From the day we started this here “beauty” blog, it’s felt like we’re getting away with something. Here was a site where old people and ugly people and fat people and jerks could talk about fashion and beauty however we liked, and as if our opinions mattered. We also never took bribes, never did product placements,…

So you’ve just started dating (boning) a new person and you’re not sure where it’s going and no one seems super invested but at the same time you’re not complete jerks who would pretend the holidays aren’t happening just to prove who is being chiller. Here’s what to get each other!

I’m a touring musician, and as such, the two things that stress me out the most day-of shows—besides the inevitable gaggle of friends asking to be put on the guest list—are what I’m wearing and what my face looks like. When it comes to beauty, I’m low- to no-maintenance; a result of my strict parents who forbade me…

When I learned about Freck Yourself, a Kickstarter-funded beauty product which promises semipermanent freckles at any time of year, I wanted to be like, “Haha, wow, lame.” But I couldn’t, because I look very adorable with freckles.

Holiday gifts for your boss are the grown up equivalent of an apple for the teacher: they’re mainly a token of appreciation (ha!), so don’t worry about spending a lot. If you like your boss/job, you want the gift to be memorable, but not too personal; useful (so they are forced to think of you whenever they pick the…

Serious question. How? HOW? How on Earth? Do breathing, eating and (sometimes) sleeping count? What about jerking off?

Welcome back to Deep Cuts where we scrape the bottom of the internet for discounts on some hot junk.

About a year ago, I got botulinum toxin injected into my face for the first time. As a woman of the aughts, this seemed almost like an inevitability, especially once I moved to Los Angeles, the land of face modification and cheap med spas. Here, you can walk into a clinic and get Botox on demand for around $10 a unit,…

A couple of weeks ago, while stuck in a stalled subway car, I tried to entertain myself by tallying up the total amount of money I’ve spent having my hair dyed. “Considering that I’ve been coloring my hair once every 2-4 months since I was 17...” Here I stopped. The cost is too depressing and what I learned in that…

Greetings, devoted Thriftees! I’m back with another round of my Nobel Prize winning Thrift Diaries: Hip Hop edition! Just kidding, but I did go on the road with (my male companion) El-P (Jaime), and Killer Mike—aka Rap super-duo Run the Jewels—for one week and throughout five different cities. I hung out, ate a lot of…

And here we thought we were getting away with something. According to beauty industry analysts, ingredients in your makeup often only account for around 15% of the cost. The rest is packaging, marketing, and the luxury of working with sales associates and then tricking them into refunding a half-used compact of NARS…

Beauty truly is in the eye of the beholder, unless the beholder is blind, in which case it would be in the hands or ears or nose or possibly (hopefully) mouth. Yum. Point being: we all have different opinions about this stuff and it’s so true that there’s a boring cliche about it with which to open blog posts. Some…

Welcome back to Deep Cuts. I’m taking over for Jane this week. This is my first Deep Cuts, so be kind. Or don’t. There is a 100% chance I’ll live either way.

First things first: yes, this brush is $25. BUT! I’ve had mine for years now. Like, oh god, if I really think about it, maybe over five years? And I use it a ton and wash it as often as it occurs to me, so it holds up. It is MAC’s number 217 Blending Brush and it is my very favorite brush.

I think of my daily beauty routine sort of like I’m a mage in a tower doing these weird little esoteric rituals regularly in between my other duties, mixing up and applying potions and powders and performing these odd—but graceful!—little rituals to cast spells and influence events. The things I do in service of…

As we’ve worked through the last several decades of makeup trends in North America and Western Europe, you may have noticed that – aside from a few minor changes – the 1930s through to the 1950s were basically same verse, same as the first as far as the looks go. I could’ve basically just written an article that said,…

Two questions: what did you dress up as and what was the best costume you saw this weekend?