Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

We're almost a week into August, but do you really care? I don't. 1. MAC Candy Yum-Yum I've had this lipstick for two years and I'm still not sure if it flatters me. How is that possible? I don't even know. I can never predict how I'll feel about it when I put it on: sometimes I'm surprised at how well it suits my coloring, and sometimes I feel so clownish that I have to wipe it off immediately. But every time I start thinking about getting rid of it, I fall in love with it all over again. Candy Yum-Yum has one of the most comfortable yet long-lasting matte formulas I've ever tried, and the stain left when it wears off is almost prettier than the lipstick itself. I surprised myself by reaching for Candy Yum-Yum more often than usual last month. The heat and humidity had reached unbearable levels, and there were very few products that I could trust not to melt off my face during my ten-minute walk to campus. I took to wearing just mascara, highlighter, a...

Welcome to another installment of my not-actually-monthly compilation of monthly favorites! Some bloggers use favorites posts to spotlight new purchases, but I prefer to feature older favorites as well as non-makeup discoveries. Let's begin with my main makeup fixation in June: Purple Lipstick Purple has been my favorite lip color since I started wearing lipstick regularly, and its entrance into the mainstream in the last few years has given me an overabundance of options. I currently own six purple lipsticks, and five of them saw a good amount of wear last month (odd one out: the cyborgian NYX Castle ). The second half of June was unusually overcast and cool, and purple lipstick always seems as appropriate for cloudy summer days as coral lipstick does for sunny ones. Counterclockwise from top right (that is, light to dark): Maybelline Lilac Flush, Maybelline Brazen Berry, MAC Up the Amp, Bite Lip Lab custom lipstick, & Other Stories Droguet Purple.  Swatched, same order: One o...

This March has felt about twice as long as a normal month, and it's still not over. I can't explain what made it seem so interminable. Maybe it was that we were teased repeatedly with the promise of spring, yet the vernal equinox nine days ago brought us this: Whatever the reason, this was a long and rather stressful month, and I clung more fiercely than ever to small material delights like lipstick and baking and k-pop music videos. I enjoy reading other bloggers' roundups of their monthly makeup favorites, but since my own beauty routine is pretty consistent and my new purchases are pretty infrequent (though less infrequent than they should be), I've never felt qualified to do my own monthly list of favorite beauty products. I've been thinking, though, that I'd like to start a tradition of listing all my favorites, beauty and otherwise, at the end of each month. I want to acknowledge those small ephemeral pleasures that make day-to-day life more enjoyable but...