Product: Bite Beauty Crystal Crème Shimmer Lip Crayon in Molten Chocolate Date Purchased: April 2020 Grade: A- Can someone tell me what the hell happened to Bite Beauty? For close to a decade, everyone knew them as the brand that produced food-grade, food-themed lip products. Then it was like we collectively glanced away for a… Read More 2020 Lipstick Chronology #5: Bite Beauty Molten Chocolate
Product: Urban Decay Wired Vice Lip Chemistry Lasting Glassy Tint in X-Ray Date Purchased: Mar. 1, 2020 Grade: B Let’s take a time machine back to the United States on the first day of March in the year 2020. After a shaky start to his primary campaign, Joe Biden has just emerged as the presumptive… Read More 2020 Lipstick Chronology #4: Urban Decay Lip Chemistry Tint in X-Ray
In December 2017, I celebrated passing my dissertation defense by ordering Pat McGrath Labs’ LuxeTrance lipstick in Madame Greige, which remains one of my all-time favorite lipsticks. For the next two and a half years, though, I didn’t pay much attention to the brand. Its price point was just too high for me, and its… Read More Pat McGrath Labs Lip Fetish Balm in Noir
In the past five years or so, I’ve owned at least one dark lipstick in almost every color family: red, purple, pink, plum, brown, even blue and gray. Until this year, though, I had never bought a true black lipstick. Black lips were a little too predictably goth, too Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way. A… Read More Wet n Wild Liquid Catsuit in Shady Witch (and a New Wave Halloween)
Lipstick Queen is a brand that confuses the hell out of me. When I first heard of it, about five years ago, I got the sense that it specialized in high-quality, beautifully packaged, somewhat overpriced renditions of traditional lipstick shades. Despite reading favorable reviews online, I found the shade range uninspiring and the price point… Read More Lipstick Queen Black Lace Rabbit: Just Another Gimmick?
My tastes in makeup have shifted recently. I’ve noticed myself gravitating toward different colors, textures, and undertones, and caring less about “seasonal” makeup. Spring was so cold and dreary this year that I didn’t feel like making my usual switch to coral and pink tones. But even now, with the hot, swampy Mid-Atlantic summer in… Read More FOTD: #SummerGoth
Yesterday looked like this… (yes, I wore Cherries in the Snow in the snow) …so I think it’s a good time for another winter story: Like many girls, I grew up reading Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series. One of the most memorable chapters in the first book, “Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves,”… Read More AB Insists on Antique Velvet
Prior to this year, I felt ambivalent about Milani. It was the only cruelty-free brand with a decent selection in my local CVS (no NYX or Wet n Wild for this backwater), but its offerings included heavily fragranced, drying lipstick, sticky lip gloss, coarsely milled eyeshadow, and too-shimmery baked blush. 2015 has changed all that. I… Read More Stress-Fueled Impulse Purchase #2: Milani Matte Fearless
As a preteen and young teenager, I had a brief flirtation with witchcraft. There was something in the air at the time: The Craft had come out several years before, the Harry Potter series was gaining worldwide popularity, and bookstores were full of titles like Spells for Teenage Witches. Growing up in San Francisco made… Read More In Search of Lost Witchcraft: NYX Simply Vamp Lip Cream in Enamored
By ordering Eugenie, a matte plum lipstick from the six-piece MAC x Giambattista Valli collection, I broke four of my cardinal makeup-buying rules: No limited-edition makeup, and especially no limited-edition products from MAC No makeup that I haven’t seen in person first No makeup that isn’t certified cruelty-free No near-dupes of anything I already have… Read More I Have a Plum Problem: MAC x Giambattista Valli Eugenie
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