Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

This is, what, the third purple lip color I've reviewed in the last month? Oh, well. I don't think it's possible to be a lipstick-loving k-pop fan without developing a curiosity about Korean lip tints. I'd had my eye out for a tint since last year, but most of the tints available in the US seemed to come in very bright colors (orange and pink being the most popular) and watery, ultra-staining formulas that I knew would dry the hell out of my lips. By the time I visited oo35mm , a deceptively tiny store in New York's Chinatown with an impressive selection of Asian (mostly Korean and Japanese) beauty products, I'd pretty much given up on finding a relatively non-drying lip tint in my preferred purply color family. I was actually at oo35mm for skincare: I wanted a Salux exfoliating body washcloth, which I'd read about in this Into the Gloss post (see, I do like ITG sometimes), as well as some sheet masks from brands I hadn't yet tried. But when I saw the T...

I own between 55 and 60 lipsticks, more than a few of them purple. It's rare that a mainstream brand releases a lipstick unlike any I own, and even rarer that a mainstream brand releases a purple unlike any I own (yes, I'm using a lipstick junkie's definition of "unlike," but still). So when Bite Beauty announced that it was expanding its newish Amuse Bouche line with six new shades, one of them a luminous blue-toned lavender that looked like no purple lipstick I'd seen before, I took notice. Bite's "Sweet and Savory" collection for Summer 2016 comprises three dark "savory" shades ( Kale, a blackened green; Squid Ink, a navy blue; and Whiskey, a deep brown similar to MAC Antique Velvet ) and three purply "sweet" shades (Taro, a dark grayish purple; Thistle, a lilac-taupe in the ColourPop Trap family; and Lavender Jam, an "electric blue-violet"). So far as I know, all of them are permanent except the two purples, Ta...

Lately I've had the desire to blog, and the time to blog, and a bunch of products to review (ask me about that eyeshadow palette I bought in August), but that combination hasn't quite translated into actual blogging. The main culprit is what I like to call "depression brain," which tells me a lot of things, none of them grounded in reality. It tells me that my posts aren't worth writing if they're not absolutely perfect, and that no one will care about them if they're brief, straightforward product reviews. It tells me that staring vacantly at the internet for two hours while putting off academic work is better than spending those two hours doing something I actively want to do. It tells me that my makeup technique sucks and I'd better not post anything until I can achieve an Instagram-level halo eye with ten different shadows, never mind that I prefer simple, undone-looking makeup. It tells me that my interest in makeup is grounded in shallow material...

I didn't learn to swim until my first year of college and still can't traverse more than two lengths of a pool without having to rest. Strictly speaking, I'm the last person who should be laying claim to sea witchery of any kind. But that's the great thing about makeup: it allows us to put on and take off as many characters as we wish. And come to think of it, do sea witches even do much swimming? I tend to picture them sitting in murky grottoes surrounded by their eel and seahorse familiars, not doing the backstroke from point A to point B. In any case, I wish I could give you a photo of NYX Liquid Suede in Stone Fox amid drifting seaweed, but the best backdrop I can muster is an old volume of Bakhtin: I mentioned in my review of Amethyst (which I'm wearing as I type this) that the NYX Liquid Suede range is oddly limited: there are some very bold colors and some very drab ones, and little in between. So despite my love for the formula, I wasn't tempted to add ...

At this time two months ago, I had no firsthand knowledge of Glossier. I've now tried seven different Glossier products, at no cost to myself and with no affiliation with the brand, because I'm lucky and people are nice. I've already reviewed two of those products, Generation G in Jam and Boy Brow in Brown ; today I'm going to give you mini-reviews of all the other products. First, though, a caveat. I rarely blog (or read) about skincare for the same reason that I rarely blog or read about perfume: everyone's experience of these things is so personal that I'm not sure how much my opinion on a moisturizer or mask will benefit anyone else. Yes, I can specify that my skin is on the dry side of normal, but that doesn't mean that other dry-skinned people will love my skincare staples. There are so many other factors at work: climate, allergies or sensitivities to specific ingredients, etc. I just don't want to give anyone hives, you know? Plus, I'm not t...

I'm told that it's May, though you wouldn't know it from the weather, which has been utterly miserable for over a week and promises to carry on being utterly miserable for another week to come. Every day is the same: between 45 and 60 degrees, completely overcast, raining on and off, humidity around 90%. After one glorious week in mid-April, I thought I could settle into the certainty of not having to wear pants again until my UK visit in June. Then nature said "lol j/k" and I found myself fumbling in my closet for my down coat and pulling MAC Eugenie out of retirement. (I really have been loving Eugenie recently, as a complement to my leather jacket and end-of-semester scowl.) But the calendar proceeds apace even if the weather doesn't, and it's time again for my monthly roundup of beauty purchases! New Makeup/Polish: NYX Liquid Suede in Amethyst : $5.50 (with CVS coupon) Formula X Lively : $11 Too Cool for School Milk Tint in Milky Lavender: $8 Glossier...