Best Lipstick Formulas 2019

(Yes, I've been rewatching Arrested Development .) I bought theBalm's Nude 'tude eyeshadow palette, a mostly cool-toned mix of neutrals, back in August 2012. It was my first--and actually, my last to date--eyeshadow palette. I'd spent all summer vacillating between Nude 'tude and Urban Decay's recently released Naked 2, and I might never have bought either one (the usual upshot of my makeup dilemmas) if theBalm hadn't gone on HauteLook for a considerable discount. So I pounced, and nearly two years later, you can see how well the twelve-shadow palette format worked out for me. That's right: I hit pan on Selfish, the taupe shade, before I even knew that "hitting pan" was a thing, but I've barely made a dip in the others. I don't think I've worn any of the four leftmost shades in public even once. So in the interest of using my stash to its full potential (especially as I'm traveling with a limited supply of makeup and on a contin...

(Fewer words than usual because ugh, the jetlag, and because I need to finish my conference paper.) It turns out that my boyfriend lives half a block away from a Superdrug and a Boots. This will be bad , I thought, before discovering that this particular Boots has a limited beauty selection, while the Superdrug has an incredibly loud "radio station" (advertisements alternating with late-'90s R&B). Shopping for makeup while being told by a disembodied voice to shop for makeup is depressing; leave my false consciousness alone, Superdrug! So I find myself incapable of staying there for more than five minutes at a time, which severely restricts my hauling abilities. I mean, I've bought things. Of course I have. Today, taking advantage of a 3-for-2 sale, I picked up a Sleek blush in Life's a Peach and two Barry M nail paints in Shocking Pink and Sugar Apple. That's right: I have three blushes now . And a warm-toned one, finally! I love the packaging: the Barry ...

The 18th-century novelist Samuel Richardson once described himself as a "poor pruner." It amazes me that the author of a 1500-page novel could also be the king of understatement, but so it goes. (By the way, if you enjoy totally immersive, psychologically harrowing reading experiences, Clarissa is well worth your time.) I too am a poor pruner in most aspects of life, but especially in packing for trips. If Richardson had been a beauty blogger, he would have found it as challenging as I did to decide which products to bring on a five-week Grand Tour. I brought too many; I freely acknowledge this. I assembled the Clarissa of travel makeup collections. But having all my favorite beauty products with me makes me feel safe and grounded. When I'm away from home, I actively miss whatever I didn't take with me. This is a problem with lipsticks in particular, not because I necessarily want to wear them, but because I just like having them around, taking pleasure in their col...

I rely on drugstore beauty brands for colors I feel ambivalent about, which means that I've amassed quite a few orange and warm red lipsticks from Revlon, Milani, and Maybelline. And, surprise, I'm still ambivalent about oranges and warm reds on my complexion. Is this because they really don't suit me, or because I never spring for higher-quality lipsticks in those colors? Would, say, the YSL Glossy Stain in Orange de Chine suit me better than Milani Sweet Nectar, a yellow-based orange that I keep around not to wear, but to remind myself never to buy another true orange lipstick? All this may have led you to believe that I'm going to be reviewing an expensive lip color. No, I'm still the same cheap bastard I always was. I recently bought Vibrant Mandarin, an orange-red coral from Maybelline's Vivids line, and I've spent a few days deciding whether it suits me. And since we're on the subject of questionably flattering colors, I'll also review a new po...

I came early to my calling (pedantry). In that spirit, I'm joining with another doctoral student, Sylirael of The Painted Rogue , for a collaboration post on makeup in graduate school! (Or, I suppose, a pair of collaboration posts: this is mine, and you can find hers here .) Despite our disciplinary divide--I'm in the humanities, she's in the sciences--we both have a lot of thoughts on the experience of being a makeup-wearing female academic. I wear makeup; I can also read. Fancy that! "I am not sure I can give you the remotest idea of what graduate school is like," wrote Tom Wolfe in 1972. "Nobody ever has. Millions of Americans now go to graduate schools, but just say the phrase--'graduate school'--and what picture leaps into the brain? No picture, not even a blur. Half the people I knew in graduate school were going to write a novel about it. I thought about it myself. No one ever wrote such a book, as far as I know. Everyone used to sniff th...

1. A Confession I wrote the first draft of this post last night, under the influence of two of these: Gin, cucumber Dry Soda (which you must try, if you have access to it), and enough fruit/veg garnish that I could pretend, at least for a few seconds, that it was a week from today and I was drinking a Pimm's Cup across the Atlantic. After a few gin-infused strawberries, I seem more charming to myself than I actually am, and my writing tends to suffer accordingly. Lucky for you that I didn't write too much, and that I edited the post this morning, under the less giddy-making influence of a large coffee. 2. A 花見 (Flower-Viewing) This week saw the last meeting of my monthly dissertation seminar in Washington, DC. On my lunch break, I walked around Capitol Hill and took photos of nineteenth-century brickwork and cotton-candy-colored lilacs: And white pom-pom flowers (scientific term, of course): I arrived in Washington a couple of weeks too late for peak cherry-blossom ...

Name: Maybelline Color Statement Lipstick in Ruby Star Date Purchased: February 2013 Grade: B Notes: Ruby Star was a gift from my mom, who included it in her annual Valentine's package (aww). She thought she was sending me an unremarkable berry-red lipstick, not a berry-red lipstick with a raging case of disco fever. How wrong she was. Ruby Star's distinguishing feature is an obscene abundance of gold and blue glitter. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, I'm averse to shimmer and glitter in lipsticks, so I would never have bought this for myself. But the universe placed it in my path, and as it turns out, disco fever is highly contagious. Had I glanced at Ruby Star under drugstore lighting, I would have muttered the F-word--frost--and moved on. But having seen it in direct sunlight, I'm reluctant to call it a frost lipstick; I think of frost as white or silver, with smaller, finer particles. Though Ruby Star's base color is cool-toned, the gold glitter warms ...