Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

It will surprise none of my regular readers to learn that if I could wear only one category of makeup for the rest of my life, it would be lipstick. (I could probably use nude lipstick as undereye concealer, right?...right?) I wear lipstick every single day. I've tried almost every color category of lipstick. I created a lipstick taxonomy , for God's sake. But despite my passion for lipstick, a passion that has lasted the better part of a decade, I didn't use lip liner until fairly recently. The reason will sound a little neurotic, because it is: I wanted to experience each of my lipsticks in its "purest" form, without adulteration. If I bought a lipstick, it was because I loved that  particular mixture of pigments and respected the craftsmanship behind it. I didn't want anything to alter the delicate balance of warm and cool tones in NARS Mysterious Red or the subtle dustiness of Urban Decay Backtalk. But tastes change, and sometimes it takes me a while to fi...

In my personal taxonomy, most makeup falls into one of four categories: 1) products that I collect actively (lipstick, eyeshadow, nail polish); 2) products that I own in limited numbers because I use them very slowly and/or don't find them exciting (blush, highlighter, eyeliner); 3) products that I wear regularly but purchase only when I run out because they straight-up bore me (brow stuff, mascara, concealer); 4) products that simply have no place in my routine (foundation, bronzer, contour). And then there's lip gloss. I've been wearing it on and off for years, but I can't decide how I feel about it. I fall in love with a specific kind of gloss (opaque, sparkly, sheer, whatever); buy a few shades in that category; decide after a few months that gloss in general isn't for me; and then, about a year later, repeat the whole cycle of fickleness. In my early makeup-wearing days, I favored opaque cream-finish glosses in bold colors, like  Revlon Fire  and YSL Rouge Goua...

The only makeup store close to where I live is an especially snobby Bluemercury, so when I visit my mom in San Francisco, I tend to spend more time than strictly necessary in Sephora and Ulta. During this particular visit, I was excited to check out the NYX Liquid Suede Metallic Matte lipsticks, which debuted online in early July but didn't come to Ulta stores until July 30. The original Liquid Suede formula works well for me (I own Amethyst , Stone Fox , and Brooklyn Thorn ), so I couldn't wait to try the metallic version, which allegedly delivers "high-impact metallic color" in "a shockingly creamy" formula. Spoiler: I was disappointed. But, in the spirit of a Kimberly Clark anti-haul, I might as well share my experience on my blog. I was of two minds whether to write this review: I swatched all the shades but wore  only one, and for only a couple of hours, and I didn't get a great photo of myself wearing it, and blah blah blah. But entire presidentia...

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...

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 ...

Welcome to the first, and saltier, of my two 2016 roundup posts! A few notes before we begin: There are 13 products on this list simply because I was disappointed by 13 products last year (not a large number, considering how many I tried).  As always, the products are listed in chronological order of purchase, not from best to worst or vice versa. I've linked to my original reviews where available.  I returned several of these products, sometimes too quickly to take photos. In those cases, I've used the brands' product shots. I also lost a number of my photos while clearing my phone's memory last year. Not all of these products are total fails. I kept and still use a few of them, since I don't subscribe to the KonMari doctrine of getting rid of anything that I don't absolutely love. Especially in the case of color cosmetics, if a product fulfills a specific purpose but isn't perfect, I'll often keep using it instead of buying yet another product in the s...