9 Beauty Products Our Editors Loved in February

The headline here is not an exaggeration: This is, hands down, the best concealer I have ever tried.

Since moving to Santa Monica a little over a year ago—and starting hormone replacement therapy around the same time—I’ve developed the kind of stubborn sun spots on my cheeks that seem to mock every makeup claim ever made. No matter how much foundation or concealer I layered on, the marks always showed through. Not so with this implausibly light yet effective concealer. It goes on like a serum—light, fluid, instantly smoothing—covers every kind of discoloration and stays put for up to 18 hours without creasing, caking, or ending up on the collar of my white ski parka by noon (yes, I tested it on my splotchy chin while skiing recently).

Skin-friendly ingredients like hyaluronic acid and glycerin give it slip and bounce, while calming centella asiatica prevents any irritation. It’s creamy but weightless, and it never clogs pores or settles into fine lines. Under my eyes, where concealer usually looks most obvious, it provides great coverage while being completely invisible. Since I started using it, I’ve stopped wearing foundation entirely. (My shade is EP 5.0—light with neutral tones—and it matches my fair skin perfectly.)

When it comes to beauty products you definitely want to prioritize switching to clean formulations, anything you apply on large swathes of the body and leave on (body cream, self-tanner) tops the list. I long ago made the switch with body lotion (Necessaire’s firming body lotion is my favorite), but have struggled for years to find a clean formulation for a body self-tanner, let alone one that does not make me look like an Oompa Loompa.

So I was thrilled to discover Saltyface’s tanning foam. It dries almost instantly, making it super easy to apply, and the color is completely natural. I also use Saltyface’s tanning water—I mix a few drops in with my goop beauty youth-boost peptide serum. The combined texture goes on really evenly and smoothly and never comes out blotchy. I fight over both formulas with my 17-year-old daughter, who is constantly swiping them from my bathroom.

When I slid Heretic’s ’Til Death out of the sleek black box it arrived in, I was transported back to those moments of childhood fantasy. The solid perfume comes in a weighty blackened-silver compact, which just feels chic in your hand. The cover is illustrated with an image of the title character from Maggie Gyllenhaal’s upcoming movie THE BRIDE! (the limited-edition scent is a collaboration with the gothic romance, set in the 1930s). Pop the compact open and you see that the perfume balm is black, which gives it an edgy, slightly subversive feel (appropriate, since the bride in question is Frankenstein’s monster’s). The scent itself is a heady blend of jasmine sambac and rose spiked with cedar and frankincense over orris and musk. In the compact, the powdery and floral notes dominate, but when it dries down on my skin, the woods and musk come through to balance it out. It’s an intriguingly complex scent: romantic but not too sweet, and just edgy enough. I’m utterly addicted.

My stepsister has done just about every aesthetic treatment known to man. She looks amazing. And she is more than happy to tell you exactly what she thinks is worth it, what’s meh, and what she regrets. So last year, when I decided that maybe I was ready to dip a toe in those waters, she was the one I asked. Which is how I found myself at Aspen Luxe Med Spa for a one-two punch of Morpheus8 and CoolPeel. My stepsister, being a good sister, came with me and got the same. She went first, so I got to see what was coming. Thanks to the numbing cream (I could write a love poem to it), we didn’t feel anything, but I could see how red and inflamed her skin was after the treatments. Until Maddy, our aesthetician, applied an exosome serum. When I tell you that the difference it made in my sister’s skin was instantaneous, I mean that I could actually see her skin getting less red and angry as Maddy was smoothing the serum on. Exosomes!

I didn’t participate in the “2026 is the new 2016” trend earlier this year, but it did inspire me to look at old (heavily-filtered) Instagram photos, and I couldn’t help but clock how much my approach to beauty has changed over the past 10 years. The most obvious difference: In 2016, I was all about a pigmented, matte red lipstick. In 2026, I rarely ever go for a high-maintenance statement lip, instead relying on tinted lip balms and hydrating glosses.

But it turns out there’s actually a perfect middle ground, and the lip product I really needed in my life this whole time was this new launch from the legendary makeup artist Gucci Westman. As the name suggests, it’s a tinted lipstick—packaged in the same luxurious, heavy, glossy tube as Westman Atelier’s other lipsticks—but in the form of a hydrating balm that delivers a juicy wash of sheer, buildable color. I’ve been wearing Pop, a reddish-coral shade that looks like you’ve just eaten fresh fruit and let it lightly stain your lips, and I already foresee this being my go-to all summer. The best part for me is the refreshing, cooling sensation at the end which reminds me of the Burt’s Bees I wore throughout middle school and high school. It’s nostalgic, in the very best way.

What’s really cool about the Icelandic fragrance house Fischersund is that each scent comes with a story and poem that speaks to the inspiration. In the case of No. 8, it's “the feeling of endless days spent outdoors, riding bikes, and exploring nature with all the freedom of childhood, along with the anticipation of the delivery of baked goods our grandmother would bring weekly.” Which means that before I even uncapped the bottle, I was transported from the middle of one of New York City’s biggest blizzards in a decade to a carefree summer in a quaint Icelandic village.

And then there's the scent itself: tart rhubarb and grapefruit with woodsy notes of petitgrain, spruce, birch, and balsam fir. Sure, the individual notes don’t mirror my own childhood memories—I’ve never stolen rhubarb from a neighbor’s garden or felt the arctic wind blowing through my hair in a damp forest—but the combination evokes that same sense of lightness, and possibility. It’s both a mini Icelandic getaway in a bottle and a subtle reminder of the joys of childhood—a pretty remarkable feat for a fragrance.