Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

Destashing makeup is emotionally hard for me year-round, but it becomes a little easier in the spring, as do most things. The lengthening days bring a new zest for self-improvement: I exercise more, I consume less sugar and alcohol, and I grow more decisive about streamlining my makeup collection. I recently decided to destash eight (!) neglected lipsticks, as well as a lip balm and an eyeshadow. Here are most of the victims: In this post, I'll outline my reasons for parting with these products, as well as the lessons each one taught me. I've linked to my original reviews where available: brace yourself for some potato-quality photos from 2014! (Not that my current photos are Temptalia-level clear, but they're a little better.) First, the lipsticks. L-R: NYX Amethyst, Maybelline Gunmetal, NYX Alabama, Kiko Chocolate, Revlon Fuchsia, & Other Stories Droguet Purple. Swatches, same order: Next, MAC Candy Yum-Yum (left) and Rebel. These are missing from my other photos bec...

My boyfriend recently left his job in the UK, which is great news relationship-wise: we met in my former graduate program and have been long-distance since I transferred to my current school seven (!) years ago, and now we'll actually be able to live together for more than a couple months at a time. On a shallower level, however, this will be my last transatlantic makeup review for a while. Before my boyfriend returned to the US earlier this month, I sent him to the Kiko store in the Birmingham train station, where he very kindly swatched a few shades of the Velvet Passion matte lipstick line. (Weirdly, there's another Kiko store five minutes away, in the enormous mall attached to the station.) Here's the full display of the lipsticks, which launched last year. Each one retails for  £ 7 (about $9). The shade I chose was 319 (Chocolate), a medium plummy brown that feels very Jazz-Age-casual to me. The Velvet Passion lipstick bullets have an odd squared-off tip that resemble...

Because it's year-end-roundup season until January 31, damn it. I'm back online, so it's time to present my favorite new-to-me beauty products of 2016! As always, I've listed these items in the order in which I bought them. I listed 14 favorites in 2014 and 15 in 2015, but 16 seemed excessive somehow, so I kept the number at 15. 1. MAC Matte Lipstick in Antique Velvet This was the very first beauty product I bought in 2016, after a no-buy of almost two months. During those two months, I tried on Antique Velvet twice, loved it both times, searched the internet for cruelty-free dupes, and finally decided that nothing would satisfy me but the genuine article. Antique Velvet is a dark, cool-toned brown with a hint of plum. You'd think that such a dark matte lipstick would go on patchy, but it's smooth and evenly pigmented, with the same soft, comfortable formula as the other MAC mattes I've tried. After sticking to my no-buy for seven weeks, I expected to be thr...

Hey there! Just a quick review to prove to you that I haven't quit blogging, and to prove to myself that there's more to life than watching American democracy go down the toilet while I revise my dissertation abstract for the dozenth time. Today we'll look at a product I've been using and enjoying for almost three months: Kiko Long Lasting Stick Eyeshadow in 36 Golden Mauve. I bought Golden Mauve back in June at the new Kiko store in Birmingham, along with two powder eyeshadows that I have yet to wear. The stick eyeshadows were all on sale, so I assumed they were being discontinued, but they're still on Kiko's website at their original price of £6.90. I certainly hope they're here to stay, because they're fantastic products that have received almost universally positive reviews. One of the less-than-positive reviews is mine, actually: the first Kiko stick eyeshadow I tried was 16 Purple (pardon the ultra-LQ photos in that post), a shimmery dark purple ...

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...