Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

I seriously restricted my beauty spending in March; my only new acquisitions were a Milani liquid lipstick and nail polish (the latter of which set me back a mere $.55); an assortment of NYX products , three of which I'm going to return; and a replacement travel bottle of my favorite moisturizer , from First Aid Beauty. I even went to the FACE Stockholm store in New York and swatched their renowned cream blushes and didn't come home with a single one. I have, at least by my standards, been very, very good. But I do have a wishlist. Of course I do. 1. A peach or coral cream blush. I own only three blushes, all of them powder, and the two I wear regularly are both cool pinks from NARS: Mata Hari and Coeur Battant. In fact, I've worn Mata Hari almost every day since I bought it in February 2013. I always assumed that warm-toned blushes wouldn't suit me, but beauty blogging has made me realize that I might not be the cool-toned ice princess I thought I was. I'm pretty...

After the earlier, sadder installment of my NYX review, let's have a family portrait of the purchases I actually like. Left to right: Jumbo Eye Pencil in Knight; Slide On Eye Pencil in Jewel; HD Eye Shadow Base; Butter Glosses in Raspberry Tart and Peach Cobbler. First, the two eyeliners, Knight and Jewel. Left, in indirect natural light; right, in direct artificial light from my desk lamp. Knight is absolutely crammed with glitter; Jewel is a bit more tasteful, though if you're buying glitter eyeliners you're probably not too concerned about good taste. NYX's Jumbo Eye Pencils can be used as eyeliners or eyeshadow sticks, though I find they work better as the latter. They have a soft formula that isn't conducive to sharp, precise lines, but if you like smudgy imprecision as much as I do, you'll enjoy these. The pencils look like they're made of white plastic, so I assumed they would have a twist-up mechanism, but they're actually coated wood and ...

Internet has been restored to my apartment, light to my darkness, warmth to my frostbitten soul. No, forget that last one; it's still below freezing in late March. But I do have a wireless connection again, and that means swatches and reviews. First, though, a rant. I ordered from NYX's website, which promises that "orders received on Friday, Saturday and Sunday will be processed on the following Monday and shipped by the following Wednesday." I placed my order on Sunday. Wednesday rolled around, then Thursday, then Friday, and I had yet to hear anything from NYX. On Friday afternoon I called the customer-service number and was told that my order hadn't been shipped because one of the items had needed to be restocked. The man I spoke to was nice enough to upgrade my shipping to FedEx ground shipping instead of USPS, but my package didn't arrive for another five days, which made me wonder how long the regular shipping would have taken. Also, I find it odd that...

I hate the word "haul." Hate with a passion. And yet: Yesterday my long-awaited NYX package arrived: two Butter Glosses, two eyeliners, three eyeshadow singles, and an eyeshadow primer. I'm writing this from the train to Washington, so reviews will have to wait a few days, but I can give you some spoilers: I'm very impressed with the glosses, the liners, and the primer, but the eyeshadows might be the worst I've ever tried. Why so hit-and-miss, NYX? For that matter, what's with your byzantine "simple and easy" return policy? ("Call 1.866.NYX.1004 and ask for internet returns and exchanges. Give them your order number and reason for return or exchange. Mail package with return/exchange items inside along with a completed return/exchange form...Please allow up to 3 weeks from the time you call until the time you receive your refund on your exchange.") I suspect this is all meant to discourage me from pursuing my wasted $13.50, ...

Name: Revlon Colorburst Lip Gloss in Fire Date Purchased: Fall 2012 Grade: A- Notes: If you're my friend for any length of time, you'll eventually have to watch one of three films: The Draughtsman's Contract , Revengers Tragedy , or Velvet Goldmine . If I really like you, I might make you watch all three. And since I've had this blog for nearly three months now, the time has come to blather about them to you. Aren't you lucky.   The Draughtsman's Contract (Peter Greenaway, 1982) takes place in an English country house in 1694. Revengers Tragedy (Alex Cox, 2003) is an adaptation of my favorite Jacobean revenge tragedy , set in a post-apocalyptic Liverpool governed by crime lords. Velvet Goldmine (Todd Haynes, 1998) is a non-linear fantasia straddling glam-rock London and gloomy '80s New York. Surprisingly, the three films have a lot in common. Each has a small cast of characters. Each presents an ornate dystopian world that never quite enters the realm of ca...

Name: YSL Rouge Pur Couture #8 (Belle de Rose) Date of Purchase: Fall 2012 Grade: A Notes: Of all the YSL lip colors in existence, Belle de Rose must be one of the least swatched and blogged about, despite its starring role in this Lisa Eldridge video . I suspect that YSL's flurry of new releases--Rouge Volupt é , Rouge Volupt é Shine, Glossy Stains, Gloss Volupt é --have distracted consumers from the original Rouge Pur Couture lipstick line. In fact, I forget how I first heard about Belle de Rose, though I remember that I'd been looking for a dark fuchsia lip color for a while. When I came across the one or two online swatches of Belle de Rose, my mind was made up. I promised myself that I'd order it as a reward for passing my general exam, but it somehow became a pre-generals reward instead. (It wasn’t just generals that induced me to buy Belle de Rose. It was also that the name evoked my livejournal handle of yesteryear: “belledezuylen,” after James Boswell’s literary...

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 polish in this particular shade of green, though SSG does seem to resemble Burberry's new Sage Green polish . The Burberry is darker, but it shares that slight dustiness. SSG is not mint, either. Come spring, every brand seems to put out a mint-green or turquoise polish, but I've placed Showy Sea-Green next to a conventional mint color (Urban Outfitters Smush) to show you just how un-minty it really is: See? Less white, less blue. This must be the reason that SSG, unlike most pale-green polishes, doesn't quite (the devil's in that "quite") give me the gruesome lobster-hands effect. Mint polishes tend to pull out the red...

Name: Revlon Colorburst Lip Gloss in Bordeaux Date Purchased: September 2012 Grade: A Notes: I've been having a major lipgloss moment. This winter has been unusually long and cold (15 ° -25 ° F below average on most days), and my lips, chronically dry to begin with, have not been happy. They'll be fine for a day or two, then start bleeding at random. I've tried everything: Chapstick, Carmex, every "hydrating" lipstick formula on the market, coconut oil, a scrub of olive oil and sugar (NB: do not use a lip scrub on severely chapped lips; pain and blood will be the result). In the generations-old feud between lipstick and lipgloss, as longstanding and bloody as the cake-pie war, I'm firmly in the lipstick camp. (And the cake camp, for the record.) These two households are not alike in dignity; one is more shimmery, more sticky, more beloved of teenyboppers, than the other. But winter has forced me to betray my kind, and the gloss I've been enjoying most in ...

Names: Maybelline Color Sensational Lipstick in Make Me Pink; Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Primrose; MAC Cremesheen Lipstick in Creme Cup Date of Purchase: Spring-Summer 2012 Grades: A-, A, A- Notes: Auxiliary Beauty lives, barely. I suspect that I surrendered my beauty-blogger credentials this past week, while scrambling to finish a fellowship application that was due last night at midnight. The week passed in a haze of sleep deprivation, unremitting anxiety, and deplorable nutrition choices. The weather was brutally cold. I didn't exercise, I picked at my skin in moments of exceptional stress, and there were nights when I forgot to moisturize . Yesterday I submitted my application at 11:40 pm (which may explain why I listed my gender as "male"); this morning I woke up with what seems to be a mild cold. I can't remember the last time I felt so unbeautiful. And, of course, the time has come to review three lipsticks in one of my least flattering colors: pale nud...