Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

...oh, and two eyeshadows, but who cares about those? I took a lipstick inventory six months ago and got rid of six products. But that didn't come close to eliminating all the lip colors I no longer wore, and I returned from my travels last month with a clearer sense of what I could trust myself to wear and what I could live without. Today being Labor Day, I put aside my academic work to clean the house, including my makeup shelf. For some reason, I found destashing much easier than I had in March, and I ended up with a pile of 15 lipsticks and glosses to toss or give away: The warmer colors: L-R: Topshop Wink, Revlon Mischievous, NYX Peach Cobbler, Rimmel Across the Universe, NARS Flamenco, NARS Last Tango, NARS Rikugien, Maybelline Nude Lust. Swatches, same order: L-R: Wink, Mischievous, Peach Cobbler, Across the Universe, Flamenco, Last Tango, Rikugien, Nude Lust. And the cooler colors:   L-R: Topshop Plastique, Revlon Raspberry Pie, Maybelline Lilac Flush, NYX Raspberry Tart, ...

Greetings from San Francisco, where I've spent the past few days recovering from jetlag and dissertating at neighborhood coffee shops. With three days of the old year remaining, it's time to post a list I've been compiling for the past month or so: my 14 favorite beauty purchases of 2014! A few notes before we begin: These are new-to-me products (not repurchases) that I bought in 2014. Only three of them actually came out this year; the others belong to their brands' permanent collections. I don't chase the limited-edition rabbit unless his pocket watch is especially shiny. And I find that when I buy makeup because it's new, I'm more often disappointed than not. These are not necessarily the best-performing beauty products I bought this year; they're just the ones that I've enjoyed the most. Of course, nothing truly bad made this list, but some of the products listed below have minor flaws, and there are some technically flawless products I bought i...

Names: Maybelline Color Sensational Vivid Lipstick in Fuchsia Flash, MAC Matte Lipstick in Candy Yum-Yum Dates Purchased: March 2013, August 2013 Grades: A, A Notes: You may wonder why, given my devotion to seasonal makeup colors, I'm reviewing two of the most stubbornly summery lipsticks in my stash. Let's just say that I'm even more obsessive about chronology than I am about seasonality, and these two hot pinks are next on my Lipstick Chronology list. Anyway, people in the Southern Hemisphere must get tired of the plum-bronze-oxblood palette that nearly every beauty blog embraces from September to December. So if you're one of those people who walk upside down on the bottom of the globe, or if you just refuse to abandon eye-searing fuchsias after the autumnal equinox, this post is for you. MAC's Quite Cute collection, from spring 2011, holds a special place in my heart. You may remember it for its kawaii -themed names and white-based confectionery pastels. It was ...

Names: Maybelline Color Sensational Vivid Lipstick in Vivid Rose (875) and Brazen Berry (905) Dates Purchased: May and June 2013 Grades: A, A- Notes: Since I don't have all my lipsticks with me in San Francisco, I'm writing my Vivids reviews slightly out of chronological order. I bought one of my five Vivids, Fuchsia Flash, before either of the two I'm reviewing today, but Vivid Rose and Brazen Berry were the two I brought from home, so here we are. When the Vivids came out in the spring of 2013, they were welcomed with the same rapture that had greeted the Revlon Lip Butters in late 2011. I read somewhere that beauty brands like to release at least one bright lipstick in every new collection because the bright colors draw customers in, even though the bestsellers are almost always the neutral lipsticks! So I suppose Maybelline was taking a risk with a collection composed entirely of brights, but people certainly fell for the hype, and by "people" I mean "you...