Beauty-wise, 2023 was a year of caveats. As you may have gathered from the tenor of my blog reviews, very few makeup products blew me away as thoroughly as, say, Gucci Anne Lilac did the previous year. I bought roughly as many color cosmetics in 2023 as I did in 2022, but I felt less satisfied overall with my purchases. Inflation caused the prices of my favorite midrange brands to skyrocket, leading me to shop more often at the drugstore. And although drugstore makeup has improved in the past decade, there’s still a quality gap between drugstore and Sephora brands—not to mention that drugstore makeup has suffered from shrinkflation just as much as Sephora makeup has.

Nail polish was an exception to the trend of beauty disappointments. I was very impressed with almost all of the new polishes I tried in 2023, and narrowing down my favorites for this list was difficult. I sense more excitement and creativity around nail polish than around makeup these days, probably because beauty lovers turned away from makeup during the pandemic and have yet to turn back. (Inflation surely plays a role here, too: while nail polish has gone up in price, you can still get an Essie for under $10 at Target.) There were two polishes on my best-of-2022 list, but this list features four, and several more narrowly escaped inclusion.

Another notable detail: I bought only two single powder eyeshadows this year (Urban Decay Moondust in Space Cowboy and NARS Hardwired in Earthshine) and didn’t fall in love with either one. I’m increasingly unwilling to spend time wrestling with powders and brushes and the extra folds in my eyelids when there are so many beautiful, easy-to-use cream and liquid shadows on the market. Palettes, meanwhile, just stress me out. Like, I don’t want to hit a day’s worth of decision fatigue at 9 am.

My main beauty resolution for this year is to buy far less drugstore makeup. Of the dozen or so drugstore makeup products I bought in 2023, not a single one ended up in my top twelve, which suggests that those cheap thrills weren’t all that thrilling. I hope that saving my money for fewer, higher-quality purchases will improve my beauty experience in 2024.

As always, these products are listed in chronological order of purchase, not in order of preference (I don’t think there’s any point in ranking, say, a nail polish “above” or “below” a lipstick). Enjoy, and please let me know your own 2023 favorites!

1. Cirque Colors Tahitian Pearl

It wouldn’t be an Auxiliary Beauty best-of-year list without at least one Cirque Colors polish. Cirque attracted criticism this year for raising its prices and fumbling its lucky-bag promotion, but it continued to produce some of the most original, eye-catching polishes on the market. The first shade that won my heart in 2023 was Tahitian Pearl, a metallic purple-green-pewter multichrome sprinkled with holographic particles. Winter cyberpunk perfection.

2. Cirque Colors Origin Unknown

If Tahitian Pearl is cyberpunk, Origin Unknown is space opera. It’s another purple-to-green multichrome, but brighter and bolder, shifting from peacock green to cobalt to amethyst, and minus the dainty holo glitter. I tried to resist putting this one on my list, since it felt repetitive alongside Tahitian Pearl, but I had to be honest with myself. They both apply smoothly, last several days on my nails, make me feel like a sci-fi princess, and represent the very best of Cirque.

3. Urban Decay 24/7 Glide-On Eye Pencil in Mushroom

I’m returning to my roots—my mycelia, if you will—by featuring a 24/7 pencil on my best-of-year list. I’ve been using these pencils for about a decade now, and I have yet to find a better formula. Mushroom was easily my most-worn piece of eye makeup in 2023. It’s a soft, slightly shimmery gray that matches all my cool-toned looks, flatters my complexion, and gives my eyes subtle definition without screaming EYELINER! My one complaint is that it’s not as long-lasting as the other 24/7 shades I’ve tried: it usually needs to be touched up after six hours or so.

4. Milk Makeup Lip & Cheek Cream Blush Stick in Rally (review)

I bought Rally because e.l.f. Bora Bora was sold out everywhere, but when I finally tried Bora Bora, I realized that I much preferred Rally. It’s a cool-toned pink that fits 2023’s bubblegum-blush trend but looks more natural and less stark on my skin than white-based pinks like Bora Bora do. However, I recommend Rally with a big caveat: Milk’s twist-up blush sticks inevitably stop twisting up. (The same thing happened to me with the shade Werk, a Sephora birthday gift from a few years ago.) The only way I’ve found to rectify this problem is to pop the blush in the freezer for about fifteen minutes, after which it will twist up but, well, be really cold. I am begging Milk to fix the packaging for this product. If they do, they will have the best cream blush on the market.

5. MAC x Richard Quinn Matte Lipstick in Rose Daydream (mini-review)

It wouldn’t be an Auxiliary Beauty best-of-year post without a MAC matte lipstick, either. I wore Rose Daydream almost every day this spring. It’s pale but not too pale, cool-toned but not too cool-toned, matte but not too matte, and the multi-patterned tube gives me so much pleasure to use. Plus, I wore it on the day I was honored at the girls’ lacrosse team’s teacher-appreciation event (can you get more preppy than that?), so it will always be associated with a lovely memory.

Unfortunately, this wouldn’t be a 2023-related post without a piece of bad news: MAC is apparently reformulating all of its matte lipsticks except Ruby Woo. FUCKING WHY??? In the space of a year, my two favorite matte lipstick formulas (the other one being, of course, NARS Velvet Matte Pencils) have disappeared. I mentioned earlier that I’m noticing less creativity in the makeup space in recent years, and part of the problem must be that brands are focusing on these baffling reformulations of popular products.

6. D.S. & Durga Rose Atlantic Eau de Parfum (mini-review)

I first tried a sample of Rose Atlantic in 2022, but I treated myself to a full bottle in 2023 to celebrate the end of my two-year tenure as a boarding-school teacher. (I want to return to teaching eventually, but boarding school wasn’t the right environment for someone as introverted and un-athletic as I am.) Despite not being much of a beach person, I love salty-smelling floral perfumes, and Rose Atlantic is very much in the vein of another spring/summer favorite, Diptyque Florabellio. And since I’m now living in a city that’s practically on the Atlantic, having this perfume in my collection just feels right.

7. Glossier Cloud Paint in Wisp (review)

It surprised me when Glossier finally released the lavender blush for which so many customers had been clamoring, but it surely doesn’t surprise you that I bought it, or that it’s showing up on this list. I wish Wisp had more longevity on my skin (caveats again), but you can’t really expect a blush this light in color to last all day. I wore it often in the summer, but I’ve rediscovered it recently as a perfect complement to Pat McGrath Madame Greige, one of my favorite winter lipsticks, which is also a grayish lavender. In fact, I wore this combination on the first day of 2024!

8. CeraVe Hydrating Hyaluronic Acid Serum

Shortly after I moved to Philadelphia in June, my facial skin freaked the fuck out. I woke up one morning to find my cheeks, jawline, and neck covered in tiny bumps. Naturally, I too freaked the fuck out. Was this permanent? Was it a reaction to heat, or pollution, or hard water, or ambient weed smoke? Was I allergic to my new city of residence? My research indicated that orange-peel skin is often caused by dehydration, so I bought the most moisturizing-looking product I could find at my local Wegmans. I wasn’t optimistic, but the serum smoothed out my skin in just a few days, and the problem has never recurred.

My obligatory caveat for this product is that it’s not really a serum. I think of serums as clear and liquidy, and the CeraVe product is neither of those. Now that my skin has calmed down, I use it mostly as an eye cream.

9. OPI Scorpio Seduction

This is the second time that a nail polish with my sun sign in its name has appeared on one of these lists, but I promise it’s not just zodiac bias: brands tend to give the Scorpio name to moody, sparkly shades, and I tend to gravitate toward those shades (maybe because I’m a Scorpio). Actually, I was tempted by several of the shades in OPI’s zodiac collection, but I limited myself to this one, a deep cobalt blue shimmer with flashes of purple and teal. I find that OPI really excels at these complex, shifty shimmers. Scorpio Seduction is fully opaque, but it takes on an almost glasslike translucency in direct sunlight. (The eye on my index finger is from Deco Miami’s adorable spooky sticker sheet.)

10. Laura Mercier Caviar Stick in Moonlight

Talk about a throwback: when I discovered the beauty blogosphere more than a decade ago, all of my favorite bloggers raved about these eyeshadow sticks. For some reason, though, I didn’t investigate the Caviar Sticks on my own until late 2023, when I was in the market for a shimmery taupe cream shadow. I swatched Moonlight at Sephora and immediately fell in love.

Moonlight is probably the best piece of makeup I bought in 2023. Is it my favorite? I’m not sure, but if we define “best” as “most successful in living up to its promises,” I have to give the trophy to Moonlight. I can blend it effortlessly with my fingers. It stays put all day, even through a workout. And it’s a hard-to-find color, a light taupe with the faintest hint of champagne pink. Many gray-leaning eyeshadows emphasize the dark circles under my eyes, but Moonlight simply illuminates my whole face. I’ve swatched it under artificial light below; it looks a little cooler-toned in natural light.

11. MAC Powder Kiss Velvet Blur Lipstick in Wild Sumac (review)

Wild Sumac is the distillation of my beauty experience in 2023. It’s far from a perfect lipstick: the formula is somewhat drying and the amount of product in the tube is laughably small. (Boy, the food at this place is really terrible…and such small portions!) But I’ve worn it at least twice a week since I bought it in late August; in fact, I’m wearing it as I type this. I bought an objectively better MAC matte fuchsia lipstick in 2023—All Fired Up, which almost got onto this list—but the slight sheerness and slim shape of Wild Sumac make it more user-friendly than the opaque, super-saturated All Fired Up. Here I am sporting Wild Sumac (along with UD Mushroom, Milk Rally, and an old Gap denim shirt inherited from my grandmother) last month:

12. OPI Blame the Mistletoe

Like every other millennial woman in this benighted country, I saw Barbie in the summer of 2023. I liked it, but I wasn’t obsessed—I mean, how effectively can a movie sponsored by Mattel really critique Mattel? I was not, however, immune to the aesthetics of Barbie fever, and my last beauty purchase of 2023 was the luminous fuchsia Blame the Mistletoe from OPI’s new holiday collection. I wore it for Christmas in Florida, and something about the glow of the fuchsia polish against the lush green of the local flora spoke to my soul.

Honorable Mentions: e.l.f. 16HR Camo Concealer in Light Sand (review), Essie Ripple Reflect, Good Molecules Gentle Retinol Cream, ILNP Hi-Score (shoutout as well to ILNP’s amazing customer service!), MAC Matte Lipstick in All Fired Up, Maybelline ColorSensational Ultimatte in More Cedar (review), NARS Sheer Lipstick in Roman Holiday, NARS Afterglow Lip Balm in Fast Lane, NYX Butter Gloss in Cranberry Pie, NYX Blurring Matte Lip Cream in Chocolate Mousse (review).

I continue to plug away at my various creative projects (I have an essay forthcoming from Foglifter this spring!), so I can’t promise to post on this blog more often than my current rate of once a month or so. But I still enjoy writing posts, and people still seem to enjoy reading them, so I see no reason not to carry on.

I leave you with one of my top twelve sunsets of the year. Happy 2024!