Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

When Urban Decay released the Naked Heat collection earlier this summer, the product that really tempted my resolve was not the Naked Heat palette itself but one of the two limited-edition 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencils: Torch , a rusty orange. (Okay, the palette was also tempting, but slightly less so.) I swatched both eyeliners, as well as the three Naked Heat lipsticks, at Ulta: Eyeliners: Alkaline (L) and Torch. Lipsticks, top to bottom: Heat, Scorched, Fuel. Photographed in direct sunlight. However, I balked at the idea of paying $20 for an orange eyeliner that I might not wear often. I didn't search actively for dupes, but a week or two later, I came across  this post  by Killer Colours, featuring two of the eyeliners from the NYX Faux Blacks collection. I'd never paid much attention to the Faux Blacks and Faux Whites , but Linda's beautiful looks sparked my interest. I knew I liked the formula of NYX's Slide-On eye pencils, which are obvious (though slightly inferior)...

Welcome to the first, and saltier, of my two 2016 roundup posts! A few notes before we begin: There are 13 products on this list simply because I was disappointed by 13 products last year (not a large number, considering how many I tried).  As always, the products are listed in chronological order of purchase, not from best to worst or vice versa. I've linked to my original reviews where available.  I returned several of these products, sometimes too quickly to take photos. In those cases, I've used the brands' product shots. I also lost a number of my photos while clearing my phone's memory last year. Not all of these products are total fails. I kept and still use a few of them, since I don't subscribe to the KonMari doctrine of getting rid of anything that I don't absolutely love. Especially in the case of color cosmetics, if a product fulfills a specific purpose but isn't perfect, I'll often keep using it instead of buying yet another product in the s...

Longtime readers of my blog will know that I've struggled with eyeliner for my entire makeup-wearing career, which now spans six years. One of my first ventures into makeup involved a black Maybelline pencil eyeliner, with which I drew awkward, thick lines across my upper lashline. To my credit, I soon figured out that this looked terrible, but my second attempt wasn't much better: I spent a good three years trying on and off to perfect a cat eye with a black liquid liner, Maybelline Line Stiletto in Blackest Black. I was eventually forced to conclude that the outer folds of my eyelids would always foil my attempts to wing out my liner. Cat eyes were just not going to happen for me, no matter how many articles and YouTube tutorials swore that everyone —yes, everyone — could achieve Elizabeth-Taylor-in- Cleopatra perfection. Finally, I settled on black or dark brown eyeshadow smudged along my lashlines with a narrow brush. That gave me a bit of definition without the challeng...

Or so I call it in my head, because I've been unable to find a clinical name for an extra fold in each eyelid. I'm talking about this: Internet research has yielded almost no information. The closest I've come is a forum devoted to botched eyelid surgery: apparently, people who get plastic surgery to turn their monolids into creased eyelids can end up with multiple folds. But I have yet to find a discussion of the extra fold as a congenital issue. Essentially, I have too much lid per eye, so the skin folds over on itself when my eyes are open. This creates deep creases that are especially visible when I'm wearing powder eyeshadow: Doing my eye makeup always means taking my extra lid folds into account. I have to wiggle my eyeshadow brush just so, or the powder won't make it into the creases. Any look involving a sharp, graphic shape is off the table. It's hard for me to experiment with new shapes and placements of shadow and liner, and I'm rarely satisfie...

It feels like I've been waiting forever to post these reviews. When Ulta had a 40%-off sale on NYX and Revlon two weeks ago, I seized the chance to order a few things I'd been wanting for a while. (I came in $.77 over the $25 free-shipping minimum, which made me inordinately proud.) My order arrived this past Tuesday, but I forced myself not to open the package until I'd submitted an article I'd been refusing to let go. I did that on Wednesday, but the next four days were cloudy and rainy, which meant that I had almost no natural light by which to photograph my new goodies. Long story short: the weather, my schedule, and my neuroses didn't line up until today. So today I present, from left to right: Revlon Lip Butter in Red Velvet, NYX Slide-On Eye Pencil in Golden Bronze, NYX Jumbo Pencil in Iced Mocha, Revlon Lacquer Balm in Coy, NYX Round Lipstick in Castle, Revlon Colorburst Lip Gloss in Embellished. Warning: embarrassment of photos ahead. Revlon Lip Butter in...