Yes, I know it’s Tuesday (Wednesday, in some time zones), but I wore this makeup yesterday. Deal with it. Last week, Pantone revealed its color of the year for 2015: Marsala, a soft plummy brown. Pantone’s color of the year is supposed to predict trends in fashion, makeup, and interior design, though these days it… Read More FOTD: Marsala Monday
In the last year, I’ve become obsessed with an aesthetic that I like to call “Edwardian cyborg”: futuristic sleekness coupled with windswept Gibson-girl glamour. This is the image that started it all: You’ve already seen this photo in an earlier post, wherein I experimented with theBalm’s Nude ‘Tude palette. “Edwardian cyborg” was the name… Read More FOTD: Toward an Ethnography of the Edwardian Cyborg
I’ve been particularly short on funds this month, hence the plethora of tl;dr meditative posts and the absence of product reviews. Luckily, I just received my latest stipend check, so I’m planning to do a bit of damage during the High Holy Days of consumerism. (Only online: I can’t stand the crush of people at… Read More Before Black Friday, There’s Wishlist Tuesday
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
We makeup fiends are a fickle bunch, hailing a product as a holy grail one week and forgetting about it the next. I slip in and out of lipstick infatuations as regularly as I once slipped in and out of professor crushes, but at least professor crushes are free. Lipstick is not, and right now,… Read More Project Make-a-Dent: Autumnal Lipstick Edition
I’m back! Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post: your kind words were much appreciated. I did what I needed to get done, and now I’m excited to return to blogging. I’ve missed it a lot! Missed it so much, in fact, that I kept a photographic record of all the makeup… Read More F(all)OTDs: An October Makeup Diary
It feels like I’ve been waiting forever to post these reviews. When Ulta had a 40%-off sale on NYX and Revlon two weeks ago, I seized the chance to order a few things I’d been wanting for a while. (I came in $.77 over the $25 free-shipping minimum, which made me inordinately proud.) My order… Read More Ulta Sale Haul: NYX and Revlon Swatches, Reviews, and FOTDs
Convicted, rather, of truly painful punning. Sometimes I just can’t help it. Welcome to my very first purge post! It will probably also be my last in a while, since it saddens me so much to throw anything out. I’m both a sentimental hoarder and an incorrigible cheapskate–a deadly combination where makeup collecting is concerned.… Read More Convicted of Purgery
If you’ve watched as many geisha documentaries as I have (she said, too casually), you’ll be familiar with the clichéd close-up shot of a geisha or maiko (apprentice geisha) painting her white-powdered lips with a brush dipped in rouge. The inevitability of this shot, in both Japanese and foreign documentaries, makes me roll my eyes… Read More Goldilocks and the Three Lip Brushes
It’s Christmas in August! By which I mean, it’s been so gray and gloomy in San Francisco that wearing gold eyeliner and brick-red matte lipstick–together, even–seems perfectly appropriate in early August. These are both recent purchases: I bought the eyeliner at a CVS in New York and the lipstick at an Ulta in Birmingham. I… Read More NYX for Eyes and Lips: Slide On Pencil in Glitzy Gold and Matte Lipstick in Alabama
Auxiliary Beauty 