Eat! Drink! Make! Win!
Days 1 & 2 I started gentle with Fresh’s Sugar Rose Tinted Lip Treatment.
I acquired the mini at Sephora as a free birthday gift, which is awesome because the full size product is $22.50 and I am a cheap lady. I will admit that it is kind of lovely…it smells a little sweet and a little rosy, and goes on smooth. It’s sticky for a few minutes but then just kind of stays put. As it’s a tinted balm I didn’t have to worry about it going past my lips too much, but I was more mindful about how often I rubbed my lips together. I re-applied once each day and by the end of the day my lips weren’t super moist but had not dried out either.
Day 1:
Day 2:
Days 3 & 4 I stepped it up with a little more color in the form of New York Color’s (NYC) Ultra Moist Lip Wear in Blossom (#316).
This particular lipstick is available in drugstores for a mere $.99, so if you’re looking to experiment it’s hard to go wrong with something so cost-effective. In the tube it looks a bit scary, a very bright pink bordering on fuchsia, but it went on my lips smoothly – it is actually a very moist lipstick! It’s also not nearly as bright on my face as in the tube, though I imagine you could layer it to get more color. After blotting the color stayed put, and though it faded over the day it did so in a subtle way that I didn’t feel I needed to reapply.
Day 3 (being stalked):
Day 4 (hiking & greasy hair & my feelings about deciding to grow out my fringe or not):
Day 5 saw me going a little more full on with New York Color’s (NYC) Ultra Moist Lip Wear in Ruby (#305).
Again $.99, goes on smooth, looks scary in the tube. This is a lot more intense than the Blossom shade though. It’s much darker and thicker, and also has a shimmer to it – there is little room for error. It also wore off fairly quickly onto everything, and seemed a bit stickier. The color was awesome but I don’t know that I’m up for paying that much attention to my lips. Sometimes I just want to have a glass of water without worrying that I’m leaving my face on it.
Day 5:
Day 6 was Marathon Monday in Boston, and got up to 90 degrees. I opted to go back to the Sugar Rose for its lightness, and was pleasantly surprised that it held up through the day and didn’t melt or get any stickier. And the color matched nicely with my flushed face.
Day 6 (Pink and sweaty, post-gym):
Day 7, my final day of experimentation, and I pulled out the big guns. Bought a while ago for a costume party, I put back on Revlon’s Super Lustrous Matte Lipstick in Really Red.
This is about as intense as lipstick gets (maybe outside the long last liquid that you paint on.) It requires precision application (and probably a lip brush) as every little bit will show. It goes on creamy and then dries quickly to a thick, matte finish. And it is, in fact, really red. So red that I scraped it off – helpful hint, Vaseline will dissolve it – and put on something else, because I wasn’t ready to weather work and have to worry about my lips smearing like a terrifying sex clown.
Day 7:
Bonus action shot of the same lipstick:
Now that I’ve made it through a week, I am a bit less terrified of lipstick. Tinted balms best suit my lifestyle of running around and just slapping on whatever I want on my way, but a moisture-rich lipstick is no longer out of the question. And those $.99 drugstore brands? They’re actually not bad!
Now if someone wants to show my how to curl my eyelashes and properly put on eyeliner, I’m totally game…but for now I’m good with the lipstick.
This is my normal, everyday face:
I smile more on one side of my mouth than the other when not smiling in glee. My hair is a little frizzy from the hell it went through going back to brunette. I am not Patrick Bateman. My beauty routine has minimal scrubbing and toning, moisturizing and masking. Lately I’ve been breaking out with dry skin, so I’ve been using a light moisturizer. I wear lip balm every day. If I’m going to a party I have my fairly standard mascara, eyeliner, and eyeshadow combo down pat.
Basically I have the same makeup skillset that I had in high school, which is minimalist at best.
Lipstick in particular has always fascinated and kind of frightened me. Sure you can wear a “natural” looking lipstick, but you have to keep tabs on it so it doesn’t fade or make its way onto your teeth. The tubes I do own are mostly old with one that I bought to wear for costume parties, which I guess is kind of how I see lipstick. It feels costumey and makes me feel a little conspicuous…or like a sex clown.
A note to my company’s IT guy Charles…I am really, really sorry for looking at something with the phrase “sex clown” at work, but it’s in a ladymag. That’s ok, right?
Anyway, starting today I’m wearing lipstick for a week. Everything from tinted balms (I’ve got to start somewhere!) to thick, matte stuff with migratory tendencies - I’m going to be a lippy lady. Next Wednesday will be full of photos, product reviews, and more of my face than you probably need.
I am pretty excited. Game on.
Despite Boston’s reluctance to snow, which is in fact making me nervous that February will be horrific, winter is still upon us with its harsh gusts of wind and freezing temperatures. For me this ends in chapped lips, dry skin, and windblown hair that is definitely not of the “cute California beach bunny” type. This is my lot in winter, and I can accept this.
I have gotten pretty good at counteracting all of these signs of winter without spending much money. Simple things that I always have in my cupboard make for great DIY beauty treatments without the high price tag.
Today I’ll be focusing on my lips. I have a bit of a lip balm problem as it is, but in winter even multiple applications can’t seem to keep my lips from drying when I’m out and about. The cheapest lip exfoliation products at Sephora are $18, and prices go up from there. At home though, a simple mix of sugar, honey, and olive oil gives the same result for much less than a quarter.
