Lipstick binge

I don't think I've blogged about make-up before, so this is the first - and probably the last time - I will do so. (This isn't going to turn into a beauty blog!) My closest friends and I don't really talk about or use a whole lot of make-up; it's never a topic of conversation, although I do remember one that took place years ago, between D and me about DSD finally purchasing make-up, like eyeshadow. These days, DSD is quite an adventurer in the world of make-up though she can just as comfortably go without it.

As for my own adventures, I got into the eyeshadow thing myself for a year or two during college, and then I got very lazy and stopped wearing any. Now, I wear eyeshadow only when I attend milongas at night. Incidentally, I learned to wear mascara so that I wouldn't look sleepy at milongas; I don't think anyone dances with you if you look like you're ready to fall asleep. Lipsticks are more my thing; they're easy to wear and take off, and it seems highly possible that one can do away with all other forms of color products and thrive with just a little red on the lips.

Despite my penchant for them, I don't buy many lipsticks, so when I have to throw one out, it pains me a little. Nars Morocco is one I conserved for too long and it's now turned rancid, smelling like a crayon. I bought it from the Sephora store in Troy, or to be precise, Somerset Mall, the so-called up-town mall an hour away from Ann Arbor. Yes, the lipstick - if it came from my days in Ann Arbor - is very old and was pretty expensive. It's a bit of a cult brand, and isn't sold in Singapore so I had to trawl the Net to find a replacement. In the end, after my eBay surf sessions, I found a seller who was having a mini Nars sale - buy one item and additional items ship for free. And in the very end, I didn't buy the Nars Morocco again but chose a more daring shade than the brownish-coral Morocco. It bears a slightly embarrassing moniker, "Fire Down Below," which is supposedly a red that is flattering on most women. I also decided to get a safe choice named "Corinthe," a sheer almond color that will likely do as a daily make-me-look-a-little-more-grown-up-when-I-teach tool. What I like about Nars lipsticks - or the only one I ever had - are the rich pigments and semi-matte finish. I'm not a lip gloss girl and prefer a non-shiny lip look, though I'm a fan of lip balms (the shine those impart is never over the top), clear or lightly tinted.

While looking for Nars online, I also read about Poppy King, former resident of Australia and now indie lipstick creator based in New York, who has created her second line of lipsticks, Lipstick Queen. Her first line, named Poppy (which I remember reading about when I was in secondary school), made her one of the youngest - if not the youngest, at 18 - successful entrepreneurs in Australia in the 90s. For a number of reasons, the company folded after an expansion attempt, which included adding products like lingerie(!), and Poppy moved to America to work for Clinique. Three years later, she quit and took another stab at designing her own product, which will be only lipsticks, which were and always will be her obsession.

This new line got my attention because it specifically avoids the path of glitter and shimmer and sparkles and little spangles, the very things that - when overdosed in any make-up product - annoy the hell out of me. King has only ten shades but these come in two versions - Saint or Sinner. Saint, light and airy, is sheer and has 10% pigment. Sinner, dark and deep, is the matte 90%-pigment edition. The packaging is covered with Art Nouveau designs and the marketing spiel mentions Jane Austen somewhere. I think the "Jane Austen" part alone won my favor. There's also a clever product called Oxymoron, which is a matte lip gloss. Goes on like a gloss but without the shine. Brilliant.

In one interview, Poppy King said it made her sad that women have stopped wearing lipsticks, saying they can only wear gloss after a certain age, convinced that lipsticks make them look old. I wouldn't have believed this until I heard someone say the very same thing to me, that she only wears lip gloss now. Personally, I can't see how lipstick makes anyone look old. The sheer or shimmer lipsticks are pared down versions of lip gloss, so why wouldn't those do, instead of gloss and only gloss? Even if glosses glide easily on the lips (I never find it so though; as mentioned above, I am not a gloss person), that doesn't mean they trump lipsticks and isn't reason enough to toss out the option of lipstick altogether! I'm in the Poppy camp, which considers lipstick to be the quintessential make-up product, the main and best part of a toolkit or an artist's palette; the center of everything: the nib of a pen, the belly of a whale, the sturdy spine of a book, the controlling metaphor of a poem, the middle C of a piano. Everything else comes after.

Before I exhaust myself, let me add one more brand to this lipstick list. I have never used shu uemura lipsticks, but I became besotted with the autumn/winter collection for 2007 simply because it's inspired by the Edo period. Or rather, the patterns and colors of nature seen in kimono designs during the Edo period. The collection is called Komon, and small detailed Komon patterns actually decorate the eyeshadow palettes. The limited edition lipsticks aren't numbered as they usually are but have names like "Toki" and "Hakubai" and "Sazanka," all of which make no sense to me but sound like poetry to my infatuated ears. Other product names include "Usubeni," Nadeshiko," "Konjo," "Rikancha," "Shirogane," "Kaihaku," "Tobi," and "Sakura," the last of which I do understand! I fancy the "Toki" lipstick, which is described as a soft mulberry pink, and on the back of my hand, feels creamy and makes me think "delicious."

Ultimately, I won't wind up with all of these lipsticks that I've written about, but I'm blissfully satiated after writing about them. Blogging isn't just catharsis but also a form of virtual indulgence; I can't have it, but I can still dream and write about it!