Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

Hello from Alabama! I just returned from a weekend that combined several discrete types of awkwardness. There was the mundane "socializing with your significant other's extended family" awkwardness, compounded by the "associating with people far above your own family's socioeconomic bracket, with a totally different lifestyle and set of values" awkwardness, plus some jetlag and Yankee-in-the-South culture shock for good measure. In my boyfriend's words, it was perhaps the most "off-brand" way I could have spent those three days (my brand being, roughly, "soft-goth dirtbag academic"). Let's put it this way: what makeup would you  wear to hang out with immensely rich people who live seven miles inside a gated community that contains two entire golf courses? I'm not sure I came up with a decent answer to this question, but I came up with an  answer (or three), and I might as well record them here for posterity. Let me apologize i...

(You have to read "faked" with two syllables, as if this is a Donne poem, or the title won't make sense.) In the past two days, swatches and reviews of Urban Decay's new Naked Heat palette have been making the social-media rounds. (Here's a sneak peek from Temptalia and a review from Makeup and Beauty Blog.) Like many people, I can't help feeling that the palette is doubly redundant: it's not only the eighth Urban Decay Naked palette in seven years, but also the 93,458th orangey-red eyeshadow palette since mid-2016. Plus, it shares a weakness with the ABH Modern Renaissance palette: several of the medium-saturation shades look very similar to each other, which will make it difficult to achieve any look that's higher-contrast than a smoky wash of orange. I do like that '80s-throwback packaging, though. Source Since I already struggle to use the warmer, bolder colors in Modern Renaissance, I have no plans to buy Naked Heat. However, I can't de...

Happy Easter! Full disclosure: I'm one of those secular assholes who welcome the Easter season not for its religious significance but for the positively pagan abundance of egg-shaped chocolate. Growing up half-Jewish, I couldn't help noticing the difference in quality between Easter candy and kosher-for-Passover candy, which consisted (and still consists) primarily of coconut-covered marshmallows and those sinister  jelly fruit slices . The marshmallows weren't bad, but they couldn't hold a candle to malted-milk eggs and Cadbury's Creme Eggs and Reese's Eggs. Come to think of it, have I ever encountered an egg-shaped candy I didn't like? There must be some deep primal significance to ovoid treats. All this is to say that I really enjoy the symbolism of Easter, to say nothing of its color scheme. Most pastels pull out the gray undertones in my skin and make me look slightly zombified, but I still give them an ill-deserved chance every March and April. This p...

The annual Academic Job Conference of Doom fast approaches (this is my second year preparing for it), and yesterday I had a dress-rehearsal practice interview with my advisor and another professor. This gave me an opportunity to test my interview makeup as well as my answers to questions like "But Machiavelli and Polydore Vergil are very different historians; why did you mention them in the same sentence?" I've written before about makeup in academia, and I still think there's a widespread prejudice against women who put obvious effort into their appearance. I know about the studies showing that women who wear neutral makeup come off as more competent in the workplace than women who wear no makeup at all, but I'm not sure that rule applies in academia, where both men and women often assume a negative correlation between femininity and intellectual seriousness. But I also don't see the point in angsting over this until I get a job, you know? This isn't exac...

Well, the impossible has happened. A racist, misogynist sociopath with nothing but contempt for the democratic process has been elevated by it to the most powerful office in the world. Hillary Clinton was not my ideal Democratic candidate, but I came to find her deeply inspiring over the course of this year's vicious, depressing campaign. And now millions of Americans have rejected her knowledge, experience, and tremendous ability for the whims of a con artist loyal only to himself. As a queer woman and someone who has endured sexual harassment from men in positions of power, I can't help but feel that Tuesday's election was a referendum on my humanity. And I'm not even one of the people threatened most by a Trump presidency; it's a sign of my privilege that I can still cling to optimism. I can only hope that this disaster will shake the Democratic Party out of its complacency and force it to listen to the progressive voices in its ranks. I can only hope tha...

My tastes in makeup have shifted recently. I've noticed myself gravitating toward different colors, textures, and undertones, and caring less about "seasonal" makeup. Spring was so cold and dreary this year that I didn't feel like making my usual switch to coral and pink tones. But even now, with the hot, swampy Mid-Atlantic summer in full swing, I find myself drawn to murky, gloomy makeup: browns, dark purples, grays, that sort of thing. I'm still too much of a traditionalist to wear, say, NARS 413 BLKR in July, but I'm finding the summer-goth aesthetic more and more appealing. You might argue that this too is an expression of seasonal rules: only someone who cared about them would care about breaking them, right? Well, maybe so. And maybe I'm not even breaking them: black plums, thunderstorms, and blackberries all belong to summer. So let's say that I'm complicating the usual summer palette. Yes, that sounds pretentious enough for this blog. Th...

UM, HI. A lot has happened since I last posted. I'm still stunned and depressed at Britain's decision to leave the European Union. It was surreal to watch the whole thing unfold around me , and painful to have no way of affecting the outcome. It's not my nation or my fight, but I'm still heartbroken at what this means for Britain and Europe in general. It's clear by now that we live in an age of paranoid nationalism, and if you can think of anything good that paranoid nationalism has ever produced, do let me know. I'll just be over here reading Hobbes and glancing obsessively at the BBC. You know what? Let's talk about makeup. I've been in London for the past week, and have found myself wearing less makeup than usual. My boyfriend's parents and sister are visiting, and they're no-makeup WASP types who can go from pajamas to out the door in ten minutes. Since they've been generous enough to let me travel with them for nine days, I've done ...