How to Look Less Tired (in an Instant), a New French Round Brush, and an Internet-Famous Serum: Beauty Obsessions for May

One of our least favorite things to hear: “You look tired.” The surprising cure is this little tube of hydration and antioxidants that happens to be tinted with fresh, natural-looking color. Smooth a little over your skin (after your other skin care, before makeup or sunscreen) and, almost invariably, someone will remark that you look either “well rested” or “relaxed.” “Did you go on vacation?” is another common refrain.

Beyond waking up our skin, the nourishing bronzer has also been easing our transition to summer, aided by some incredible new discoveries, from a brush that all but guarantees a great style to a warming Ayurvedic detox mask that moisturizes as it refines and polishes. Plus, our very favorite sunscreen is back for the season.

FORAH is back in stock, just in time for the sun. The SPF 30 has to be one of my favorite beauty products of all time, and everyone who tries it converts instantly and forever. It’s the creamiest, silkiest, best-smelling sunscreen, in the chicest yellow tube, and every member of the beauty team is rejoicing.

I converted a van-load of Canyon Ranch desert hikers but then dropped the cap—irretrievably—into a van-seat crevice. There was maybe a fifth of the tube left.

Back in my room, packing to go home, I told myself how ridiculous it was to try to bring a capless sunscreen back on the plane with me. Beauty editors do not lack for tubes of sunscreen, but I couldn’t help myself. I tore open a grain bar from the minibar, creating a sort of hood for the top of the FORAH and affixing it with a hair tie. Risking multiple outfits (including my beloved striped Gia sweater), I tucked it in as carefully as I could.

The capless fifth of a tube made it back—along with the outfits, all of which were miraculously unscathed—and I am thrilled by it still. Try it and you’ll understand.

Are flowers so beautiful because they wilt? I have been lucky enough to have received bouquets upon bouquets of flowers at different points in my life, and I remember a great many more of them than you (or I) might have thought; a flower is hard to wilt in my memory.

But I understand not wanting to send a person flowers if you yourself aren’t as under their spell as I am, or if you’re wanting to ensure a longer-tail trajectory of enjoyment for your giftee. Here, in that case, is what to send: this flower-scattered box, which contains two scented moisturizing bars. They melt as they’re smoothed against your skin, so they simplify the act of putting on moisturizer. Made with cocoa butter and all manner of beautiful plant oils, they also enable the best massage ever (self-administered or otherwise). You can wear them as perfume, too: One, the Soft Petal Stone, smells dreamily of lilies, while the other, the Lush Bloom Stone, is infused with sweet magnolia.

Note: Most beautiful boxes are like bouquets—they don’t last. But this one can be a gorgeous, more permanent container for the stones (which really last). Or you can flatten it and line a drawer with it.

I’m always cold, so I was instantly drawn to this pale-lilac mask, which warms up on your skin as it exfoliates, moisturizes, smooths pores, and freshens. The warmth made the thick, creamy kaolin-clay-based mask feel even more indulgent than I expected: It takes the whole mask experience up a (significant) notch. Smooth it on (it smells faintly of flowers and rosemary); wait 10 to 15 minutes for the alpha hydroxy acids, clay, ashwagandha, moringa, spirulina, and assorted hydrators to do their thing; and splash it off. My skin feels (and looks) baby-soft afterward, not to mention almost as poreless as that of Pritika Swarup, the model/Columbia grad/investment analyst who invented it.

Between work, two tantrumming sons, getting in Pilates sessions, and dinner prep (my husband and I take turns, but cooking feeds my soul, so I take it on more frequently), I haven’t made it into Sofie Pavitt’s Chinatown studio for one of her sought-after facials. But I’ve been getting plenty of her skin sorcery—Pavitt has become known as a real savior for the problem-skin-prone—from the serum in this little bottle. It’s turbocharged with mandelic acid, an exfoliant designed to help with blemishes, dullness, and uneven skin tone, and it’s tempered with hydrating hyaluronic acid, so it sinks comfortably into my skin. It’s juicy and light and feels like nothing under moisturizer, and when I massage it on regularly (in the mornings only, because I use retinol at night and too much action can backfire), the result is softer, smoother, fresher, clearer-looking skin. Though I’m still determined to make an IRL session with Pavitt happen.

Over a pot of green tea at Nolita’s perennially jam-packed Raf’s (go for the people-watching, stay for the food), Neada Deters and I met up for the first time after her big move from LA to Manhattan. Willowy, model-off-duty-esque in a loose crisp blouse, and as glowing as ever on this dingier coast, the 34-year-old founder of LESSE skin care says Pilates, early-morning walks with her dog, and of course some really great skin care are her secret weapons for looking so luminous. Her face cream is the linchpin of her routine. “It feels so good—it just makes your skin look more alive,” she says. “You walk out the door knowing you’re good. I made it—and my whole line—because I had such problem skin myself.”

Convinced by Deters’s dewy-freshness, a day later I was in front of my mirror smoothing on the moisturizer. Instantly I fell in love with how it felt and left my skin looking. The formula is overflowing with nourishing, vitamin C–rich kakadu plum and Irish sea moss (a hero ingredient for sensitive skin types), and the texture is delicate and cooling. It layers beautifully under sunscreen and makeup, if you’re wearing it. But the gleamy radiance it deposits turns out to be all I need to walk out the door feeling like me (and looking a little like her, hopefully, in terms of model-off-duty freshness).

What do the Chloé spring campaign, Gabriela Hearst’ SS24 runway show, and Bella Hadid’s April 2024 Vogue Italia cover have in common? Makeup artist Fara Homidi’s magic. She has now bottled that magic—and somehow fit it into this chic palm-size tomato-red lacquered compact. There are two creams inside: Smooth Veil Soft Matte, a velvety cream-powder that works as both foundation and concealer, and Shine Baume, a gleamy highlighter. Together they make what Homidi calls “runway skin in a compact.”

“I never want to cover the quality of the skin,” says Homidi. “I want to see freckles, a natural flush, and a little bit of character.” Both creams are silky-smooth, feel weightless, blend beautifully, and leave a dewy sheen.

They’re also impossible to mess up. I swirl the rounded side of Homidi’s fluffy angled buffer brush in the foundation/concealer—you need only the teeniest bit—and dab it right where I want coverage. It buffs smoothly, softly blurring imperfections, spots, and dark circles. Then I swipe the highlighter at my cheekbones, Cupid’s bow, and nose with the flat side of the brush—it adds a subtle gleam and lift. I can’t believe how natural my skin looks afterward.

A great round brush is like a favorite pair of jeans—it should last practically forever and get better each time you use or wear it. This chic French one is beautiful—the handle is a glossy dark emerald with a gold signet at the end—but it also delivers the best blowout ever.

The 100 percent natural boar bristles create just enough tension and hold to grip my hair without snagging. The handle—a lightweight ergonomic design—is also a bit shorter than those of other round brushes I’ve used, which makes maneuvering it much simpler. The brush is so gentle and wraps around my hair easily (I like to make one- or two-inch sections), adding the perfect amount of lift, body, smoothness, and shine as I blast it with a dryer. I use it for every look, whether I’m making my hair sleek and pin-straight, bendy and tousled, or volumized at the crown, or if I’m just polishing pieces to frame my face.

It’s made by one of the oldest brush makers in France, so it’s really built to last. I’ve had mine for over a year (that’s a lot of blowouts), and it still looks as if I just took it out of the box.

I’ve been using this fine, Japanese-persimmon-and-tsubaki-seed-oil-infused dry shampoo powder religiously for three years, so I’ve gone through my fair share of jars. Now Crown Affair has made it refillable, so you can keep and reuse your jar. It’s worth your while to make the sustainable choice: The refill is a full $10 less than the jar, and you still get the same 1.1 ounces of amazing powder.

When you first buy the jar, it comes with a fluffy kabuki brush—dab the powder lightly on your roots and it’ll absorb oil like nothing else. It leaves my second- and third-day hair voluminous, silky, shiny, and fresh, but I also use it on clean hair for volume and lift. If you’ve tried any of Crown Affair’s other products (I love the whole line), you’ll recognize the light scent of bergamot, yuzu, and lemongrass, which delights me every time I smell it. Another tip: Sprinkle the powder on your scalp at night before you go to bed—it absorbs excess oil overnight, so you’ll wake up ready with a good hair day.