The Beauty Stuff We Bought on Repeat This Year

The only shampoo I’ve used all year has been by … Rita Ora?! I will gab to anyone who will listen about Rita Ora’s hair-care line. It is fantastic — I’m on my fourth bottle. I have fine, bleached, oily hair — and I prefer it to Crown Affair. It’s well priced, and a bottle will last the better part of six months. The hair mask is also great, though I don’t really care for the hair-growth serum that’s part of the “package.”

Nice shine with no stickiness, and so much easier to apply than thesleeping mask. I buy a couple tubes whenever it’s on sale, which happens reliably during Amazon deal events.

I’ve tried most of the Anastasia brow products and keep going back to this one. A little bit of Brow Wiz and mascara are my two daily musts. I always get the full size, even though the mini would be nice for my bag, because I require both the slightly more economical cost per ounce and the built-in spoolie.

Between buying tubes for both my mom and myself, I’m honestly not sure how much money I gave to Glossier this year. But what can I say? Boy Brow is my tried and true.

I’m really lazy about doing anything with my hair, which is fine and has a loose curly/wavy texture. The hair stylist I’ve been going to recommended I use products that are really light with a watery consistency, so they don’t weigh my hair down, and that’s exactly what this is. It’s perfect for scrunching into my hair to get it to hold a more defined curl and letting it air-dry.

I’ve been using tretinoin for the past few years to help clear up acne and this extremely rich moisturizer is the thing that keeps it from drying my skin out. It’s technically for face and body, but I mostly just use it for my face. Though it is nice to be able to double dip on face/body moisturizing when I’m traveling or just need something extra rich for a dry spot. It’s also pretty economical. While La Roche-Posay feels like an expensive drugstore brand, this moisturizer comes in a 13.52-ounce bottle — it’s huge and takes forever to go through — and is only a couple of dollars more than the CeraVe one I used to use, which came in a three-ounce bottle.

I know hair-care routines are ever-evolving, but I finally feel like I’m in a great place with mine. I have super-fine hair that tends to frizz (as I’ve lamented many times on this site before), and Act + Acre’s leave-in helps give me definition without — and this is so supremely key — weighing down my strands. I use it every day. (If you’re curious, the other holy-grail hair product, which I apply first right out of the shower, isCeremonia’s Guava Rescue Spray— a sort of part detangling/part heat-protectant product that is also afavorite among many other staffers here.

Based on my Amazon history, I’ve purchased Brow Lift three times this year and just the other week picked up a fourth jar. This is a no-frills, no-brainer clear gel ($7!!) that quickly converted me from theBoy Browlife ever since I readRio Viera-Newtoncrowning it her winner. Paired with a clean spoolie, Brow Lift daily delivers me laminated- and feathery-looking brows, brows that have gotten me stopped in elevators and interrogated by baristas. This product, and a pump of my lash curl, is on my face even if nothing else is. The worst thing about it? Rarely finding it on store shelves.

Over the past year and a half, I’ve been on an ambling hunt for a new shampoo and conditioner. (Thetea-tree-oil shampoo and conditioner duoI’d been using for years wasn’t cutting it anymore.) After trying options from Monday, Native, and Seen, I finally found a duo I like: someclinical dandruff shampoo from CeraVeand this cult-favorite conditioner from Verb. Ever since making the switch, I’ve received a record-breaking number of compliments. My hair is noticeably more voluminous, too.

The flow ofpimple patchesentering my apartment is never ending. I’ve been loyal to Mighty Patch, which comes out to about 30 cents a dot, ever since Peace Out raised its prices. They’re especially effective when used overnight.

I’ve been using this as my main moisturizer for going on three years. It’s light and moisturizing and just works on my combination skin. I recently started using it at night, too. I also started using the brand’sLe Chouchou lip balmin a plummy purple as a super-easy way to add color and gloss to my lips.

I wrote a wholeodeto this cream in the fall and have purchased it twice more since then. It’s just the best. I ran out, tried using another thick cream in my medicine cabinet in the name of using things that I owned, started to notice clogged pores almost immediately, went back to the Sofie Pavitt, and a couple days later my skin was looking clear again. Yes, it’s pricey, but it’s been worth it to have skin that feels glowy, never tight, and that doesn’t break out too often.

I repurchased this many times not just over this year but over the last seven years, too. Every time I try anything else, I always come back to this one. It’s gentle, takes off any makeup that I don’t get off with a swipe of Bioderma, and doesn’t irritate my skin. I find the packaging delightfully early aughts looking, and the formula just gets the job of cleansing my skin done — nothing more, nothing less.

Until recently, I’d mostly depended on OTC steroid creams to mitigate eczema flare-ups, but I quit all those when I discovered how much more effective this is for me (and I like getting off the topical-steroid train, too). It’s meant for babies, and I do put it on my toddler and have given my 9-year-old a tub of her own, but I also put it on all over myself: not just patches of dry skin on my body but also on my face (I’m going to finish tubs of this ointment while a jar of La Mer sits half full in my medicine cabinet), and my sad, cracked heels.

In the spring, I was double cleansing with this but then switched to just rubbing a generous amount into my face every morning and leaving it at that, which seems sufficient and feels like it might be doing something. Every time I repurchase, I level up a size: Now I’ve committed to the 120-milliliter bottle (highly recommend waiting for the occasional sale). I use this one in the morning and theFrankincenseone at night.

A friend gave me Urb’srosehip oilearly on in the pandemic, and I liked it enough to order more of the brand’s products to try. The one I keep coming back to is this cleanser, which I buy in the 16-ounce size (and lasts me more than a year). And though this is not purchased for my own use, it bears mentioning that my husband really lovesUrb’s beard oil. He’s tried so many, but this is the one he’s stuck with, and he estimates that he’s gone through a dozen bottles of it.

I’ve bought four tubes of this cream this year (one was a gift). I know three for myself doesn’t seem like much in a year but, in all my time as an editor, I can count on one hand the number of facial moisturizers I’ve repurchased. It’s just not something I invest in, so I will use whatever gets sent to me. But Centellian24 Madeca is truly so soothing. I use it multiple times a day during the colder months when my skin is sensitized by the dry air. It calms my skin down while also hydrating it. The other day, I went to the bodega for my early morning coffee run. I had only just washed my face and thrown on some Madeca. My bodega guy said, “You always look fresh.” I asked him what he meant, and he said my skin looks bright and shiny. Honestly, one of the best compliments I’ve gotten ever and in the last few months this guy’s only seeing me with a layer of this cream.