Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

In the past five years or so, I've owned at least one dark lipstick in almost every color family: red, purple, pink, plum, brown, even blue and gray. Until this year, though, I had never bought a true black lipstick. Black lips were a little too predictably goth, too Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way . A dark brown or dark red was arty, my hipster brain told me. It was historical, because I could point to the same colors in illustrations from the '20s. Dark shades of traditional lipstick colors made me feel more mature: that is, as mature as an overeducated, underemployed, indebted millennial could feel. By contrast, black lipstick evoked nothing so much as a My Chemical Romance concert in 2006. But my prejudices vanished one late-September Sunday in the beauty section of Target, when I came upon Wet n Wild's Halloween collection and spotted a sparkly black liquid lipstick . I had resisted non-sparkly black lipsticks by dozens of brands, but I was powerless against b...

My tastes in makeup have shifted recently. I've noticed myself gravitating toward different colors, textures, and undertones, and caring less about "seasonal" makeup. Spring was so cold and dreary this year that I didn't feel like making my usual switch to coral and pink tones. But even now, with the hot, swampy Mid-Atlantic summer in full swing, I find myself drawn to murky, gloomy makeup: browns, dark purples, grays, that sort of thing. I'm still too much of a traditionalist to wear, say, NARS 413 BLKR in July, but I'm finding the summer-goth aesthetic more and more appealing. You might argue that this too is an expression of seasonal rules: only someone who cared about them would care about breaking them, right? Well, maybe so. And maybe I'm not even breaking them: black plums, thunderstorms, and blackberries all belong to summer. So let's say that I'm complicating the usual summer palette. Yes, that sounds pretentious enough for this blog. Th...

Yesterday looked like this... (yes, I wore Cherries in the Snow in the snow) ...so I think it's a good time for another winter story: Like many girls, I grew up reading Lucy Maud Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables series. One of the most memorable chapters in the first book, "Matthew Insists on Puffed Sleeves," concerns the orphaned Anne Shirley's first party dress. After twelve-year-old Anne has lived with the elderly siblings Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert for a year, Matthew has an epiphany: "Anne was not dressed like the other girls!...Marilla kept her clothed in plain, dark dresses, all made after the same unvarying pattern." The school's Christmas concert is coming up, and Matthew decides that Anne needs a dress with puffed leg-o'-mutton sleeves, the height of fashion in the mid-1890s: Augusta Auctions Suspecting that his puritanical sister will "throw cold water on his project at once," Matthew goes behind Marilla's back and e...

Prior to this year, I felt ambivalent about Milani. It was the only cruelty-free brand with a decent selection in my local CVS (no NYX or Wet n Wild for this backwater), but its offerings included malodorous, drying lipstick , sticky lip gloss , liquid lipstick that refused to set, coarsely milled eyeshadow , and too-shimmery baked blush. 2015 has changed all that. I don't know what changes took place behind the scenes at Milani HQ, but my purchases in the past year have turned me into, if not an ardent fangirl, at least someone who appreciates the brand's presence in the beauty aisle. Matte Naked lipstick and Coral Cove blush are two of my favorite beauty buys of 2015, and Milani's clear eyebrow gel has become a daily staple despite its too-large applicator. The matte liquid lipstick I reviewed a few weeks ago was a letdown, but I'd recommend it for anyone who likes that sort of thing; it just turns out that I don't. So I had high hopes for my latest Milani pur...

As a preteen and young teenager, I had a brief flirtation with witchcraft. There was something in the air at the time: The Craft had come out several years before, the Harry Potter series was gaining worldwide popularity, and bookstores were full of titles like Spells for Teenage Witches . Growing up in San Francisco made a difference, too. The city was not yet determined to become a sleek, sanitized tech paradise : it was still weird and louche and a little gritty, and you could still buy swaths of moon-printed fabric from hippie ladies at garage sales. I constructed an altar in my bedroom, burned bundles of sage, tried unsuccessfully to make my own rosewater, and meditated while gazing into a candle flame. It was a heady time to be thirteen. Witchcraft made me feel closer to nature and to something more sublime than my middle-school existence. Unfortunately, it also made me feel a little silly. I don't think I'm suited to even the most disorganized of organized religions. Bu...