Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

Despite the flood of new eyeshadow palettes in the past few years, I own just a few: Modern Renaissance, Naked2 Basics, a nine-pan custom theBalm palette, and a magnetic palette containing, among other things, slightly less than half (five shades) of a depotted theBalm Nude 'Tude. The newest palette in my collection is Modern Renaissance, which I bought in December 2016; the others are all at least three years old. Of course, by normal-person standards, this is a lot  of eyeshadow. But by beauty-blogger standards (which is what we're using here, right? cool), it's almost nothing. No, actually, this is  a lot. There are a few reasons for my (relative) restraint in this category. First, though I wear eyeshadow almost every day, I'm more of a wash-of-one-neutral-color person than a seven-different-shades-plus-liner-and-falsies person. I also prefer cream and liquid formulas to powders, especially in the current heat and humidity. And even if I were someone who made time t...

(Part 1 here .) Coral was the  trendy lipstick color when I first got into makeup around 2012, and I must have imprinted on that cultural moment, because I've been searching for a flattering coral lipstick ever since. So far, I've had the most luck with muted, brownish corals like Maybelline Naked Coral , which I bought almost exactly a year ago. But sometimes I want to wear one of those bright, juicy pinky-red corals, something like Marc Jacobs So Sofia , which I bought almost exactly two  years ago and returned soon thereafter. My heart and soul belong to vampy lip colors, but there are days when I crave the vivid retro pop that only coral-pink can deliver. So my search continues. So Sofia wasn't my best color, but it was a beautiful color, and I probably would have kept it if it hadn't cost me $30. So when I noticed that one of the $7 Lux Lipsticks in ColourPop's spring collection was almost identical to So Sofia, I pounced. Despite my mixed (generally bad) luck ...

I purchased this product with store credit earned through my Glossier affiliate link . I am not a Glossier rep. Avid Glossier followers know that the best source for upcoming releases is Glossier's trademarks page . When the name "Lidstar" appeared there about a year ago, I surmised   that Glossier was developing a shimmery eyeshadow. That product finally materialized earlier this month, on the eyelids of a handful of celebrities at the Oscars. (Beyoncé also wore Lidstar at the Grammys back in January, but Glossier revealed only that she was "wearing __ in __." Ooh, mysterious!) Launching new makeup at awards shows is apparently Glossier's Thing now, and while I find it a little tacky, I can't deny that paying Sir John to put Lidstar on Beyoncé is a pretty freaking effective way to market your product. I also can't deny that I was excited about this particular release. I tend to like Glossier's approach to color makeup, and an eye product was lo...

Let's talk about ColourPop for a second. I shared my first impressions almost three years ago, back when online-only brands that used a fast-fashion production model were rare enough to seem sinister . These days, though, I feel more  blasé  about that aspect of ColourPop's identity. Yes, it's a bit sad that online-only brands with accelerated production cycles have largely done away with the concept of the "holy grail" product. (When was the last time you heard a makeup YouTuber use that term?) But there are problems with that concept, too, and let's face it: novelty is fun and ColourPop makes some genuinely good stuff. Ironically, their highlighter in Lunch Money is  a holy grail of mine. I'm also impressed with the four powder shadows I've tried so far (haven't gotten around to reviewing those, sorry). A few of my favorite CP products. I'm proud of that pan on Lunch Money! However, I've mostly stopped visiting ColourPop's site, for...

Having devoted the better part of a decade to studying Renaissance (we in the biz prefer "early modern") literature, I perked up when I heard that Anastasia Beverly Hills had released an eyeshadow palette called "Modern Renaissance." The palette came out in mid-2016 and started a warm-neutrals trend that, as of February 2017, shows little sign of dying down. Despite my instant attraction to the name, I resisted Modern Renaissance for half a year, for a few reasons: I have a hipster distaste for any product that receives a tremendous amount of hype. (Preteen me held out on the Harry Potter novels for at least a year because ~everyone else~ liked them.) Historically, I've preferred eyeshadow singles to palettes: more travel-friendly, less visually intimidating. My skin, hair, and eyes are all cool-toned. I wear simple neutral eye looks almost every day and didn't trust myself to use the bolder colors in the palette.  I'd never tried anything by Anastasia B...