ABOUT

Hi, I’m Susan.

I’m in my fifties and I have two grown kids. For years I wore the same kind of lipstick I bought in my thirties.

A few years ago I stopped wearing it. Every shade I owned looked wrong on me. When I asked my friends, most of them had a drawer of lipsticks they never wore either.

I started this blog to write down what I found.

What you’ll find here

• Reader stories about lips, color and getting older.
• Tests: I wear each product for a week and write down what happened.
• Notes from women who worked at makeup counters.

How the stories work

Stories told in a reader’s or an expert’s voice are dramatized: the characters and events are fictional. When a story mentions a product, it links to the store that sells it, and the brand may pay for that placement. Results vary. More in our advertising disclosure.

Start here

• My ex-husband’s fiancée said some women just stop trying. Four months later she asked what I’d done.
• A lipstick counter manager tested 5 kinds of lipstick on mothers of the bride. Only one made it to the last dance.
• Tested 5. Kept 1. The 4 kinds of lipstick most of us over 40 own, side by side with the one my readers keep asking about.

Write to me

Have a story, or something you want me to test? Write to [email protected].

Susan