I have many crosses to bear. Patchy eyebrows. Poor numerical skills. Inability to pronounce ‘chagrin’*.

And most of all, my lips, which are always on the verge of chapping. Naturally, I have developed many very strong opinions about which lip balms are best. But I often forget to put them on – especially when I’m writing intensely. (In fact, if I’m really into something, I forget to eat or pee or even breathe.) So I tend to scatter them around the house and in every coat pocket and bag and next to the sink and next to my keyboard and in that crevice in the sofa where the fucking Apple remote always hides. The idea is that I’ll stumble across them throughout the day, think ‘ooh, yeah, lip balm’, and voila, lovely lips. This is incredibly annoying for people who need to go through my pockets, for say, dry-cleaning purposes (Fox: “WHY are there focking LIPBALMS and PENS and TAMPONS in EVERY POCKET YOU OWN, WOMAN?” He is Irish and famously loud and says ‘fock’ with an ‘o’, but enough about him, let’s talk about meeeeeee).

Here are my top three scatterbalms:

Dermophil Indien

Fox and I lived in Zurich for just over one year, though it felt like muuuuuuuch longer. I spent most of the year vomiting (I was pregnant with Errol), writing (my third book, my first spec screenplay), missing London (so much I ached), and determinedly planning to move to beautiful New York (so intensely I got lockjaw). It takes a special kind of numbskull to resent a place for not being another place. I am that numbskull. Zurich and I never made friends.

But I did make friends with the beauty products. (Obviously.) Most Swiss beauty products are overrated and overpriced (I’m looking at you, La Prairie), but Karin Herzog is great, I liked this cleanser, and if you happen to find yourself in Switzerland, stock up on the giant cotton pads at Coop for make-up removal and the Weleda oil for stretch marks and most of all, Dermophil Indien lip balm. Dermophil Indien is French (you can tell, because when you say the name, you automatically pout) and was originally developed to treat First World War soldiers with frost bite. (This story MAY not be true but let’s pretend it is.) Dermophil Indien is my perfect lip balm: not too hard, not too soft, not too shiny, not too sticky, doesn’t smell, doesn’t taste, doesn’t tingle, just moisturizes the shit out of your lips. You can slick it on at night and it’s still there in the morning. It’s. Awesome. Its small, fits into the tiniest clutch or wallet, and comes in a three-pack, so you can start your scattering right away.

DHC Lip Cream.

I’m not a huge fan of the oil cleanser by DHC, though people swear by it, I far prefer Nude or the classic Shu Uemura – but this lip cream is EXCELLENT. It’s rather elegant to take out in public, too. Slightly shinier than the Dermophil, if that’s your bag.

Lanisoh Nipple Cream.

So here’s the thing about nipple cream: it doesn’t like the cold, so you can’t take it outside. If it spends more than 20 minutes in anything below blood temperature, it gets very very thick and nasty and cement-like, and never quite recovers. But in the middle of winter, when your lips are about to fall off and walk out the door from dryness, and you keep accidentally peeling skin off your lips with your teeth while you’re thinking about something else and then whoops realize you’ve made yourself actually BLEED, fucks sake Gemma, then Lanisoh is the only answer. Keep this in your bathroom, near the heater, and slap a big glob on your mouth every night after you brush your teeth. It’ll still be on when you wake up. Sometimes I put it on my eyes, around my nose if I have a cold – anywhere that gets dry. It’s the best. If you happen to be breastfeeding an infant with a faulty latch and find that your nipples are a war zone, it’s good for that too. So is this stuff. But we’re not talking about breastfeeding, we’re talking about lips.

Okay. Back to writing. Oy.

*Did I put this in a book once? I CAN NEVER REMEMBER. Especially my first two books, which are full of silly asides and chatter straight from my brain. Anyway, it’s true.

It’s the most wonderful time of the okay never mind let’s get on with it.

Guys, I have written about Christmas stockings before, so you know how much I love them. This year, my sister and I decided to give each other beauty-focused Christmas stockings. Each of us is confident (in a slightly competitive way) that she will nail it. We capped it at $125, which is a totally arbitrary number, but also the kind of number that is important because it buys a perfectly nice sweater from J Crew or a TRUCK LOAD OF AWESOME MAKE-UPPY THINGS FROM EVERYWHERE.

This is what I’m getting her. (If she is reading this, SPOILER ALERT.) (No seriously Anika stop reading this.)

1. NYC Professional Make-Up Illuminator Lid Lingerie Eye Tint $7

When it comes to improbably cheap eye make-up, I tend to test it on the back of my hand, stare at it and make a little ‘mph!’ sound, wander around the store, examine my hand again ten minutes later, try to smudge it, and if I’m sufficiently intrigued I go back, try it on my eyes, and then carry on with my day. THEN, at about 9pm that night, I make my judgement. Yes. It is a nine-step process.

THIS STUFF IS SO IMPRESSIVE.

I had glowy, almost-but-not metallic, almost-but-not glittery eyelids, ALL DAY. They didn’t crease. They didn’t smear. They didn’t wear unevenly. They didn’t make me look crusted with paint, like one of those sweet-but-oh-so-sad make-up obsessives on the Anastasia Instagram feed. They just did what they said they would do. They were like a really good boyfriend.

I went right back to buy them, and many many days of wearing them later, I still love them. So will you.

The secret is to choose two colors and combine them on the back of your hand – I like the silvery Fame & Fortune combined with the dark taupe-ish Night Glow - then tap them on your eyelid with your ring finger. All over your eyelid, out to make a little wing, underneath to add drama, everywhere, you can’t mess it up.

This stuff is so great that you could apply it drunk, standing at a dirty mirror above a bathroom sink in a crappy bar, with one eye closed, wobbling slightly, while you simultaneously listened to your best friend, who is taking a slash at the same time, shout under the stall about her ex – and you would still nail it. If I was in my 20s, i.e., with the kind of life where getting drunk might happen anytime, anywhere, at any point in December, then I’d stash this in my bag for the entire month. They are instant party.

(BTW if you’re in the UK or elsewhere, try ASOS for all your NYX needs.)

2. Benefit Dandelion Blush $15 

The perfect everyday blush: Benefit Dandelion Blush in its adorable mini size for $15 or splurge on the full-size for $29.  This will give you a sort of a flushed glow – a bit of contour, a bit of highlighter, a bit of color, all at once. Don’t use the dinky little square blush brush it comes with, though, because it’s simply ridiculous. Instead, use:

3. Morphe #E51 Deluxe Angle Blush $17

This is the blush brush you have been looking for. It never complains. It never shreds. It never collects make-up and looks all defeated and cracked-out, like my Sephora brushes. It’s just a good little workhorse that delivers a perfect cheek time after time, and it will never let you down.

4. MAC Ruby Woo Mini $10

Whenever I can, these days, I buy a mini lipstick rather than a full-size. Why? Because [lights cigarette, looks you right in the eye] full-size lipsticks are [points cigarette at you to emphasize her point] bullshit.

No one is ever going to use up an entire lipstick. It’s never going to happen. Ever. If you use up an entire mini lipstick, then buy the full-size one with my blessing. But you will almost certainly not use it up. Because favorite lipsticks, like favorite songs, have a shelf-life. And one day, you will be sick of them. Trust me. I used to wear MAC Syrup lipstick while drinking Godfather cocktails, eating chocolate-covered brazil nuts and listening to The Ting Tings and all those things make me want to fall asleep now. Everything changes. (Apart from perfumes, those are forever. Except the ones that remind you of your exs. Obviouslah.)

Even better? Mini lipsticks negate the need for a separate lipliner. They do the job for you.

But.

Here’s the thing about Ruby Woo. It is a wondrous red. It truly is. It makes your teeth whiter and your skin smoother and your eyes whatever-they-may-be-er. It works on every single person in the entire world.

It is also drying as fuh. It looks cracked and patchy after three hours. And it takes your lips down with it: they take a day to recover. So in order to even consider wearing Ruby Woo, you need to get:

5. MAC Prep + Prime Lips $17.50

This prevents your lips from chapping, while keeping bold matte lipstick in place, all day. Guaranteed.

Yes. A lip primer is an odd choice for a Christmas stocking, because it’s not particularly interesting. But just wait until you use it. Then you’ll understand. I discovered it a couple of years ago, when a very gorgeous young woman walked into an elevator I was in, and I said ‘LOVE THE LIPSTICK! Ruby Woo?!’ and she said ‘Yes!’ in a kind of scared way, and I said something like ‘I love Ruby Woo, but it dries my lips out, woe is me’ and she fished the MAC Prep + Prime out of her purse and said ‘This is the secret! This is the only lip primer that does what it promises to do! It’s the only way to wear Ruby Woo!’ Then we left the elevator and Fox was like ‘oh man, she was so scared of you’. Ha. I think she liked me. Whatever. Side bar: I wonder how many lip primers she tried to get to MAC Prep + Prime. More than ten?

6. Mothermade Snail Masks $17

On a hangover, the concept of a snail mask is enough to make me retch. But when I’m just feeling a bit dry and ordinary – and frankly, when aren’t I? – then the snail mask is my favorite pick-me-up. It’s also unusual enough to make up for the boringness of the MAC Prep + Prime, too. A good Christmas stocking addition.

7. Grace and Stella DePuffing Collagen Eye Masks $17

I bought these on a whim and I ADORE THEM. They really do make the entire under-eye area look brighter, smoother, more moisturized. And smarter. Yeah. I think they make me look smarter. (Funny how we only use positive words in beauty copywriting, huh? What I really want to say is ‘less haggard and wrinkly, less puffy and bloated, less dumb’. But then by the time I get to ‘dumb’ we all want to crawl into a hole in the ground and wail. We should not wail. I just finished this wonderful book and honestly I’m just so glad I’m not living through the Terror in France after the Revolution, with thousands and thousands of innocent people being guillotined left right and center and the streets running thick with blood, that I will never wail again.)

How much does that come to? $125? More or less, depending on how many NYX lingerie tints? I’m not a numbers guy. Right. That should do it. Whatever I have left, I’ll fill with a British chocolate she loves, called Revels. Revels all look more or less the same from the outside, right? Little chocolate ball things of various sizes. But inside might be raisins, an orange-y thing, a coffee crumble thing, a malteser-type thing, plain milk chocolate or toffee. YOU CAN NEVER TELL UNTIL YOU EAT IT WHICH ONE IT’S GOING TO BE. What kind of a MONSTER invented this?!?! This chocolate STRESSES me OUT. (Yes, I am too much of a control freak to handle the uncertainty of surprise chocolate. In every other way I am perfectly normal I swear.)

Happy nearly-Christmas! I will post more in December. I promise.

I saw this movie over a week ago and it’s WONDERFUL. I can’t stop thinking about it. So smart and funny and human… it’s perfect. I cried. I laughed. I cry-laughed. I’ll go see it again this weekend. Whenever I love a movie this much, and whenever I know that my ticket will make a difference to future movies like this getting made, I try to see it over and over again on the big screen (I did it with Everybody Wants Some, too).

This is also the reason I almost never ever see a cookie-cutter boring-as-fuck superhero movie in the theatre (Wonder Woman and Deadpool being the only exceptions, though even they succumbed to four-endings-and-too-many-explosions-itis).

The world needs less superheroes and more Lady Birds.

Greta Gerwig is a damn genius, I think I might love her.

I have been a Liz Meriwether fan a long time – scroll back five or six years and you’ll find a slavishly adoring post on The New Girl episode about braking for birds. And now she’s making a show with Erin Foster. I don’t really know who Erin Foster is, but my friend Joanna told me she was very funny on Instagram, so I followed her, and lo and behold she is veh veh funny indeed. When I found out Erin and Liz were making a show together I felt like I had somehow been involved in them meeting. This is how self-involved I am. That’s okay.

Anyway, Liz also writes beautiful and hilarious things for places like New York Magazine. Read this and then read this. See? She’s the best.

Loved In Bruges. Can’t wait to see Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri.

PS this is the In Bruges trailer, in case you missed it, I highly recommend. Such a good movie.

Okay gang, so a while ago I wrote a post that had a line about not knowing what the fuh squalene is or does. And I got some lovely comments and emails from people saying ‘no, dude, seriously you NEED to give squalene a chance, it sounds like something that should be lanced but it’s really AMAZING’.

And it’s true.

I picked this up for $11, and narrowed my eyes at it suspiciously. I threw it on before bed a couple of times, and thought, ‘hmm maybe’. THEN I tried it on this morning before taking Errol to school. I hadn’t brushed my hair, my eyes were bloodshot because three-year-old-plus-daylight-saving-equals-worst, and my only other make-up was a quick splodge of this old Armani blush that I throw on now and again (a soft rose-brown shade that warms up my natural ‘touch of consumption’ skin but was inexfuckingplicably discontinued, I’m sorry, I know how annoying that is, when I eventually run out I’m using MAC Blushbaby – I used to recommend MAC Blush All Day but that TOO was discontinued – or FACE Stockholm in Sunkissed). I had already put SPF on, but I always do, I do it early early before I brush my teeth. And I was wearing that No.7 Deep Raspberry lip balm. But nothing else. I looked in the mirror on the way out the door and said to myself ‘THAT IS SOME GOOD GODDAMN SKIN TODAY, GEMMA’. (I talk in all-caps to myself.)

My next thought, because I’m a dorky little joiner, was ‘everyone needs to know about this’.

It’s also worth pointing out that putting on a powder blush over a liquid moisturizer/primer/whatever squalene is was a wild risk on my part, but squalene just manned up and fucking OWNED it, and there was no chalky weirdness. That is a product I can respect.

And though I’m not really the type to put photos on this blog, because seriously there are better things for you to look at, I had to share. No filter, nothing fishy, and that’s the overhead hallway lighting in our apartment.

Note that my nose is too big to fit in the selfie.

Anyway, throw squalene a bone, people. It’s worth it.

The other day I saw a girl reading My Lady Jane on the subway. She was so very, very enthralled in it that despite never having heard of it, I immediately ordered it, dived (dove?) in, and OH. You guys. This book. It is a FREAKING DELIGHT. So charming and funny and smart. If you liked The Princess Bride, you’ll love this, and EVERYONE likes the Princess Bride. Enjoy.

When you work from home (as I do) and have small children who need frequent kisses (as I also do) but also have lips that left to their natural devices are the color and texture of dried-up oatmeal (as I totally do), you become quite obsessed with the subject of the perfect natural-but-not-because-natural-isn’t-that-good lips (which brings us to today’s topic of conversation and the end of my scintillating parenthesis series, I swear).

Here’s the thing: nude lips are hard for me, because it’s awfully easy for me to look worse, and that’s hardly the fucking point. I don’t want flat greige lips that look like I’m emulating some awful Kardashiperson. I don’t want sticky glossy lips that look like I just blew a jellyfish. I don’t want thick fake grandma lipstick that will rub off on my children and coffee mugs and everything else that crosses my path. I don’t want anything that will make me look older, yellow-teethed, sick, or bimbo-ish. And I don’t want to look like I made too much effort. Even though effort is my middle name. Gemma Effort Burgess. That’s me.

I want pouty perfect lips that look smooth and over-kissed and flush and delicious. (NOT puffy, there are way too many over-filled sloppy trout-pouts flopping around NYC.) Shiny or matte is fine, as long as they’re not sticky or dry. The color can be rose-ish or brown-ish or peach-ish. It just has to make me look BETTER. That is not too much to ask in this day and age, surely? If we can put a man on the MOON oh wait, that adage is a little old. If we can… okay, whatever, let’s just get on with it, shall we?

Boots No7 Lip Balm in Deep Raspberry is something you can throw on, without looking, on your way out the door, while forcing scooter helmets on the heads of very small boys. It is that unfuckupable. Swipe it on like Chapstick, run your pinkie around the edges of your lips in case you were a titch messy, and go about your day. Insanely flattering. My sister discovered this first – she has it in Poppy Petal, an orangey-red shade, and it looks amazing on her. I like the pink. I’m sure the others are gnarly too.

Bobbi Brown Crushed Lip Color in Baby. DUDES. First, I am not wild for Bobbi Brown, on the whole. I think the skincare is whack (RIP Whitney) and the supposedly amazing gel eyeliners are a boring nightmare to apply, the Shimmer Bricks have turned into glitter bombs and the lipsticks are very, very drying (I had a fling with Raisin, it’s a great 90s-ish color but just too damn dry). I do like her Skin Foundation v much indeed, which I wear in Porcelain in the depths of winter. ANYWAY. She just launched this Crushed Lips product and OH MY GOD. It’s lipstick for people who hate lipstick. It feels like a balm, very smooth and light, looks like a lipstick that has sheered out perfectly evenly and matte-ly, and it’s only one swipe. It’s like God painted your lips with watercolor and then blessed them. (Is that sacrilegious? I can never tell, and I’m married to a nice lapsed Catholic boy from Ireland – one time we were at a wedding in Dingle and I was like, I might take the communion just because I’m starving, and he was shocked. Apparently you do NOT JOKE about bread that, although bought in Tesco, represents Himself. Sorry, back to lipstick.) Bobbi Brown Crushed Lip Color is everything that the Glossier matte lip balm promised to be and wasn’t (my Leo broke from the base within a week and dried out within a month, and the same thing happened to all my girlfriends, too, seriously f’king irritating). Get it in Baby or Angel – I couldn’t decide, got Baby, and will probably go back for Angel because, well, you know me.

Orlane No.97 lipstick with Milani Nude lipliner. No, it hasn’t got a name, just a number, and yes, that’s the best image I could find. Orlane doesn’t seem to even make lipstick anymore. I have a feeling that they’re selling old, old, old discontinued stock on eBay. It’s a baked apricot color, it’s hydrating in a slightly waxy kind of way but not thick, and (yes, I take make-up way too seriously) I have never seen its equal anywhere. I bought it in a funny little make-up store in Melbourne Plaza on Queens Road in Hong Kong in… oh man, probably the mid-2000s, at least. (I can date my lipsticks based on the guy I was dating when I bought them. How appallingly tragic.) I trot it out when I’m going out for dinner and want a my-lips-but-better shade that complements-but-not-competes with slightly dramatic eye make-up and oh, how I like slightly dramatic eye make-up. Recently I realized that I was running out of it so I went looking for more. You can buy it here. Thank me later. While you’re at it, get three of the Milani lipliners and you will never have to worry about the perfect nude lipliner ever again. I cannot say it too many times.

Laura Mercier Lip Glace Black Cherry with Mac Hot Gossip lipstick on top for an insanely delightful lilac-pink pearly sheen that, through some trickery, lasts ALL DAY. Am I the very very first person to put lip gloss on first and THEN lipstick OVER THE TOP!? I THINK I AM! IT’S A REVOLUTION! Why the hell am I writing, I should patent this idea and retire.

Okay, enough from me. I must get back to work.