Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

For the past few years, I've been performing two beauty-related rites of spring. The first rite involves destashing a bunch of lipsticks (more on that soon). The second rite consists of searching for a pinky-red coral lipstick and a lavender blush. Those searches usually end in failure, though for different reasons. There are thousands of coral lipsticks on the market, but only a small percentage of corals flatter me. Most lavender and lavender-pink blushes flatter me, but only a small percentage of blushes are lavender. I've tried so many coral lipsticks that made me look dead and so many blushes that promised lavender but delivered neutral pink. I should have learned my lesson by now. Yet every spring, without fail, I take up the quest again. This year's coral lipstick and lavender blush come from the same source: ColourPop's Spring 2018 Butterfly Collection . Like many ColourPop collections, it comprises an overwhelming number of new products: eight Lux Lipsticks, ...

I can't remember getting as excited over any Glossier release as I did over the Cloud Paint cream blushes, which launched a week and a half ago (following a "soft launch" at the Oscars, because of course). Two days before the blushes dropped, I had a dream that I was looking at them in a store, but they were in pans instead of tubes, and there were only two shades: a warm brown and a bright red-orange similar to NARS Exhibit A. Say what you will about Glossier, their marketing is capable of infiltrating my subconscious to the point that I have dreams about specific products. Glossier is really good at creating narratives around their merchandise, and as someone who picks apart narratives for a living, I have to respect that. The Cloud Paints are $18 each (though Glossier currently has a two-for-$30 deal), and they come in four colors: Beam, a peach; Dusk, a beige-brown similar to Illamasqua Zygomatic; Haze, a purple berry; and Puff, which I thought  would be a lavender p...

For at least two years now, I've been searching for the perfect cool-toned pale pink blush, something that will give me that fresh-faced but slightly artificial k-beauty look. Here's Jiwon of Spica for BNT International, back in March 2014: Source: Omona They Didn't . Spica disbanded last month. :( And here's Irene of Red Velvet for  Instyle Korea , March 2016: Source: Omona They Didn't Now, needless to say, these photos have been smoothed and blurred and color-altered to hell. Because every irregularity of color and texture has been airbrushed away, there's a sharp contrast between skin and blush, a contrast that I'm not sure is achievable in real life. But that hasn't stopped me from searching for a blush that can deliver a subtle, yet not quite natural, cotton-candy flush. By the time I began my quest, the NARS Final Cut collection had come and gone, and with it my platonic pink blush, Sex Fantasy  (lol). I thought about buying NARS Gaiety instead, bu...

A short list for a short month! New Makeup: NARS blush in Threesome: $30 NYX Butter Gloss in Blackberry Pie: $5 Yay, I managed to buy just two new pieces of makeup! One was carefully planned, while the other (the BLACK LIP GLOSS, obviously) was a Target impulse buy. Unfortunately, I'm not thrilled with either one. From the photos I saw on Instagram, I expected NARS Threesome to be a little cooler and purpler than it is. And because it's such a light color (seriously, it's almost white), I have to use quite a bit of product to get it to show up. I don't dislike it, exactly, but it's not what I expected. Yet another reason to swatch before buying, damn it. NYX Blackberry Pie has the opposite problem: it's way more pigmented than I thought it would be. I've owned three other Butter Glosses, all of which delivered a nice hit of color but were definitely on the sheer side, and I bought Blackberry Pie hoping it would be that sheer black lip color I've been ...

In addition to the Ultra Matte Lip in Trap , I bought three potted products from ColourPop last month. After a few weeks of playing with them, I'm excited to finally write a review! I'll start with an overview of each item, then post a few looks I've put together. Clockwise from left: Super Shock Cheek in Rain ($8) and Super Shock Shadows in Shop and Eye Candy ($5 each). L-R, one finger-swipe per swatch: Eye Candy, Shop, Rain.   When I ordered Eye Candy , an "ethereal lavender drizzled with tons of pink and silver glitter," I knew from experience exactly what I would get: an unabashed glitterbomb.  Eye Candy's base color looks like a sheer dusty pink in the pan and in arm swatches, but it pulls more lavender on my lids. That sheer base is crammed, not drizzled, with fine pink glitter and chunkier silver glitter. You really have to squint to see the pink glitter, and only the silver comes through when the shadow is worn. Eye Candy has the same bouncy, moussey t...

Three weeks into my no-buy, I'm not feeling any great temptation to get something new, but I do find myself adding a worrisome number of items to my "buy in 2016" wishlist. In the interest of self-distraction, I think I'd better get back to reviewing the stuff I picked up during my stress-shopping phase in September and October. Introducing my newest blush (and, to my credit, one of only two blushes that I bought this year): Urban Decay Rapture. Despite my longtime devotion to all things plum, I didn't own a plum blush until Rapture. NARS Mata Hari is a medium cool pink with a slight plum tone, and Sleek Flushed is a warm berry red, but neither blush is quite purple enough to qualify for inclusion in my favorite makeup color category. So when Urban Decay had a sitewide 20%-off sale in October, I bought not only the Revolution Lipstick in 69 , but also the blush version of Rapture, the lipstick I've been wearing constantly this fall. Rapture the lipstick has...