Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

Name: Revlon Lip Butter in Candy Apple Date Purchased: November 2013 Grade: A Notes: After my last post, which took me forever to write, I thought I'd clear my palate with a quick installment of my Lipstick Chronology, now approaching its end: this is the penultimate post! I started my blog in early 2014, so all the lipsticks I've bought since then have been faithfully chronicled in real time. I've left a few out of the chronology either because I gave them away before they could be reviewed, or because I'm about to give them away and don't want to swatch them excessively before I pass them on to someone else. When I've finished the chronology, I'll write up a final stock-taking post, cataloging all the lipsticks I own and deciding which ones to keep (I've already purged a few ). Candy Apple is an orange-red semi-sheer lipstick, scentless and flavorless. It's not a bright orange-red; rather, it has a darkened, toned-down quality, much like Topshop R...

[Note: NSFW for Nell Gwyn's boobs.] No, really, I'll always have this blush. It's so pigmented that I can't imagine hitting pan earlier than 2018. I bought Paris two months ago, during Anthropologie's Thanksgiving sale, but have worn it only a few times since then. It's a bright watermelon pink, perfect for the warm months, but prone to clashing with my usual plum-taupe-rose-scarlet winter color scheme. I'd wanted a Face Stockholm cream blush ever since the notorious Driveller posted her glowing reviews ( here and here ) of six of the shades, but it took me a long time to settle on just one. I go through blushes very slowly and didn't want a color similar to one I already had, so after much hemming and hawing I opted for Paris. My collection was missing a warm pink blush, and looking at dozens of portraits of Restoration beauties for this post made me wonder why I'd waited so long to acquire that dissipated claret-and-adultery flush. The acronym ...

I was planning to wait until spring to buy these two bright pinks, but I had a $7-off-$17 coupon for Revlon burning a hole in my wallet, and there were no other Revlon products I really wanted. So here we are: my first Moisture Stain, Barcelona Nights, and my sixth Lip Butter, Lollipop. (Seventh, if you count the tube of Pink Truffle I lost earlier this year and had to replace.) Because I'm a past master at justifying lipstick purchases, I concluded that Barcelona Nights and Lollipop would help me escape my seasonal rut of brick-plum-wine. We'll see if that happens. I'm wearing Revlon's Matte Balm in Sultry as I type this, so maybe not. The latest drugstore answer to YSL's Glossy Stains, Revlon's Moisture Stains came out this past spring. I held off on trying them for a few reasons, the first one entirely irrational: I find the phrase "moisture stain" disgusting. "Oh, that's a pretty color on your lips. What is it?" "Thanks, it's...

Or so I call it in my head, because I've been unable to find a clinical name for an extra fold in each eyelid. I'm talking about this: Internet research has yielded almost no information. The closest I've come is a forum devoted to botched eyelid surgery: apparently, people who get plastic surgery to turn their monolids into creased eyelids can end up with multiple folds. But I have yet to find a discussion of the extra fold as a congenital issue. Essentially, I have too much lid per eye, so the skin folds over on itself when my eyes are open. This creates deep creases that are especially visible when I'm wearing powder eyeshadow: Doing my eye makeup always means taking my extra lid folds into account. I have to wiggle my eyeshadow brush just so, or the powder won't make it into the creases. Any look involving a sharp, graphic shape is off the table. It's hard for me to experiment with new shapes and placements of shadow and liner, and I'm rarely satisfie...

I'm back! Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post: your kind words were much appreciated. I did what I needed to get done, and now I'm excited to return to blogging. I've missed it a lot! Missed it so much, in fact, that I kept a photographic record of all the makeup I wore during my hiatus. I had nowhere to be on a daily basis except the coffee shop closest to the library, where I chipped away at an application for a fellowship that I have a laughably small chance of winning. Somehow this made me treasure the ritual of putting on my makeup even more than I already had. I like these little reminders that I have an identity beyond my dissertation. In the last few weeks, I've entered a nesting phase with my makeup. My urge to haul waxes and wanes, and right now it's at a very low point. At the risk of sounding deranged, I want to get to know the products I have. I want to use them to their full potential. My wishlist is as long as ever, but far less urgen...