Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

Something different today: a mini-review of something that isn't makeup! You've probably noticed that my obsession with color makeup is several orders of magnitude greater than my interest in skincare, brushes, haircare, or "boring makeup" (mascara, brow stuff, concealer, etc). But for variety's sake, I thought I'd write about a new tool that's been amusing me for the past month and a half. What's more, it's a tool that I use to apply "boring makeup"! Since I don't wear foundation, I miss out on a whole category of beauty-world hype. Last year, the internet went crazy over Beauty Blenders (and knockoffs thereof), but I paid no attention until I became aware of the mini versions. Because, of course, I do  wear base makeup: I apply NARS Radiant Creamy Concealer in Vanilla to my gruesome undereye circles almost every day. I'd never had much trouble blending it out with my fingers, but during my last trip to Ulta, I picked up a four-p...

To keep myself accountable to my 2016 low-buy , I've decided to do a progress report on my blog at the end of each month, recording how much I've spent on beauty, my reasons for buying each product, and whether certain moods, events, k-pop videos, etc. have affected my spending. I know January isn't over yet, but I don't plan to buy any more beauty products in the next four days, so let's round up my purchases for the month! For the price of each item, I've rounded the total to the nearest whole number but haven't included sales tax. If I order anything online in the coming months, I'll include shipping costs in the total. By the way, I also keep track of my beauty purchases on a dedicated Pinterest board , if you'd like to indulge in financial schadenfreude over there. New makeup/polish: MAC matte lipstick in Antique Velvet : $17 Floss Gloss polishes in Dinge and Dimepiece: $8 each Revlon Matte Balm in Fierce: $11 (thanks, CVS markup!) Total: $44 So...

If you've watched as many geisha documentaries as I have (she said, too casually), you'll be familiar with the clichéd close-up shot of a geisha or maiko painting her white-powdered lips with a brush dipped in rouge. The inevitability of this shot, in both Japanese and foreign documentaries, makes me roll my eyes every time it comes up; there's something fetishistic and exoticizing about it, especially when the wielder of the brush is a sixteen-year-old maiko. But the allure of the ritual itself is undeniable. Applying lipstick with a bullet can be sexy, but it's more often matter-of-fact: swipe it on and go. Applying lipstick with a brush is never anything but artistic. It forces you to slow down, to think critically about shape and precision. Until recently, though, I'd never felt the need to own a lip brush. The good old bullet, it seemed to me, was a perfectly effective technology for transferring color to my lips. And if a bullet failed to deliver a cris...