I still plan to update my reviews page at some point, but until then, I wanted to do a post about my 2014 makeup favorites and not-so-favorites.  I have a rather LARGE collection of products so maybe this will help you make some informed purchasing decisions.

DISCLOSURE:  I don’t have any formal training.  I’m a product enthusiast who slathers paints on her face for fun in the confines of a dark room.  If you want a professional opinion, look elsewhere.  This is a space for MAKE HILLARY FACETIME HAPPY PANTS YAY.

That said, let’s do this!

BEST:  This one is a no brainer.  My biggest surprise of the year–my best foundation buy of the year?–Shiseido’s UV Protective Liquid Foundation. Probably the best thirty-six bucks I spent on makeup in 2014. Admittedly, I was taken aback when I opened it. When you pick up the bottle, there’s a rattling noise. They’ve got a ball inside to keep the formula from turning into sediment.  Alarming!  Spray paint anyone?  And when the formula came OUT of the bottle, it was as thin as water.  I figured this was a complete no-go until I actually put it on my face.  Super pigmented, great coverage, and you use A TINY bit of formula.  Like, so miniscule I think I use maybe a dollop the size of a pencil eraser to do my whole face.  I don’t dig the sponge they provide, so I use my Beauty Blender or my Sigma F80 flat kabuki brush to stipple it on, but holy crap do I love this stuff.  Such perfect skin without any cake, without clinging to my (many) dry patches.  It’s also waterproof (tested, yes it works) and SPF 42.  This is a flawless product and I’m happy pushing it on to anyone.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT:  Stila’s Stay All Day Foundation and Concealer.  Man, I love a lot of Stila products, but holy cow did this one fall short for me.  First off, they provide you with a spatula to apply it.  That should have told me everything I needed to know about the product.  This isn’t a liquid foundation so much as flesh-colored Spackle, and much like Spackle, you slap it on and smear it until you cover up the potholes.  Great for walls, but very unappealing on your face.  You LOOK made up.  I guess if you really want that Full Makeup Look this might work for you, but uhh.  Well.  The Full Makeup Look generally looks like shit on people so I might be judging your life decisions right now.

BEST:  Mac’s Mineralize Concealer, hands down.  Concealer is often thick due to its function–you’re covering up the uggo parts of your face so the stuff needs to apply like paint.  Because of that, a lot of concealers will find a dry patch on your face and hang out, like “HEY GIRLFRIEND.  WUSSUP WITH YOUR LIZARD BITS.  LET’S CALL UNCOMFORTABLE ATTENTION TO THE FACT THAT YOU’RE EFFECTIVELY MOLTING.”  Not this stuff.  Hyper moisturizing, a smooth formula, it blends beautifully.  Everything I wanted in a concealer.  Would buy again.  10/10.

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT:  Kat Von D’s Lock-It Tattoo Concealer.  I did a mini-writeup of the Smashbox concealer complaining that it covered your gross bits but it didn’t BLEND well.  This one blends well but doesn’t cover.  Buildable, people say, but not without A LOT of product and I frankly don’t want to have to hose my face down in anything to get it to work.  Not for me.  Moving on.

BEST:  I have two–one gives a gold sparkle, the other pink.  The first is Josie Maran’s Argan Illuminzer. It gives you a hint of gold without making you look like you poured liquid bling all over your face.  It captures the light, warms up the face, and avoids being overly sparkly.  Other highlighters look TOO shiny, but not this one.  For a pink shade, I’m sticking with Benefit’s High Beam.  I wear a lot of cool looks because, you know, I’m a cool and the gold can look off with that, especially if I’m wearing pink or berry shades.  This does the job nicely, though I frankly dislike the application.  It’s effectively a nail polish; the brush is nestled in the cap and you’re supposed to paint it directly onto your face.  I like to control which brush I use to slap on the war paint, and this takes that choice away from me whereas the Josie Maran product is a pump.  So.  That’s a negative, but the product itself is solid.

NOTE:  Stila makes a nice highlighting product, but again, it’s that nail polish application THING and I’m not a fan.  I’ve just ordered Becca’s Shimmering Skin Perfector in white pearl in hopes of finding a highlight that will satisfy me for both warm and cool looks.   From everything I’ve heard/read, this may be my go-to product.  We shall see.

BEST:  Smashbox Iconic Photo Finish Foundation Primer.  There’s a reason it’s one of the best selling primers out there.  You put this on your skin, it feels like kittens.  KITTENS ON YOUR FACE.  KITTENS EVERYWHERE.  It smooths, it perfects, it makes foundation stick forever and ever.  There are various formulas to address all your skincare needs.  Sure, this is gel silicon and your skin can’t breathe, but WHO CARES WHEN YOU LOOK THIS GOOD.  (And you do look good.  You put this on sans foundation and you can see the difference.  It’s pretty amazing.)

NOTE:  I tried the Hourglass Veil Mineral Primer which is more expensive than the Smashbox and found it did . . . pretty much the exact same thing.  Really nice product but I’m not noticing a twenty dollar difference between the two primers, so why spend the extra cashola on the Hourglass?

BEGRUDGING BEST:  Hoola by Benefit is still my reigning champion for pigmentation, shade (it’s not too orange), and quality of product, but it suffers from the same thing a lot of Benefit products do:  cute yet totally shoddy packaging.  At first, the cardboard box made me D’AWWW.  I mean, look at it:

It’s a flip-top cardboard box with an adorable (and useless–far too soft for a precision job like contouring) brush inside! HOWEVER. When cardboard is inside of your makeup collection and rubbing against a bunch of products THAT AREN’T cardboard, it starts to look nasty pretty quickly.  Color wears off the packaging, there are dings where there had been no dings before, and really, there’s not a lot of protection for the twenty-eight dollar guts.  I have a similarly packaged blush by Benefit where the mirror in the lid spiderweb-cracked when I shuffled products around.  NOT RISKING GLASS IN MY BLUSH, BENEFIT.  Sure, I don’t get makeup for the box alone, but would it hurt to have a hard-case so my purchase doesn’t look like it got pranced on by a tribe of makeup hobos?

NOTE:  I have heard NUMEROUS good thing about NYX’s Powder Blush in Taupe as a bronzer.  As NYX is one of my favorite drugstore brands, I plan to pick it up (and at five bucks, why not?  I’m all for saving cash when I can.)  It’s supposedly a totally cool shade of brown so it doesn’t go Oompa Loompa on your ass when you’re applying it.  I’ve had no luck getting my grubby paws on it on my Ulta trips, so I may just have to suck it up and order it online.

BEST:  Ahem.

And by this I mean stand by my powder.  Under eight bucks, totally smooths out your complexion, I really don’t know if I’ll ever stray from Coty’s Airspun Powder.  Yes, if you use too much of it, it looks Bozo-esque, but the simple answer there is APPLY POWDER.  PROCURE FLUFFY BRUSH.  USE FLUFFY BRUSH ALL OVER YOUR FACE AND EVICT EIGHTY PERCENT OF POWDER.  VICTORY THROUGH MIGHT.  This perfects my skin and sets my makeup.  That’s all it has to do.

NOTE:  After watching a Lisa Eldridge video, I did go buy me some Laura Mercier Translucent Loose Setting Powder and it really is a lovely product.  Finely milled, it wears nicely, and it’s very hard to see on the skin.  I tend to use this for daytime looks and spring/summer skin while the Coty is better suited for night or fall/winter looks because it’s more mattifying.  It really comes down to what you want from your powder.  If you want a product that’s going to perfect more and eliminate all shine, go for Coty.  If you want a more natural look?  Laura Mercier is a great alternative, but it’s not cheap at thirty-eight bucks.

BEST:  Forty five dollar price tag for this product, but in this case it’s totally worth it because A) it’s THE BALLS (in a good way) and B) you don’t use a ton so you’ll have it for a long time. Hourglass’s Ambient Lighting Powder.  I wear Diffused Light with every makeup application.  The powder itself is perfectly milled.  It’s soft.  It’s shimmery.  It actually makes you take better pictures because it softens how light strikes your face.  That’s its JOB.  It’s like a Photoshop touch-up for your face without the Photoshop needed, you get me?

BEST:  “It’s going to be Orgasm by Nars.  It’s always Orgasm by Nars.”  While Nars makes a GORGEOUS product (just the right shade of peachy pink, a dash of shimmer, and it seriously looks good on everyone),  it is not my pick of the year.  Nope, that’d go to Milani’s Baked Blush in color Luminoso.  Oh. My. God.  It’s under nine dollars, the pigmentation is unreal, and the color.  Can we talk about the color?  LOOK AT IT.

It’s perfect.  It walks that line between pink and peach so it’s flattering on everyone.  A little bit goes a long way.  There’s a dash of sparkle.  Sound similar to what I said about the thirty dollar Nars product?  That’s because it reminds me of it and it’s a fraction of the cost.  Sure, it’s cheap plastic packaging, but I don’t CARE.  The product is so good that I can overlook the exterior flimsiness.

NOTE:  I finally sucked it up and bought a Tarte Amazonian Clay Blush because People Said I Should.  I’ve not had a ton of success with Tarte products beyond their Maracuja Oil (which is fantastic), but I have to admit I really do like this product. I think part of it is the color I chose.  Peaceful is a nude peach, subtle, that’s quite natural looking on the skin.  I’m still questioning if it FEELS like a thirty dollar blush, and I’m a little dubious, but I can say there are really no downsides to the product beyond the price tag.  I’ve just ordered my first Makeup Geek Blush for ten bucks after seeing various positive reviews, and while you have to purchase a Z Palette to hold the colors, I don’t mind that at all.

ANOTHER NOTE:  if you don’t like powder blush and would prefer something in a liquid or gel, you still can’t really beat Josie Maran’s Coconut Watercolor Cheek Gelee for twenty-two dollars.  Lots of pigmentation without being splotchy, blends beautifully, and feels soft on the skin.

MOST USED:  I’m not saying BEST because I have a few that are fantastic, but this was my go-to travel palette for all my book touring this year.  It had everything I needed.  Too Faced’s The Return of Sexy.  Why this palette?  A few reasons.  The first is I just USE those colors the most.  A nice selection of golds and neutrals (though the actual gold shade is so soft it crumbles if you’re not careful), rose/purples, and silvers?  Yes, please.  These are Hillary Colors and the pigmentation was fantastic.  The formula is creamy and applies well, though you will want to use a primer with it but I think that goes without saying for most shadows these days.  I didn’t care much for the eyeliner included, but that wasn’t what I bought it for so I didn’t care.  This is a solid palette that’ll serve all your day needs (unless you prefer mattes in which case this palette is NOT for you and hie-thee to Urban Decay’s Naked Basics Palette.)

MOST FUN:  Urban Decay’s Electric Pressed Pigment palette is not for the faint of heart, but man, with a little bit of practice and a lot of guts, this palette is A BLAST.  You can do anything with it, including make yourself look like Rainbow Bright and David Bowie’s lovechild, but hey, live a little.  I saw so many cool color combinations with this thing and copied a whole bunch of looks.  I’m particularly fond of the blue and purple shades.  The pigmentation was fantastic, the selection is good, and hey, who cares if the red tones didn’t pass FDA inspection.  WHAT’S A LITTLE POISON BETWEEN FRIENDS, URBAN DECAY?

BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT:  Oh, Kat Von D.  You make me so sad.  So, A Tale of Two Palettes.  Last year’s HOLY GRAIL CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT palette was KVD’s Book of Shadows.  Because reasons:

Twenty-four great reasons.  So pretty, such great pigmentation.  They were soft.  They applied well.  It was pretty much the only palette I needed for anything.  Because of that, I traveled with it to the west coast last summer.  Long story short, either I got really drunk or I’m just stupid because I left the palette at a Holiday Inn.  Some hotel employee has fabulous eyes and I do not because this was a 2013 limited edition and screw you, hotel employee.  I want my palette back.

When the 2014 palette was announced I got really excited!  Because maybe lightning DOES strike twice.  The lightning is a lie, people.  It’s a huge lie.

Look, the warm shades are great, KVD, but there’s something about the color combo that does nothing for me.  I didn’t even buy the Star Studded Palette UNTIL it went on half-off clearance at Sephora and when I got it?  Meh.  Most of the shades have decent pigmentation, but the one I really gave a crap about (Gothica, that purple on the fourth row, third over) had zero pigment and fell apart upon contact with the brush.  Like, it’s actually unwearable.  The shadows are a bit powdery (not something I had to worry about last year) and for a cool skinned girl, this wasn’t a good fit.  I handed it over to my Most Blond Friend when she visited because this will look amazeballs on her, but for me?  A total dud.  So disappointing after last year’s offering.

Best:  I really do love Mac and Urban Decay eye products, but they got trumped this year by a product that’s a fraction of the cost with equal pigmentation.  Hello, Makeup Geek!  Six bucks (ten if you want the foiled collection), these are absolutely unbeatable.  Again, these products show up in the metal pans only so you have to purchase a Z Palette to store them, but IT’S TOTALLY WORTH IT since one Z palette holds twenty or so shadows.  Makeup Geek shadows are creamy, pigmented enough I don’t need a primer for most of them (though I still use it), and the color selection is godly.  Why pay specialty makeup store prices when you can get specialty store quality for six bucks?  Answer:  you don’t.

Pencil Best:  I’m probably always going to slant towards Urban Decay’s 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil.  The liners have excellent staying power, there’s a trillion colors to choose from including a purple brown that’s amazing for brown-eyed girls in particular (Hello, Rockstar), and UD has the darkest black eye pencil I’ve seen with Perversion.  Like, it’s center of a black hole black which is great for waterlines, tightlinging, and general smokiness.  UD pencils blend well, too, so if you need to soften them, they’ll work with you.  Yeah, twenty bucks is steep, but how many eyeliners do you actually WEAR?

Liquid Best:  Stila’s Stay All Day Waterproof Liquid Eye Liner, hands down.  Frankly, the formula isn’t what makes this the best because A LOT of the high-end liquid liners have similar features (and by and large, it’s hard to screw up black.  Let’s be honest.)  The thing that makes the Stila product work for me is the applicator.  It’s firmer, finer, but also manages to be workably flexible.  I’ve tried two or three other liquid liners and their applicators are either too fat, too floppy, or too . . . something.  This is perfect.  I like perfect.  Go perfect!

Best:  I’m a convert. Hold me closer, Anastasia.  I was, for a long time, using Urban Decay’s Brow Box as my go-to brow product.  Two powders, a light and a dark, that you could mix to get your perfect look along with wax, two brushes, and a pair of mini-Tweezers.  There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with this setup and the products themselves are great.  However, Urban Decay underestimates the extent of my laziness.  Opening lids and mixing products and the wax and the steps and the . . . WAIT.  I CAN USE A BROW PENCIL AND A MASCARA-LIKE PRODUCT ON MY BROWS AND BE DONE IN A MINUTE FLAT?  I’M THERE.  Hi, Anastasia Brow Wiz and Anastasia Tinted Brow Gel.  So here’s how my brow routine goes now.  Step One: use the Tinted Brow Gel’s mascara wand to cement down brow hairs so they don’t go Einstein weird on me.  Step Two:  fill in brows with Brow Wiz.  Step Three:  pick nose, profit, or a combination therein.

Biggest Disappointment:  I’m a big fan of NYX as a drugstore brand so I thought I’d give the Eyebrow Marker a chance. Waste of money. Watery, transparent to the point you could barely see it, I would have been better rolling up that ten dollar bill and using it to snort pixie dust off a goblin’s ass.  (Opinions. I have them.)

Best:  I never thought anything would beat Benefit’s They’re Real mascara, and frankly, it’s still a great mascara and the ten dollar travel size is a real buy considering you’re not supposed to keep mascara for more than six months, but I’ve found a higher calling.  Or, erm, a higher . . . mascara?  Whatever.  Too Faced’s Better Than Sex Mascara makes my eyelashes look like they’re fifty feet long and about six feet wide.  Okay, that’s exaggerating and sounds pretty freakish, but seriously.  The volume you get with this product is unbelievable.  Worth noting is that people who don’t like thicker formula mascaras WILL NOT like this.  It’s heavy and needs to be wielded with a patient hand, but man.  If you do?  True story, I’ve had people ask me if I’m wearing falsies when I’m wearing this mascara.  The effect is that dramatic.

Not For Me:  But this WAS for other people (Hi, Lauren.)  Urban Decay dropped the Perversion Mascara on us this year, and while the formula is non-clumping and smooth and very black, it’s wet.  Really wet.  When I applied it, a single blink sent a spray of black droplets raining over my cheek.  If you’re smart and apply it and hold still for a few seconds, you’ll be fine, but I’m wiggly.  Like a puppy.  Puppies won’t do well with this mascara.  People who have an anti-clumping THING will absolutely adore it, though.

Note:  A small shout-out to Clinique for their Bottom Lash Mascara here.  Ten bucks and it was worth every penny.  This is specifically designed to handle your lower lashes.  A tiny brush so it’s not unwieldy around your cheeks.  The formula is smooth and non-clumpy which keeps the lower lashes from looking spiky and too heavy.  It’s a little weird to have separate mascaras for upper and bottom lashes, I know, but a lot of mascaras have those huge, heavy barrel applicators that are so hard to use under the eye without stabbing the side of your nose.  This gets around that pretty nicely.

Eye Thingie One:  I want to call attention to a cheapy eye product that deserves love. The NYX Jumbo Eye Pencil. Let’s say you want to do a really dramatic eye look.  SOME shadows will be dense enough to pack the drama punch, but it’s rare when you’re talking extreme color and have to consider things like powder fallout.  Cheat to get the look you want.  Put on your eye primer, then put a base layer of a cream eye product in the family of color you’re looking to achieve.  It makes the shadow stick to the eye better and provides a uniform color base.  These Jumbo Pencils are under five bucks a piece and they are PERFECT creamy bases.  They blend well, they’re pigmented.  Super handy to have for any darker shadow applications you may do.

Eye Thingie Two:  I’ve mentioned eyeshadow primer a few times so far, and I’m sticking with UD’s Eye Primer Potion.  Various formulas, not too expensive, and it really does hold shadow longer and prevent creasing.  I use the purple tube (regular) but I may switch to the anti-aging one because I’m assuming it’ll moisturize and, you know, I’m a drying husk of a woman.  I got my hands on a tube of the tinted stuff (Sin?  I think?  It’s a champagne colored primer) and while it’s a nice shimmer, it makes everything yellow.  Really yellow.  For us cool toned girls, yellow bad.  For other girls:  a gas!  My takeaway from the tinted primer experiment was a little bit of frosty primer goes a long way so use sparingly.  Or you’ll be Banana Pants Crazy Yellow.

Best(s):  So I love lipstick.  Like, it’s my favorite part of the makeup THING because I feel like a good lipstick can make or break a face.  Sure, you’re limited to a particular spectrum of colors or people will think you just drunk walked out of a rave, but that’s okay!  There’s lots of play within the spectrum.  Experiment.  Be brave.  Most important?  Have fun with lipstick. There really is a red for everyone and you shouldn’t shy away because you don’t think you can pull it off.  With the right color?  Yeah, you absolutely can.

- Best Overall Lipsticks:  I’m probably going to go with my Urban Decay Revolution Lippies over MAC Lippies, though it’s pretty much a toss-up.  UD is slightly more moisturizing than MAC, but MAC has every color under the sun and that’s a huge draw.  Both are great color pigmentation.  Neither are cheap with UD at twenty-two dollars and MAC at sixteen, but again, how fast do you go through a tube of lipstick?  Personal color favorites from each line are probably Mrs. Mia Wallace from UD’s Pulp Fiction line:

And Heroine from Mac’s line:

- Most Appealing Color Palette:  I really don’t think you can beat KVD’s Studded Kiss Lipsticks right now for color selection.  She was SMART about her choices.  Mattes, foils, everything you could want without that whole overwhelming THING you get when looking at MAC’s enormous selection.  Strong pigmentation, and I really appreciate that the sparkle/shimmer tones aren’t clumpy.  (A lot of sparkly lipsticks tend to do this thing where they ball up at the sides of your mouth after a while.  It’s gross.  Studded doesn’t do that.)  Warm toned girls will ADORE Thin Lizzy.  Neutral loving girls will probably have a field day with Lovecraft, and us cool toned girls should be rolling in the berry love that is Wolvesmouth.  All that being said?  The prettiest shade in the line in person is Adora, hands down.  A red with a gold sheen that is just . . . it’s unreal.  Truly unreal.  No pictures can do it justice so you’ll just have to trust me on this.  I do have two small complaints with the Studdied Lippies that prevented them from being the be-all winner of my favorite lippy.  The first is that they’re dry.  You HAVE to prep and moisturize your lips or this will shrivel you.  The second is that it’s a fifty/fifty of whether or not the cap will stay on the friggin’ tube.  This isn’t so terrible if you keep it at home on a shelf, but if I have to take the lipstick for touch-ups and it rattles around in my purse?  SERIOUSLY aggravating.

- Most Fun Product One:  I have two for you here.  The first is Two Faced’s Melted Lippies.  For a long, long time I avoided any long wear lipsticks because they either got slimy (YEAH, LIKE SNAILS ON YOUR LIPS) or because they looked cakey and dry  (I got some Stila Stay All Day Liquid Lipstick and while I liked the colors, it made me look like I’d made out with The Mummy.)  Melted gets around all that.  You HAVE to use a lipliner or it will feather like a bitch on you, but it’s a creamy, pigmented formula that’s so much fun.  Moisturizing, long-wear.  It’s a great lipstick.  Applying it can be tricky because, again, feathering (and the applicator at the end of the tube is this strange sponge-like THING that can be “interesting” to learn) but the product itself is worth it in the long run.

- Most Fun Product Two:  The second fun product is absolutely OCC’s Lip Tar.  A HUGE array of colors that stretch far beyond “normal” lipstick parameters (blues, purples, blacks).  Super concentrated so the pigmentation is astounding.  Many options for finish (matte versus metallic and even some sheers).  The thing is, if you screw up putting this on, you’ll hate it for life.  The trick to Lip Tar is to use SUCH A MINUSCULE AMOUNT IT’S NOT EVEN FUNNY.  Like, pencil tip amount with a lip brush, start at the center of your bottom lip, spread out.  This is almost a lip stain more than a lipstick, and if you use too much, you’ll be really sorry.  There are tutorials out there for how to use Lip Tar, and if you follow the instructions?  You’ll be hooked.  Only thing I’ll mention is you use such a tiny amount of product per application that the big Lip Tar tubes are excessive.  You’ll actually not be able to use all of it before it separates, so you’re better off buying the mini-tester sets which are much more reasonably sized and, frankly, a better deal cash wise.  Also, be prepared to both prep and gloss over the top.

- Best Drugstore Lippies:  There are a couple I really love.  The first is the Milani Color Statement Lipstick.  Great color selection, great pigment,  great price. The shade Chilled Brandy is one of my signature colors.  I also want to point out NYX’s Butter Lippies because they have saved me this winter.  Super moisturizing, these aren’t a long-wear lipstick, but if you need something soft and gentle?  They’re phenomenal.

* The observant reader has probably noticed Hillary’s lack of lip glosses.  That’s because my hair is to my ass and lipglosses are the bane of my existence.  The gloss gets in my hair, smears, and I get so rage-faced I bust through walls like the Kool-Aid man.  HOWEVER.  Some products like Lip Tar require a smear of something gloss-like over it, and I find the Buxom Full-On Lip Polish less offensive than similar products simply because it’s less sticky.  I have Dominique so it can cover any color I happen to be wearing.  Insert a long string of profanity here about GODDAMNED LIP GLOSS.

Best:  So this is a funny story.  I went into MAC to get the Prep and Prime for lips and they were sold out.  I really needed a lip primer for the winter so my lippies didn’t settle into the cervices of my lips–it’s pretty unattractive to have a mouth that looks like a landscape photo from the Grand Canyon.  I WOULDN’T BE DETERRED.  I made my way to Sephora and tried the Bite Beauty Primer.  Frankly, I’ve been hit or miss with Bite.  Some things like their Cashmere Lip Cream I like a lot but their lip plumper was a total waste of money.  This product is a pleasant surprise.  Slightly moisturizing, it smooths the lips, and considering I am so dry I have to exfoliate my MOUTH two to three times a week, I appreciate what it’s doing.  Once I’m out of this, I will prooooobably try the Mac Prep and Prime anyway to see if it’s MORE moisturizing, but I’m not displeased with this one.  Nice job, Bite.

Most Disappointing:  Guerlain Kisskiss Lip Lift.  Just . . . too expensive, too crumbly on the lips, and TOO PERFUMED.  Like, gross.  Seriously gross.  Do Not Want Near Nostrils.  HISS.  BACK TO THE DEVILCAVE FROM WHENCE YOU CAME, PRIMER.

Best:  I swear you only need one lipliner, which makes buying them pretty easy.  Go forth, get thee to UD and buy Ozone.  It’s clear so it works with EVERY color, and it does the job you want it to do.  It keeps your lipstick in place, prevents feathering at the edges, and if you use the product to cover your entire lip area, it will lock your lipstick down until your dying day.  (I really hope you like that shade, man.)

Surprise Love:  Fresh’s Sugar Lip Scrub has saved me this winter.  It takes off all the dead skin on my lips and it tastes like sugar so I don’t hate it with the fury of a thousand starving honey badgers.  Yes, it’s twenty-two bucks, but I’ve had it for about four months and I’m still going strong for how much is in the pot.  You don’t use a lot when you smear it onto your lips, and removal is easy.  The sugar dissolves with warm water.  It leaves my lips much happier and less scaly, and anything that returns me to my more-swine-like texture as opposed to my T-Rex-like texture is just fine in my book.

Can’t Live Without:  MAC’s Fix + is the best thing in my collection in a lot of ways.  It’s a vitamin treatment that you spray on your face before you put on your makeup.  I also use it after I put on my foundation AND if I need to wet my shadows so they’re more concentrated on my lids.  It’s moisturizing and I believe oil-free.  It leaves the skin looking and feeling better.  The bottle I bought last year is still about half full, so twenty-two bucks well spent.

Moisturizer:  I’ve got two.  The first is a drug store buy.  Cerave is the moisturizer my mother’s dermatologist recommended to her and it’s halved the dry patches on my face.  Impressive considering what I contend with skin-wise. It’s scentless and absorbs well with no greasy anything afterward.   NEAT-O. The second product is more a collection of products, and that’s Josie Maran’s Argan Oil line (best seen here.  I bought it for three friends for Christmas this year and all of them came back with rave reviews.)  The scent is light and clean, the end result is happy, glowy skin, and it’s gentle.  No breakouts or red patches afterward.  Compared to some other skin products, it’s really not all that bad, and I can speak from experience when I say the cleanser is Clarisonic friendly.