Lips

MAC Matte Lipstick in Dangerous, and a Few Thoughts on Red Lipstick

June 16th, 2015 by Karen 27 Comments

mac dangerous lipstick — That’s MAC Matte Lipstick in Dangerous ($16), available now online and at MAC stores and counters in the MAC permanent collection

From whence, I wonder, does red lipstick derive its magical power? That’s what I’d like to know. It’s the rainbow pegasus of lipsticks, and whenever I wear it, I feel like a magically imbued, larger-than-life version of myself.

Like, if I were flying off into the sunset on the back of a giant dragon, a la Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones, I would not be wearing pink lipstick, or coral lipstick or — gasp! — a nude gloss.

HELL NO. I would definitely be wearing something red. 🙂

As a kid growing up in the East Bay suburbs (which wasn’t exactly a high-fashion hot spot), I didn’t have much direct contact with red lipstick. My mom was/is more of a Chapstick gal, so the closest I ever got to red lipstick was when I saw it on the models in the pages of the fashion magazines at the dentist’s office.

I didn’t know anything about makeup at the time, but I did know that I wanted what those ladies had on their lips.

And I wanted it badly.

And now, even after all these years, I still love red lipstick, and I have a drawer filled with them — blue-based reds, creamy reds, neutral reds, glossy reds — enough to satisfy my every red lipstick craving.

One of those cravings that never stays away long are matte reds. Like a 1940s screen siren, they’re timeless and beautiful, and I love how they can look elegant and bad-@ss at the same time.

My current crush/matte red in rotation is MAC’s new warm orangey red Matte Lipstick in Dangerous. It makes me feel like I’m in charge and runnin’ sh*t, you know? Like when people hear my heels click-clacking down the hallway, they get a little scared.

Dangerous is one of the new $16 Matte Lipstick shades recently added to the MAC permanent line, and you can find it now (and hopefully eternally) online and at MAC stores and counters.

PRICE: $16
AVAILABILITY: Permanent, available now at MAC counters, stores and online
MAKEUP AND BEAUTY BLOG RATING: A

Speaking of Game of Thrones…

**SPOILER ALERT**
**SPOILER ALERT**
**SPOILER ALERT**
(I’m serious! — don’t read ANY further unless you’re OK talking about the last episode.)

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MAC Unsung Heroes: Persistence Matte Lipstick

June 1st, 2015 by Karen 18 Comments

mac persistence lipstick — MAC Matte Lipstick in Persistence ($16)

With lipstick, life and cats, persistence pays off. If you’ve struggled to find your perfect cat soulmate, just keep feeding your next-door neighbor’s awesome kitty. Give her a can of something gravy-ful every day until she decides that you’re much cooler than her current people (j/k only; don’t do this), and that she’s welcome to make your house her new home.

Persistence, y’all! It’s all about persistence. 😉

On the lipstick front, I’ve been searching high and low for the right ’90s-style warm matte brown (so trendy right meow), and it feels like I’ve been searching forever…

I figure that I could revert back to wearing my ’90s jam, MAC Paramount, but I’d rather find something newer, fresher and updated.

Plus, it’s almost summer, and the last thing I want to be wearing in summer with my ~~booty shorts~~ short shorts is dark brown vampire lips. I dunno… That combo just doesn’t sound right.

MAC Matte Lipstick in Persistence ($16) sounds much better.

mac persistence — Wearing MAC Persistence Matte Lipstick

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Dior Summer 2015: The Dior Addict Lipsticks in 001 Red Bliss and 005 Fuchsia Utopia Are Perfect in Every Way But Price

May 28th, 2015 by Karen 23 Comments

dior summer 2015 fuschia utopia top — From Dior Summer 2015, Dior Addict Lipstick in 005 Fuchsia Utopia ($33)

The Dior Summer 2015 Collection Dior Addict Lipsticks ($33 each, available in four shades) are aptly named.

Because they are deliciously addictive. 🙂

I usually like to swap out the lip products I keep in my purse every few days (’cause I crave variety), but the two Dior Addicts I’m wearing here are the only two lipsticks I’ve carried around consistently this past month.

Two of four Dior Addict Lipsticks in the Dior Summer 2015 Tie Dye Collection, they’re available now at Dior counters and online. I’ve been bouncing back and forth between 001 Red Bliss and 005 Fuchsia Utopia (the others are 002 Coral Trip and 006 Nude Fever).

dior summer 2015 red bliss — From Dior Summer 2015, Dior Addict Lipstick in 001 Red Bliss ($33)

“Dior Addict is back this summer with a brand new two-tone version: four fresh and bright shades featuring the emblematic Dior logo in a contrasting colour at the center. In a single sweep, shades and textures intertwine to recreate a subtle tie dye effect on the lips.”

— dior.com

Like Tootsie Pops, each of these lipsticks has a surprise inside. There are two colors within each bullet, and they mix together as you slick one across your lips.

Why am I addicted to Dior Addict? Let me count the ways…

The fantastic formula… It’s remarkable just how moisturizing these are considering the lightweight formula. Within a couple hours of applying either of these shades my normally dry lips feel less like cheese graters. Like the Zella sweatpants of sheer lipsticks, they feel fantastic! The smooth, virtually weightless formula feels almost like a silky lip balm or a luxurious lip butter.
Extremely user-friendly… I usually apply them directly from the tube without a mirror. You have a lot of leeway with these because they’re sheer, and if you take one a little beyond the edge of your lips, no big deal. I usually reapply after meals, or every two hours, and I actually look forward to the feel of these gliding across my lips. The light vanilla flavor and scent is yummy, too.
Sheer, but not too sheer… Sometimes with sheer lipsticks, if you have pigmented lips like I do, your natural lip color overpowers the pigment, and it can look like you aren’t wearing anything at all. That’s totally not the case with these Dior Addict Lipsticks. They contain a healthy serving of pigment, and the colors apply evenly and smoothly. I’d call them medium coverage.

For me, these are right up there with the top performers in the medium-coverage lipstick category alongside the fantastic $20 MAC Huggable Lip Colours, which look similar but have a slightly thicker formula, and the fabulous $50 Tom Ford Lip Color Sheers, which are a smidgen more pigmented but waaay more expensive.

dior summer 2015 001 red bliss — From Dior Summer 2015, Dior Addict Lipstick in 001 Red Bliss ($33)

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MAC Men Love Mystery Matte Lipstick: Men May Love Mystery, But This Woman Loves Violet

May 26th, 2015 by Karen 39 Comments

Here’s my mysterious look!

I tried to look mysterious for this picture because I was wearing the new $16 MAC Matte Lipstick in Men Love Mystery, and I was shooting for sultry and elusive…but these are what I got instead.

Haha! I have no idea what’s going on in this picture…

I think I may have been halfway through a “Haaay” move when the camera shutter button clicked.

Yeah… Hard to tell now. 🙂

Men Love Mystery is one of the 22 matte MAC Lipsticks in the new The Matte Lip collection, which is en route for the permanent line and coming to the MAC website May 28, and then to MAC counters and stores a little later on June 11. They’re all $16 each.

This color though! It has shown me the way… Now I have come to realize that I’m all about violet matte lips.

I’ve worn similar colors before that were creamy or glossy but never a matte quite like this. I think that the finish, because it’s matte, sort of tones down the natural brightness and intensity that this violet would otherwise have, to make the whole effect more serious and, dare I say it, mysterious…

Of course I love the color because it’s ah-maze-ballz. And I also love almost everything about the formula — how smoothly it applies, the classic MAC vanilla flavor and scent, and the six-hour wear time (when I apply, then blot, then apply again, although it’s pigmented enough to get away with a single layer if you don’t mind sacrificing some wear time) — but at the risk of sounding like a broken record, or at least a stuck CD, the MAC Matte Lipstick formula is fairly drying. Maybe I notice it more because of my lips, which are naturally dry, but it still might be something to keep in mind if you’re thinking about this color or one of MAC’s other mattes.

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The Sisley-Paris Phyto-Lip Twists: These Beautiful Balms May Break the Bank

May 22nd, 2015 by Karen 9 Comments

Hmm…

These Sisley-Paris Phyto-Lip Twists are probably the fanciest, most expensive twist-up tinted lip balms I’ve ever seen!

Why is that?

Well…they’re $50 each.

Yeah, that’s a lot of tacos, son.

Sisley-Paris is a high end skin care and makeup brand (a la Chantecaille), and $50 for these is pretty typical of the line, but it still seems a little ridonkulous, doesn’t it?

Lip crayons with the texture of a balm, these are basically medium-coverage lipsticks with gloss-like shine and a highly moisturizing, plumping formula that’s very easy to wear.

Yup, they also contain plant-based plumping ingredients…although I’ve seen, like, no plumping action from them at all. But really, though, lip plumpers usually don’t do a lot of plumping for me. If I ever find a product that actually transforms my lips from stern piano teacher to billowy pillow, believe me, I will freaking let you know.

They’re available in nine unscented, unflavored shades (five of them pictured here) — 01 Nude, 02 Baby, 03 Peach, 04 Pinky, 05 Berry, 06 Cherry, 07 Coral, 08 Candy and 09 Chestnut.

Overlooking the Everest-caliber price, I think these are almost flawless. The crème de la crème of twist-up tinted lip balms. Extremely moisturizing, smooth, easy to apply and available in a nice range of colors.

Wear time isn’t bad, either, for what they are. I get about two hours.

On top of everything else, the sassy zebra packaging does a lot for my soul (I love me some animal prints! — which I didn’t fully realize until this year).

I think these are a wonderful product, but it’s hard to justify $50 for what’s essentially a medium-coverage tinted lip balm. If they were around $17 instead, like the Clinique Chubby Stick Moisturizing Lip Colour Balms (or $9 for the Neutrogena MoistureSmooth Color Sticks), I could see these belonging in all of my friends’ purses.

This may be crazy (it probably is), but for some reason $50 for an indulgent Tom Ford lipstick seems totally sane to me, but $50 for a moderately pigmented tinted lip balm seems like a stretch.

I dunno… Maybe I’ve just inhaled a little too much texturizing spray.

If you’re interested, the Sisley-Paris Phyto-Lip Twists are available now online and at Neiman Marcus stores.

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MAC Matte Lipstick in Whirl: Take ’90s Lips for a Whirl With This MAC Matte

May 20th, 2015 by Karen 22 Comments

mac whirl lipstick — Wearing MAC’s new Matte Lipstick in Whirl ($16)

5 Things you can do TODAY to transport yourself to the ’90s

Listen to your favorite Salt-N-Pepa CD (or, alternately, cassette tape) on repeat, and sing/rap the lyrics to Whatta Man aloud, because you know them back and forth, and inside out, and upside down. My man is smooth like Barry, and his voice got bass! A body like Arnold and a Denzel face!
Slip on a flannel shirt as a nod to the crispy Seattle weather (or to just stay warm in front of the refrigerator)…
On that note, quote the movie Clueless with ABANDON.
Dust off your little black backpack (it’s in the back of your closet next to your Doc Martens), and use it as your purse for the day.
Wear new matte rosy brown MAC Matte Lipstick in Whirl ($16), one of 22 matte shades in the upcoming The Matte Lip collection, coming to the MAC website May 28 and MAC stores and counters June 11.

GIRL, funny story. My friend Jen’s been more or less wearing the same color of brown matte lipstick since the ’90s, and I’ve been bugging her to break out of her comfort zone for years.

Corals, pinks, reds, nudes — seriously, any shade other than that same ’90s matte brown, but now that the ’90s lip, also known as (airquotes) “the Kylie Jenner lip,” is back in style, I don’t feel like I need to bug her anymore, LOL!!

The lip Jen’s loved all these years has made a comeback, and you can bet she’s ready for it. 🙂

Me, on the other hand, to be honest, I require some handholding. Back in the day I loved wearing matte brown lips, and it was all I wore, pretty much 24/7, but I’m having a hard time now re-seeing myself in the color.

I’ve gotten attached to fun brights and nudes!

But, in the spirit of breaking out of comfort zones, I’m trying to take my own advice by giving these circa-1995 colors a whirl.

Enter MAC’s new Matte Lipstick in Whirl ($16).

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MAC The Matte Lip Collection: Many of These Lipsticks Are Stars, But They Don’t Shine Like Them

May 18th, 2015 by Karen 48 Comments

Many of the matte lipsticks in the new MAC The Matte Lip collection are new, but daaaaaang! — some of the shades sure do look like they jumped out of my hot tub time machine circa 1994.

Like dark brown Antique Velvet? I’m pretty sure I wore something just like it…to every Friday night house party I ever went to.

And just in case you’re wondering…yes, I was that person at the party who was standing uncomfortably in the corner and nursing the same bottle of Zima the entire evening. #datingmyself

All of the $16 lipsticks in the new 22-piece MAC The Matte Lip collection are matte (obvs), with about half of them having MAC’s Matte finish, and the other half their Retro Matte finish, but they aren’t all new. A handful of them are currently available in the permanent line and are being re-promoted here with the launch (like Ruby Woo, All Fired Up, Flat Out Fabulous, Velvet Teddy, Kinda Sexy, Please Me, Heroine and Pink Pigeon).

But most of the 22 shades are new, which is very exciting! Also, technically, this isn’t a MAC collection in the traditional limited edition sense, as all of the colors are either in the permanent line now, or being added to it.

You may still see some familiar names among the batch of new colors as well, though, like Whirl and Stone. Both are currently in MAC’s Lip Pencil line, so if you’re a fan of either one, voila! Now there are matching matte lipstick shades.

Matchy-matchy!

The MAC Mattes vs. the Retro Mattes

Both of the matte finishes represented in the collection are flat, meaning that they shine very little, or not at all, on the lips, but the finishes aren’t the same. The Retro Mattes are more intensely matte than their regular Matte counterparts — extremely flat — and they’re almost like wearing a matte lip pencil.

I think the Retro Mattes also feels drier and thinner than the regular Mattes do, which feel a little “wet” and dense/thick to me.

Oh! — and when I wear the Retro Mattes, I feel like my vertical lip lines are front and center, more so than when I wear the regular Mattes.

As for the colors themselves, what if you refuse to embrace your inner ’90s brown lipstick-loving babe? Does that mean you absolutely won’t like this collection?

No, not necessarily… You don’t have to look like you lived and loved in the era that gave birth to floral spaghetti-strap dresses and baby tees to find something to like in MAC The Matte Lip. 🙂 In addition to the old-school shades, the release also includes some very fashion-forward colors, like deep royal blue Matte Royal, as well as some sweet pinks like Please Me, and several bold, brash brights like purple Heroine and bluish red Ruby Woo.

Here are pics and swatches of 14 of the 22 shades…

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Ulta Adventures: The Pop of Passion Lip Oil-Balms by bareMinerals

May 14th, 2015 by Karen 10 Comments

bareminerals pop of passion — bareMinerals Pop of Passion

Popped into Ulta and spied these new Pop of Passion Lip Oil-Balms by bareMinerals.

Don’t they look juicy?

They’re $16 each, 8 shades… Looks like they have passion fruit oil and vitamin E, so they should be pretty moisturizing. They look kind of like those moisturizing balm/lip stain hybrids. I’m intrigued…although wasn’t quite intrigued enough to bring one of them home (this time).

Now, if they came with an actual “pop” of some kind, like a Popsicle, a Ring Pop, a big jug of popcorn or a Pop Tart?! — that would be some next-level ish right there.

Just throwing that out there for the bareMinerals marketing team. 🙂 I’m just sayin’. You guys, get on that.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen