Now that a new semester is in full swing, I thought it would be fun to do a roundup of my favorite lipsticks to wear while teaching. Here are the basic criteria I have for a Teaching Lipstick: not too bright—no fuchsias, flaming reds, or white-based candy pinks not too dark—no blackened browns or gothtastic… Read More My Favorite Teaching Lipsticks
(Apologies to Jenny Holzer, of course.) The stress of the job market has me feeling extra-acquisitive, as witness my latest impulse purchases: L-R: KBShimmer Open Toad Shoes, Zoya Fei Fei, Essie Leggy Legend, Milani Matte Fearless. But that’s not enough, oh no. I want still more, because when I’m trying to relax I tend to… Read More Protect Me from What I Want: Lipstick and Non-Lipstick Wishlists, Fall 2015
“Look, you stupid bastard, you’ve got no arms left!” If you frequent the company of middle-aged male professors who specialize in Renaissance history or literature, chances are good you’ll hear a lot of Monty Python references. A few years ago, after too much time spent laughing politely at allusions that went over my head, I… Read More Unholy Grails
Greetings from a cramped hotel room on Manhattan’s Upper West Side! This endearingly unhip neighborhood is special to me because of the time I spent in a history program at Columbia in the summer before my junior year of college. It was my first experience of New York as an adult (if nineteen counts), and… Read More A Journey Through Purge-atory, Part 2: Eyeshadows and One More Lipstick
Now that exactly half of 2015 is behind us, I thought it might be interesting to revisit the beauty resolutions I made at the end of last year and see how many I managed to keep in the last six months. I can’t actually remember all of them off the top of my head, which… Read More So, How About Those New Year’s Resolutions?
Just call me Virgil. To save some money in the coming school year, I’m moving at the end of the summer into a two-bedroom duplex apartment. As moves go, this one will be almost comically easy, since my new building is next door to my current one. But I’ll be sharing the apartment with a… Read More A Journey Through Purge-atory, Part 1: Lipsticks and Glosses
How’s that for a convoluted title? Anyway, I’m going to Toronto for the first time at the end of this week! I’ll be presenting at a conference and will be in the city for a mere 48 hours, so I won’t have much time for sightseeing (though I have a couple of meals planned with… Read More AB Goes to Toronto (What I’m Bringing + What Should I Do/Buy?)
(I typed “Spring 2013” at first, then spent a few seconds wondering why that didn’t look right.) Not quite five months since my last empties post, I’ve accumulated another small collection of used-up products: Herewith, some mini-reviews, in no particular order: CoverGirl LashBlast Length Mascara There’s a reason why I never write posts about mascara:… Read More Empties and Near-Empties, Spring 2015
I made my stage debut at the age of eight, in my elementary school’s production of The Phantom Tollbooth. I had two roles: the Spelling Bee (marred by a wardrobe malfunction: part of my headband fell off and I pouted for the rest of the scene) and the Senses Taker. For the second role, I… Read More Eight Beauty Products I Didn’t Buy in the Last Six Months
This March has felt about twice as long as a normal month, and it’s still not over. I can’t explain what made it seem so interminable. Maybe it was that we were teased repeatedly with the promise of spring, yet the vernal equinox nine days ago brought us this: Whatever the reason, this was a… Read More March Favorites (Beauty and Otherwise)
Auxiliary Beauty 