Since my last post, I’ve crossed a few thresholds: the autumnal equinox, my 30th birthday, and my dissertation deadline. (For the record, 30 feels exactly like 29, and I was so busy in the weeks leading up to my birthday that I didn’t even have time to freak out over becoming an Old.) Now that… Read More Lipstick Project Pan Update #1
After three and a half years (!) of beauty blogging, I’ve learned which panning projects work for me and which are guaranteed to fail. I can usually push myself to finish a piece of makeup if three conditions apply: It’s a cream product (usually a lipstick) I like it enough that I’ve already used up… Read More Lipstick Project Pan, Fall 2017
I don’t know about you, but I find it much easier to destash makeup when I’m in a foul mood. The angrier I feel at the world, the more readily I can accept that a certain lipstick will never work for me and doesn’t deserve a place on my shelf. In that spirit, I’m removing… Read More First Lipstick Inventory and Destash of 2017
I returned last night from the academic job conference and felt so drained today that I didn’t leave the house once, which almost never happens unless I’m sick. (Today’s high temperature was about 12°F, too. That was definitely a factor in my laziness.) Now that I have some more time, I’m looking forward to writing… Read More 2017 Low-Buy Plan and Beauty Resolutions
(Not a panning project focused on minis: that would be a “mini-panning project.” But now I want to do a “mini mini-panning project”…) Despite my enjoyment of other bloggers’ empties posts, I have a strange aversion to finishing my own lipsticks. I’ll use a lipstick until there are just a few millimeters of product left,… Read More Mini Panning Project
…oh, and two eyeshadows, but who cares about those? I took a lipstick inventory six months ago and got rid of six products. But that didn’t come close to eliminating all the lip colors I no longer wore, and I returned from my travels last month with a clearer sense of what I could trust… Read More I Destashed 15 Lipsticks
Packing makeup for a month away isn’t an exercise in minimalism unless you choose to make it one, which (surprise) I didn’t. But I did have to limit myself somewhat in what I brought to the UK, so perhaps my not-quite-capsule collection will be of interest to others. I’m proud to report that my entire… Read More What I Brought for a Month in England
I went to Boston for a Renaissance-studies conference on Wednesday and just got home last night, so my monthly roundup post is a bit late. I was born in Boston and lived there until I was almost eight, and I’ve returned periodically since then, but the city still feels foreign—the more foreign for being slightly… Read More Low-Buy Progress Report #3: March
Wow, it feels like it’s been forever since I last posted here. And indeed it has been forever—well, 11 days in Earth time, but forever in blog time. March has been a trying month so far, due to various academic stuff that I won’t get into here because this is a beauty blog and not… Read More The Great Lipstick Inventory of 2016
Welcome to my second low-buy progress report for 2016! I used up a few things this month and needed to buy replacements, but I did a much better job of staying under my $40 limit for brand-new items. Oh, and I’ve added two new categories to this series of posts. In addition to chronicling my… Read More Low-Buy Progress Report #2: February
Auxiliary Beauty 