Hundreds of products come across our desks every month, but not all of them deliver on their claims or live up to the hype. (Not everything that goes viral on TikTok is a miracle worker.) This is our exclusive curation of the best-in-class makeup products receiving rave reviews from our team and hitting shelves right now.
Chanel Les Beiges Oversize Healthy Glow Sun-Kissed Powder ($88)
Available in three shades—Light/Sunshine, Medium/Sunkiss and Deep/Sunbath—and embossed with the brand’s iconic Les Beiges rounded-square shape, this oversized bronzer boasts a silky powder texture (the formula also contains moisturizing ingredients) that feels super lightweight on skin. The brand also just launched a new oversized Kabuki Brush, which pairs perfectly with the new bronzer for a natural-looking, matte finish.
It also looks beautiful on the neck, décolleté, and anywhere else on the body that you want to add a little bit of warm color—it reflects light in all the right places. And a note for those who are sensitive to fragrance, it does contain synthetic fragrance that lends a bit of a summery scent.
YSL Beauty Nu Lip & Cheek Balm Tint ($26)
This is the dreamiest two-in-one tint for effortless summertime beauty—I could apply it on the beach with no mirror—and a little goes a long way so you can add more if you want to build up the color. The finish is super dewy and the skin care–focused formula is loaded with 10-percent shea butter and natural orange blossom from Morocco to nourish dry skin. It comes in the three shades shown here—Nu Flush, Nu Chills and Nu Pinch—and it’s small enough to fit in a tiny clutch for a night out, too.
Huda Beauty #FauxFilter Luminous Matte Liquid Concealer ($29)
Irresistibly creamy, this vegan, medium-to-full coverage concealer comes in 29 shades to suit pretty much every skin tone and has a soft-matte finish that doesn’t look the least bit cakey. My favorite part is the second-skin feel that doesn’t settle into fine lines and creases around my nose and under my eyes—it has a 14-hour claim for that—which is partly in thanks to the addition of sweet almond oil and vitamin E that help skin look smooth and soft. I also can’t forget the big doe-foot applicator. Who doesn’t love a huge doe-foot?
“We really wanted to create a concealer within our cult #FauxFilter fam that’s insanely long-lasting, effortlessly blendable, and is super easy for everyone to use,” says founder and CEO Huda Kattan. #FauxFilter Concealer enhances your natural beauty and gives you THE most beautiful complexion with buildable coverage. The flexible formula is also so lightweight and comfortable thanks to the blend of conditioning ingredients—it smashes ALL expectations!”
NovaBEAUTY 2-In-1 Snatched Lip Liner ($10)
The perfect foundation for any lip look, this new liner from FashionNOVA’s new foray into beauty is available in 10 shades, from deep brown to cherry red—I love the shade Pink Nude on my fair skin. One end features a diamond-tip liner that lets you precisely line and define, and the other houses a tiny brush to blend it in for a very natural look. Overdraw your lip line, top it with a plumping lip gloss, and voila, you’ve mastered the “gym lips” trend.
MOB Beauty Cream Clay Bronzer ($30 with compact; $25 refills)
On the one-year anniversary month of the brand’s number-one best-selling Cream Clay Blush, meet its sister product: a velvety-matte, vegan bronzer made with the same hectorite clay and avocado formula that provides a unique, cloud-like, blendable texture.
True to the brand’s DNA, the product was 100-percent community-driven and requested by tons of fans who fell in love with the Blush, including makeup artists who can’t get enough of the staying power. It comes in four shades—taupe brown, espresso brown, golden brown and rose-chocolate brown—and works as a bronzer or contour.
tarte tartelette tubing mascara ($24)
I am one of the biggest fans of tubing mascara, and most of the people I’ve gotten hooked on them have told me it’s been tough to go back to standard formulas once they’ve experienced all the perks of tubing (the big one being you don’t need makeup remover to take it off). Tarte wanted to get in on the fun with this new launch, which it’s dubbed “lash extensions in a tube.”
The volumizing comb features 296 bristles that separate and lift each lash for that fanned-out, never clumpy look I love, and the conditioning formula—it contains shea butter and castor oil—glides on super smooth. One tip before you try: Apply all your coats at once, rather than applying a couple and then waiting to do a couple more like you would with traditional mascara, as it dries very quickly, and in my experience, it won’t apply as evenly.
Kjaer Weis The Beautiful Tint ($45)
The name of this product describes it perfectly: this hybrid of color and skin care provides that super coveted “lit from within” radiance that lets skin’s natural beauty shine through. It’s the girl that walks by you at the store and you think, “Her skin looks so healthy and fresh.” I love that the formula is available in 16 shades, it’s made with certified-organic ingredients and it layers well with sunscreen (aka no pilling).
Plus, it contains the brand’s signature ingredient, biodynamically farmed Light Root, a plant that helps hydrate skin and trap moisture. Other key ingredients include moisturizing hazelnut extract, cocoa butter, moringa oil and wild rose. I like to apply it with a brush, but you can just as seamlessly use your fingers, too.
Fenty Beauty Poutsicle Hydrating Lip Stain ($28)
Fenty’s first-ever lip stain (dropping June 3) is a winner. Stash one of the four juicy shades in your pool bag for those insanely hot days when you can’t even imagine applying something thick or sticky on your lips, but you want pigment. The coverage can range from sheer to medium based on the look you’re going for, and once the glossy finish wears off, lips still feel hydrated (the oil-in-water formula keeps lips moisturized) and look stained with pretty color.
“Makeup is all about play, and when I was developing this lip stain, I had so much fun,” says founder Rihanna. “This product just hits different. You get that sexy, wet-look shine and your lips feel super hydrated. But…this tint!”
CoverGirl Simply Ageless Triple Action Concealer ($17.50)
A first-to-market concealer, this unique take on the popular product features a unique ceramic, flat-paddle wand—no standard doe foot applicator here—that delivers an instant cooling effect to wake up tired, puffy under-eyes. It also dispenses the perfect amount of concealer with medium-to-full coverage so you’re not wasting any product.
It comes in 10 shades, feels very lightweight, blends in easily, and also provides the added benefit of anti-aging, hydrating and brightening properties thanks to hyaluronic acid, vitamin C and niacinamide. In a consumer study of 96 women after one week of use: 97 percent said it felt comfortable all day and 94 percent said it didn’t flake.
Lune+Aster Moonrise Contour & Glow Duo ($46)
Rather than sun-kissed, the brand is going for “moonlit” with this complexion-perfecting duo, which features a talc-free, neutral-toned, golden bronzer on one side and a champagne highlighter with a creamy powder texture on the other. Together, the two formulas add luminosity and definition, so you can sculpt and paint to your heart’s content and then glow under the light of the moon this summer.
And in true Lune+Aster fashion, both the contour and the highlighter are vegan, gluten-free and infused with skin-care ingredients, including vitamin E, licorice root and apple seed extract that help better your skin, too.