If you’re like us, you’ve probably wondered what famous people add to their carts. Not the JAR brooch and Louis XV chair, but the hand sanitizer and the electric toothbrush. We asked Phillip Picardi, the editor-in-chief of Out magazine, about the fragrance, face serum, and hair product he can’t live without.
I have a lot of favorites from Frédéric Malle, but Musc Ravageur is what I’ve been wearing since I was 18, basically. You know how Beyoncé has her freakum dress? This is my freakum fragrance. If I want to feel like my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, I spray this on or use the body oil in key areas, and I’m ready for intimate moments. Every time I wear it, my boyfriend generally knows that good times are ahead. I like L’eau d’Hiver, too, which is like your favorite cashmere sweater on a fall day. It has a hint of almond and spice.
I will always read in hard copy and not on a screen because I love the way it feels to hold a book, but when I’m commuting or cooking or cleaning at home and feel like getting a book in, I will listen to an audiobook. Right now I’m finishing up the new DeRay book, and next I’m starting Kitchen Confidential. I wasn’t terribly familiar with Bourdain’s work, but I was talking to Antoni at an event, and he was saying how much Bourdain meant to him, which made me want to get into it.
I’ve been using this since I can remember. Everyone on Instagram asks me about my skin routine, and the truth is that even with everything I’ve tried, this has been the one constant in my life. It’s been in my life longer than I’ve been with any man. The founder Rose-Marie Swift works with natural ingredients, and I know that for this formula, when she was manufacturing it, she convinced the family making it to run coconut oil instead of water through the machine — that’s how pure it is. It gives you a really dewy finish, but it has a sheer mica in it, which is the highlighting ingredient. It’s so undetectable, though. It just looks like beautiful dewy skin — it never looks like makeup. I put it on the high points of the cheekbones, on top of my nose, under my eyebrows, in the center of each eyelid, and then on my temples.
Look, Pleats Please is the business. I know it’s expensive, but it’s the easiest thing. You don’t have to dry-clean it. You can fold it into a ball, and it’ll look like you just bought it. I love traveling with Pleats Please clothes because it’s all super chic and looks nothing like what anyone else has on. It also never smells or starts to wrinkle. I can wear the overalls while traveling and go from a red-eye to the office and look totally ready for work.
I’ve known Troy Surratt for a number of years — he does makeup for Uma Thurman and Adele — and his line feels specially crafted in a way that I can’t really explain. This eyelash curler is a chic matte black, and it lasts a superlong time. If you curl your eyelashes, you know that the spring goes weak on a lot of them, which means you constantly need a new one, but this one doesn’t have a spring, so it lasts forever. I have wide eyes, so normal curlers are too small for me, but this one catches the full length of the eye. Curling your eyelashes helps the light catch your eyes better. If eyes are the windows to the soul, the eyelashes are the curtains, and if you want the light to come in, you have to open them.
I play Mario Tennis whenever I’m stressed out (as Daisy, who is more angsty than Peach, which naturally resonates with me). I love Pokémon. I love Mario. When the Switch came out, I was an early adopter, and now it’s my tension relief.
I will often show up on set and have to look groomed, and when the camera flashes and you’re under the light, I like looking matte. I like shiny hair, but I like my skin shiny in only the right places. The Koh Gen Do is a beautiful Champagne-colored reflective shining powder. It feels like absolute velvet. You put a light coating on after makeup or moisturizer, and when someone takes a picture of you, the light bounces off of you to make you look perfect. I swear by it.
This serum is from an organic skin-care brand based in Canada, and it contains sea buckthorn, which is supposed to be super hydrating. It’s very aqueous, so I’ll put it on solo during the daytime under some facial oil, but at night I drop two drops of it into my retinol so that instead of drying me out, it’s moisturizing. It’s made such a difference. Even when I have psoriasis on my face, facialists will look at me and say I must drink so much water. It’s only because of this product. I have four of these right now.
I was using a Moleskine notebook my whole life, but when I started my job this year [as COO of Teen Vogue and Them], I had all of these people reporting to me and all of these projects to keep track of, so I needed something a bit more aggressive. This has a table of contents at the beginning, and it has all these stickers that let you mark things as complete as you go. I love a soft-cover notebook, too, because I’m a lefty, so I like the freedom of being able to bend the spine. And the table of contents really changed my life.
I’m wearing these right now. I’ve always been a sneaker guy in Common Projects or Stan Smiths, but I got tired of the white sneakers, and I gravitated toward these over the summer. The back of the shoes can actually fold in or out, which is just so great. If you’re in a suit, you can be more dressed up, but if you’re not, they’re like a slipper. They’re even more comfortable than sneakers. They’re polished enough that you can wear them with jeans or trousers, and your outfits will be equally elevated in either scenario.
I pick this up at Whole Foods — it’s a natural remedy that you can put into a bottle of water or just take a vial of the stuff straight to the back of the throat if you get a lot of colds or sore throats. [Editor’s note: Sanaa Lathan is also a fan.] It really does ward off illness if I’m feeling congested or icky when I’m traveling.
I don’t even know what’s in this serum, but when I started at Allure I passed it to editors Sam Escobar and Kelly Bales, and now we’re all obsessed with it. If you wear concealer or foundation, it’s better than any primer. It gives you the most gorgeous texture of skin, but unlike other oils, it doesn’t make you greasy around the corners of your nose or on your forehead. I never feel like I’m getting clogged skin or zits because of it.
I don’t like to mess with my hair too much. I used to have this Pauly D blowout, which meant I blew my hair out every day. I decided I had too much to do in my day to have to spend all this time on my hair, so I went to Wes Sharpton at Hairstory, and he cut it short. I just didn’t have time for all the sprays and texturizers and styling and bullshit. Now, I keep my hair in place and free of frizz with this balm. And if you touch my hair, you’ll notice my hair isn’t greasy or hard. It’s styled but doesn’t feel full of product.
Gay culture is knowing what Metamucil is for. Honey, I don’t leave the house without two capsules. I take two before bed, and it keeps you ready for when duty calls.
I am almost embarrassed to talk about how much I love this olive oil because it’s $55, but let me tell you: A lot of people say life is too short for cheap wine, and as an Italian-American, I am here to tell you that it’s too short for cheap olive oil. This olive oil will transform anything you cook. I use it for sautéing vegetables or baking chicken. The salesperson told me that there’s a quality about the olive oil that makes it so special when it comes in the tin, so that’s the way I buy it.
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