Blog Posts by Refinery29

By Laurie Espino, Refinery29

Much like the woodchuck who could chuck wood, the beauty world has its own collection of paradoxical questions. Today's mystery revolves around one of our all-time favorite products: lipstick. More specifically, how long can we expect our lipstick to last? Think about it: You've had that favorite color of lipstick since when? Last season? Or...the season before that? Last year, even? It's been so long for some of us that we began to think there's a bottomless pit of color inside the tube.

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Luckily, the age-old mystery was laid to rest, thanks to some dedicated scientists/beauty nerds at Birchbox. After a lot of research, it was concluded that the average length of the female lip is approximately 55mm. With this in mind, the science team swiped four different types of lipstick on white butcher paper. After hours of testing, and what appeared to be an endless number of swipes, the research team had their

By Connie Wang, Refinery29

These days, it's sometimes difficult to see beyond the veil - past the choreographed YouTube-able dance down the aisle, past the matching bridesmaid dresses handmade by an indie designer in Fort Greene, past all the random cousins you haven't seen since your 12th birthday. Sometimes, a wedding can easily feel more like gluten-free, off-white icing than actual cake. But, at the end of the day, a wedding is a celebration of you, your partner, and the bond you share. Everything else is just extra.

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Which is why we love a good City Hall wedding. It's the "I Do" in its purest form - and a million times more romantic than any episode of Bridezilla we've ever seen. Plus, when you're perched on the steps for a few days, like we were, you can see all this happiness take place about four dozen times - a good thing for any love-story addict. Now, click through to see our favorite couples who

By Leila Brillson, Refinery29

These days, fame almost always comes with a perfume endorsement (or, in Gaga's case, is the name of a perfume endorsement). Yet, not every famous face has gotten the fragrance fever - which is a shame, because there are a couple of celebs who we'd gladly buy what they are smelling selling.

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So, we conceived of a couple unexpected scents from stars who aren't quite in the beauty game, and have used our nose for prediction to sniff out what they might endorse. From completely the completely surreal and unbelievable to the not-so-inconceivable, here are 10 celebs whose scents we would kind of love to see.

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Photographed by Erin Yamagata, Refinery29

You probably know its facets and features better than you know your best friend's. It's been witness to some of your most genius moments, as well as your most brain-dead. You spend a quarter of your life in front of it. So, if your desk at work doesn't make you happy, you're doing it wrong.

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However, an office space makeover doesn't mean selling your soul to Dieter Rams and Brookstone. For just $50, you can take the barest of corporate spaces and transform it into a nook that feels more like you. We had three of our editors hit three shops - IKEA, Kmart, and a run-of-the-mill dollar store - to give a sad setup a bit of a lift. Go ahead, pick a favorite.

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By Megan McIntyre, Refinery29

If you've ever suffered from a migraine, you know how debilitating and downright awful it can be. If you haven't, well, count yourself very lucky. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 29.5 million Americans (or 12% of us) suffer from migraine pain and symptoms, with the majority of those sufferers being women.

Now here's the really scary part: It's not known exactly what causes migraines. According to Dr. Michael Cutrer, chair of the Division of Headache, Department of Neurology at the Mayo Clinic, we do know that migraineurs (the common term for migraine sufferers) carry one or more genetic variants that makes them more susceptible. However, we don't know exactly what those variants are yet.

"When you have susceptibility to migraine, you have an unstable interface between the environment and that part of the nervous system that controls pain sensation in your head and neck," he says. "Everyone has the equipment and structure

By Connie Wang, Refinery29

here's really no feeling as pregnant with possibility as standing in front of a dressing room with an armful of prospects and a paycheck's worth of funds in your bank account. However, that whole "trying things on" part always seems to get in the way between you and a better dressed version of yourself. You never seem to be wearing the right type of underwear, grab the right size, or feel remotely pretty under the harsh fluorescent lighting. If there was a way to make the whole process more pleasant, you can bet we'll give it a go.

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It turns out that there is a way to shop and try on clothes without stepping foot into a dressing room. Vismile, a Taiwanese company, has developed a virtual try-on program called Nuevo that superimposes clothing onto your body in real time. The clothes move with you, wrap around your curves, and can be mixed and matched on a

By Annie Tomlin, Refinery29

.What's new in sex? A lot, actually - and the news is definitely not what you might expect. Right now, sex is more daring, more complex, and more surprising than ever. From rethinking one of the biggest taboos (we were shocked!) to virtual sex (not kidding), this is need-to-know info about getting it on. Want a grown-up lesson in sex ed? Keep reading to get schooled.

1. Think Kink
One of the last sexual taboos is having a major moment - bondage tape, handcuffs, and all. BDSM (that's bondage, discipline, submission, and masochism, for folks keeping score at home) may not be mainstream, exactly, but it's inching out of the underground. Harvard has its own officially-recognized group for students interested in kink, while social networking site FetLife nearly doubled its membership in the last year. And, tourists can visit the San Francisco offices of Kink.com, the subject of a James Franco-produced documentary that premiered at Sundance.

"There has been a

By Lexi Nisita, Refinery29

This article on Business Insider may open with a quote from Michael Scott, but it goes on to pose a very interesting question: What is the big deal about diamond engagement rings? They feel solidly embedded in age-old tradition to many of us, but is that really true? As it turns out, no. Apparently, the entire "tradition" started with a De Beers ad campaign in...1938. (So, it's older than the columns on Cher Horowitz's house, but not by a lot.) Before then, diamond rings weren't at all commonplace on the fingers of American spouses-to-be.

By now, most of us are aware that the supposed rarity of diamonds is artificially created by a cartel controlling all supply to falsely inflate demand. But, it's not just the market that's under the strict grip of De Beers - it's your emotional response and attachment to something much greater. Good advertising is, at its most effective, designed to make you need something you didn't even know you wanted, and the diamond