Auxiliary Beauty 