on the eyes: rusty red via Estée Lauder Stay-on Shadow Paint

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Right now I am all about burgundies, sepias, rusty reds and burnt oranges, particularly on my eyes (this is going to come up again soon, I suspect more than once). I have the support of basic color theory, too; red enhances green. A true, balanced red or anything on the pink spectrum can be difficult to work with*, but I think rusty colors like this would suit a lot of eye colors and skin tones. This is the color Cosmic, a great ruddy brown. More visible glitter than I was expecting–as a warning–but still lovely.

I’m still trying to find a gorgeous, true sepia. I don’t see many examples of this kind of shade from any brand (though NARS has a new one–Persia– that might do, but $$), especially not in a cream formula. Let me know if you have any suggestions.

*This difficulty is not insurmountable, though, and I don’t think rules [i.e. don’t wear red on the eyes, don’t mix brown with black (I love brown with black)] are particularly helpful in the context of style. In the words of a wise friend, “I do what I want.” [At least, when it is in my power.]

lipstick: keeping things organized

top row: Maybelline, NYCbottom row: NARS, Lancôme, Shu Uemura, MAC, Lancôme
top row: Maybelline, NYC
bottom row: NARS, Lancôme, Shu Uemura, MAC, Lancôme
Rimmel, Revlon, Origins, Korres, Clarins, Victoria's Secret...
Rimmel, Revlon, Origins, Korres, Clarins, Victoria’s Secret…

I’d been sticking all of my lipstick in this drawer from a stackable set I got at Target (in a manner not quite but something close to higgledy-piggledy) but at a certain point it was more than a drawer is inherently designed to handle.

One night I got out the scissors and came up with this setup. It’s not the sleekest thing, using chopped up cardboard, but it was free (I am totally cheap about certain things), and it is effective.

Can you tell that I really like the Kate Moss Rimmel collections and the Revlon matte lipsticks? Ditto the Wet 'n Wild semi-mattes.
Can you tell that I really like the Kate Moss Rimmel collections and the Revlon matte lipsticks? Ditto the Wet ‘n Wild semi-mattes.

I’m pretty pleased.

I’ve seen instances of people standing everything up and being able to get at the individual bullets that way, but the drawers would have to be just the right height to avoid wasted space, and it sounds kind of troublesome to keep everything in a grid, not everything is the same height/size, etc. You can get those quite nice looking acrylic grids, but those cost the money.

I briefly considered organizing by color but that’s not how it works in my mind, so I went roughly by brand/price point and consistency. Is this quite dull? I can never tell with this kind of thing. I never tire of seeing how people organize stuff.