Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

(Apologies to a show I've never actually watched. I'm told that I should!) I've noted before that the average British woman seems to get more excited about makeup than the average American woman does. I stand by my original conclusion: "In my experience, Americans pay more attention to the overall effect of their makeup, while the British pay more attention to individual details." Drugstores in the UK offer more shade variety per brand, and it's not unusual to see people wearing red or fuchsia lipstick when out and about.  Experimenting with makeup is part of British culture in a way it's just not in the US; there's a sense of play here that I find so refreshing. I took this photo (faces blurred for privacy) at the MAC lipstick display at the Selfridges in Birmingham two weeks ago: I lingered in the Selfridges makeup department for about 15 minutes, and the MAC section was like this the entire time. I'd occasionally try to approach and swatch ...

You know those products that never quite make it onto your wishlist but inspire a low-key lust for several months? So it is with me and NARS Hammamet, a limited-edition eyeshadow duo for Spring 2016. Hammamet, named after a Tunisian resort town , comprises a light matte peachy beige and the prettiest metallic rosy copper. That's a product shot from the NARS website, but I also went to Bluemercury today and swatched Hammamet for the sake of journalistic integrity and nothing more . The two shades on the left are from Hammamet; as you can see, the matte beige looks warmer in person than it does in that product shot. On the right is the limited-edition lipstick in Rosecliff, whose namesake is a historic mansion in Newport, RI. (By the way, if you were looking for a dupe of Rosecliff, Topshop's Lip Bullet in Motel is almost identical.) Now, I never seriously entertained the idea of buying Hammamet. NARS duos are $35 each, and for that price I need to be wild about both colors, no...

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...

Name: Urban Decay Revolution Lipstick in Streak Date Purchased: January 2014 Grade: B+ Notes: This "chronology" has gotten so woefully out of order that it doesn't even deserve the name, but the weather is finally above freezing and the sun is out and I'm drinking an iced coffee, and I'm going to review my springiest lipstick, damn it, even if that means skipping over ten others. It's my blog and I can ignore the flow of linear time if I want to. Streak is the only purchase I've ever made from Urban Decay; the brand just never grabbed my attention until it released its 22 new Revolution Lipsticks in the fall of 2013, and it hasn't grabbed my attention since. The reason, I think, has to do with the disconnect between UD's brand identity and its price point. If I'm going to pay $18 for a single eyeshadow or $22 for a lipstick, I want to buy into a slightly more refined aesthetic, you know? UD describes the Revolution Lipsticks as "creamy, ba...