Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

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...

It turns out that I have time for one more post before I head to New York tomorrow! A lot of new products entered my life in October, and though some of them were gifts, some were...definitely not. It's not exactly shocking that I bought more stuff than usual last month. October tends to be hard for me mental-health-wise, and I was applying for jobs for the second year in a row, and I couldn't help but keep up with upsetting election bullshit . And my neighbors' cat, whom I'd known for three years, died two weeks ago. Mr. B was the sweetest, friendliest cat I've ever met, and he used to come over so often that I almost thought of him as my cat . So October was a stressful month, and I'm not going to beat myself up for going a little over budget, though I will make some new resolutions at the end of this post. After all, I have more stressful months ahead of me, and the whole point of this low-buy is to learn how to manage stress without spending impulsively or ...

Like many of us, I go through polish phases. Sometimes I prefer neutral cremes, sometimes bright pastels, sometimes dark shimmers. The category I'm most fickle about, though, is the glitter topcoat. I've accumulated quite a few over the years (so pretty in the bottle!), but I usually find it hard to wear glitter on ordinary occasions without feeling either childish or inappropriately festive. Recently, though, I've entered something of a glitter phase. Carolina and I have discussed the temptation to buy glitter during difficult emotional periods, and I think that's part of the reason I've worn so much sparkly nail polish since the late fall. It's brutally cold outside, I'm on the academic job market, I don't know where I'll even be living in six months —glitter makes it all a bit more tolerable. Yes, gross materialism and all that, but there's nothing wrong with making your aesthetic environment a little prettier to counteract whatever else is g...

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...