Lips Like Peggy Carter, A Nerd Girl’s Adventure With Lipstick

I’m no makeup maven but I do adore lipstick. When I say lipstick I mean red lipstick. And when I say red lipstick, I mean I am on an eternal hunt to find that tube of red lipstick that speaks to my soul. I consider it the next best thing after super powers. I’m past the age where If I were a mutant, my abilities would have shown have themselves by now. (Do mutant powers even stay dormant as long when you’re in your’e 20’s?!) On another note, I highly doubt that I’m an Inhuman. I live in Southern California where yesterday the weather was in the eighties, mind you we’re in in January so I don’t imagine seeing the Terrigan mist any time soon. So….back to my original point: Red Lipstick is a super power.

I was livetweeting the third episode of Agent Carter when I came across this tweet from Besame Cosmetics :

besame tweet

Thrilled because I had made a meme that night that would go beautifully with this tweet, I let it rip:
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I continued  livetweeting the third episode  (also see the #BaeCarter and #BaegentCarter hashtags)  to find a very important revelation:

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Besame Cosmetics is a Californian based luxury makeup brand that brings you “History you can wear”; vintage makeup from eras like the 1930’s and the 1950’s. So when I see women  fawning over these decades sprouting out such lines like “I wish I lived in the 1950’s!”, my first thoughts are “I’m good because I think of  of Jim Crow laws,  lynchings and the internment camps for Japanese Americans during World War II BUT I’m going to assume you’re talking about the iconic fashion and makeup trends  and timeless films and music from those god awful time periods”

 So where was I? Oh yeas, So what did I do? I bought the damn lipstick, of course!  

First off, let me show y’all the packaging in all it’s glory.

It’s almost like a blast from the past, that I stepped into the Tardis and went back to the…nope. Never mind. This is NOT Doctor Who and I am NOT Martha Jones, the black female companion of the Doctor living temporarily in early 1900’s England in the  “Human Nature and/or Family of Blood” episodes.

It’s almost like a glimpse of  what your grandmother’s vanity table would look like decades past.

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Gorgeous!

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Color: It’s a deep red. It’s lovely. It’s quite bold. It’s my new favorite color.

Application:   Goes on smooth, stays on for a LONG time. I applied a coat of the lipstick  a little before 1pm that day mine came in the mail. That evening, after 6pm as I sat down for dinner I realized that after a late lunch, lots of snacks and a hectic day, I still had lipstick on mostly intact. I didn’t have to reapply another coat.

Price: $22. So If  you consider Wet N Wild and Revlon to be on the less expensive side of the lipstick game than this is in the M.A.C. side of the price range. A bit more than what I’d pay for a single tube but we have to remember that this is a luxury brand and with luxury comes a heftier price tag.

Overall Thoughts: It’s a gorgeous color that looks great, the package makes for an icebreaker when I’m out and I feel proud that this is coming out of California. Did I mention that the founder  of the company is a woman of color, latina to be exact. Her name is Gabriela Hernandez.

 

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Pair it with one of your favorite shirts!
Pair it with one of your favorite shirts!

 

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Or Pair It With Your Favorite Vintage Dress!

The tag line for Besame Cosmetics  is a luxury vintage makeup brand “which honors the style, spirit, & sensibility of female beauty”. When I watched the premiere of Marvel’s Agent Carter, starring Hayley Atwell I instantly remembered why I loved her  fierceness and bravery from the first Captain America film. While lacking a super solider serum, Peggy is not afraid to get her hands dirty. In the first two episodes she uses everything from a gun to appliances in her kitchen as weapons. She looks out for her fellow woman. She doesn’t shy away from telling others her opinion, especially her male coworkers in a sexist workplace environment. Peggy Carter is, in her own right, a hero. I’m happy to see her shine in her own mini series, happy to see more and more women getting the spotlight and happy to see more dialogue about issues affecting women. Lastly, I’m happy to wear a lipstick as bold as I strive to be in every aspect in my life. I may not be Agent Peggy Carter but that doesn’t  mean I’m not doing extraordinary things while wearing superb lipstick.

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  • Carrie McClain is writer, editor and media scholar. Other times she's known as a Starfleet Communications Officer, Comics Auntie, and Golden Saucer Frequenter. Nowadays you can usually find her avoiding Truck-kun and forgetting her magical girl transformation device. She/Her

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