Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

Drugstore makeup has become a lot more interesting over the past few years, and I can't help but envy people who are just getting into makeup now and have access to so many weird lipsticks at affordable price points. I've always been drawn to slightly eccentric makeup, but in my early twenties it was impossible to find so much as a true purple lipstick at the drugstore, let alone the blues, blacks, and greiges that are available now. In fact, there were so few purply lipsticks on the shelves of my local CVS back in 2011 that I can remember the exact shades that were  available. There was Revlon Va Va Violet, which leaned more burgundy than purple and looked depressingly streaky in the photos I saw online. There was Revlon Berry Haute, a sort of purplish mauve. There was CoverGirl Divine, a bright magenta that looked purple if you compared it to a true pink. And that was it. The first real live purple lipstick I ever found at the drugstore was Maybelline Brazen Berry, part of th...

In general, I don't trust beauty brands, religious sects, or political movements with extremely charismatic figureheads. The kind of person who attracts fanatical devotees tends to be the kind of person who wants fanatical devotees, who lives for adulation and drama , who needs to be the center of attention at all times — a narcissist, in other words. Once you've known one narcissist you've known them all, and you become wary of anyone who displays the symptoms of narcissism, whether it's Donald Trump, Jeffree Star, or that professor who gave a talk in my department last week and unbuttoned his shirt a few inches too far. Kat Von D is another charismatic figurehead who has always set off my narcissist detector. I've been hearing great things about her makeup for years, but I've also been hearing terrible things about her for years. (I don't feel like rehashing all her controversies here, though they're easy enough to find if you're interested.) Wha...

Last summer, while working in the university archives, I wrote a post about some treasures I'd unearthed from the "archives" of my own makeup collection. In the spirit of my 2016 low-buy, I've decided to turn "From the Archives" into an ongoing, if not regular, series. Let's get better acquainted with a product I wrote about back in 2014 (yikes, those washed-out iPhone 5 photos): Maybelline Color Tattoo cream eyeshadow in Pomegranate Punk. Is there anything better than discovering an eyeshadow that forms a complete eye look on its own? Yes, in fact: discovering that eyeshadow in your very own stash, where it's languished, largely untouched, for more than two years. I often wonder how much thought goes into naming drugstore beauty products. My guess is almost none: Right, it's dark red. What else is dark red? Uh, pomegranates. Okay, let's go with "Pomegranate" something. What else begins with P? "Pretzel"? Damn, I...

All right, technically the NARS Semi-Matte Lipstick in 413 BLKR has been around since Fall 2013. But it's my standout lipstick acquisition of this fall, so there. I've had it for two weeks and have worn it on almost half those days. I can't stop. It's just too good. I forget how exactly I became fixated on this lipstick. Maybe it was when I was planning my birthday visit to New York and I remembered that the NARS flagship store was close to our hotel. Or maybe I just happened upon 413 BLKR during one of my many stress-relieving swatch explorations in October. Nothing soothes me more than emptying my mind, opening my browser, and clicking through image after image of cherry red, coral, plum, deep brown. I tell myself that I can sink into the swirling depths of material desire and emerge just as I was, but that rarely happens. More often I surface with a particular lipstick name clinging to my brain like a barnacle. In the spirit of my current no-buy , I'm going to g...

Today, as a reward for finishing an article draft and setting up a meeting with my adviser, I headed to the local Bluemercury to check out the new NARS Audacious lipsticks. I limited myself to seven swatches (as many as would fit on my hand), since I'm not audacious enough to swatch a collection of 30 lipsticks all over my upper body. These were the seven that caught my eye when I first looked at the display. The testers had been very lightly used, and many of them were still pristine. Is there anything more satisfying than being the first to use a lipstick tester? Probably, but let me keep my low bar for satisfaction, at least for now. I'm a grad student. Our pleasures are few. Outside, in shade. Left to right: Liv, Audrey, Grace, Vera, Annabella, and (barely visible) Fanny and Bette. Liv is a deep reddish purple; Audrey is a rich plummy red; Grace is a hot pink coral, similar to MAC Impassioned; Vera is a reddish raspberry, similar to Revlon Cherries in the Snow; Annabella is...