Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

I'm back with some makeup and some thoughts! New Makeup: L-R: Whirl, Metal Head, Men Love Mystery, Puff, Otherworldly. Swatches, same order. Glossier Cloud Paint in Puff : $14.40 (20% off) MAC Matte Lipstick in Men Love Mystery: $15 (15% off, plus tax) MAC Metallic Lipstick in Metal Head: purchased with Nordstrom store credit (usually $18) MAC Matte Lipstick in Whirl (mini): gift from Renee Topshop Glow Stick in Otherworldly: gift from my boyfriend Total: $29.40 I acquired five new pieces of makeup last month. Technically, I bought  only two of those, but I'm not letting myself off so easy. I could have spent that store credit on something else, and I didn't have to ask my boyfriend to bring me a highlighter from the UK. A product for which I don't exchange real money takes up just as much space in my collection as a product for which I actually swipe my card or hand over cash. I'm pretty pleased with all of my new playthings, at least. Reviews to come! Here I am w...

A short list for a short month! New Makeup: NARS blush in Threesome: $30 NYX Butter Gloss in Blackberry Pie: $5 Yay, I managed to buy just two new pieces of makeup! One was carefully planned, while the other (the BLACK LIP GLOSS, obviously) was a Target impulse buy. Unfortunately, I'm not thrilled with either one. From the photos I saw on Instagram, I expected NARS Threesome to be a little cooler and purpler than it is. And because it's such a light color (seriously, it's almost white), I have to use quite a bit of product to get it to show up. I don't dislike it, exactly, but it's not what I expected. Yet another reason to swatch before buying, damn it. NYX Blackberry Pie has the opposite problem: it's way more pigmented than I thought it would be. I've owned three other Butter Glosses, all of which delivered a nice hit of color but were definitely on the sheer side, and I bought Blackberry Pie hoping it would be that sheer black lip color I've been ...

Well, we somehow got through January, even if we spent the last third of the month refreshing various news sites in growing horror. And now it's time for my first low-buy progress report of 2017! A reminder of the low-buy goals I've set for myself this year: No more than two makeup products per month, excluding replacements No new nail polish in the first half of the year And that's it for the consumption part of my beauty resolutions — the more I make, the more I'll forget, right? So let's see how well I did in January: New Makeup: L-R: The Ultimatte, Nudist Peach, Missy and Fierce. Milani Amore Matte Metallic Lip Creme in 15 The Ultimatte: $8 Wet n Wild Liquid Catsuit Lipsticks in Nudist Peach and Missy and Fierce: $5 each Total: $18 New Skincare: Skinfood Super Nut mask, My Beauty Diary Damask Rose mask, and Tosowoong Propolis mask (already used): $7ish total Etude House My Beauty Tool blotting papers: $4 Samples: COSRX Ultimate Nourishing Rice Mask and Snail Mu...

I returned last night from the academic job conference and felt so drained today that I didn't leave the house once, which almost never happens unless I'm sick. (Today's high temperature was about 12 °F, too. That was definitely a factor in my laziness.) Now that I have some more time, I'm looking forward to writing a couple of 2016 roundup posts. In today's post, I'll look back at my low-buy plan for 2016, concoct a (better, let's hope) plan for 2017, and make a few miscellaneous beauty resolutions. At the beginning of 2016, I vowed to "maintain a low-buy of no more than two new products (makeup, nail polish, and fragrance) and/or $40 per month, with at least two no-buy months." The devil was in that "and/or." In the interest of simplicity, I decided after a couple of months to pay more attention to the "under $40" half of that resolution than the "no more than two new products" half. That was a mistake. There were ...