Last year, I bought 32 new pieces of makeup and nail polish, making 2025 my most abstemious (“abstemious”) year since I started keeping track of my beauty purchases in 2015. I generally aim for no more than 40 new items a year and exceed that mark by a few, but 2025 was different. I was unemployed until August (and employed only part-time after that), shrinkflation kept getting worse, and few new releases caught my eye. I didn’t set out to do a yearlong low-buy, but I found it easier and easier to resist temptation.

I also felt uninspired by the energy in the online beauty space. The MAHA-coded beef-tallow skincare, the brands that embraced AI slop instead of paying human artists to illustrate their palettes, the bizarre makeup collabs with offensive comedians who’d never expressed interest in makeup, the dreary bukkake-adjacent shade of fucking white that Pantone named the color of 2026…it all bummed me out. As much as I love the community of thoughtful beauty lovers that I’ve found through Instagram and blogging, I’ve become increasingly reluctant to put anything creative online. Most of this blog’s pageviews in November and December came from bots scraping my posts for content (I’d never had any views from China, and suddenly I was getting tens of thousands a day), and there didn’t seem to be anything I could do about it except delete the blog entirely. Millennials grew up thinking of the internet as a source of community and knowledge and creative inspiration, but I know I’m not alone in feeling that the drawbacks are starting to outweigh the benefits. As 2025 came to a close, I found myself spending less time on social media; it seemed more urgent that I edit my novel, embroider William Morris birds, try to forget I’d ever heard the word “dickmatized,” and persuade my students that doing their own writing instead of outsourcing it to a chatbot was both pleasurable and necessary.

But I still love buying and wearing and writing about makeup, and it would take more than 2025 to turn me away from those pleasures. So, once again, I’ve chosen my top dozen beauty purchases of the year to present for your consideration!

Some scattered notes and caveats:

-As usual, my list is dominated by lipstick and nail polish, because my beauty collection is dominated by lipstick and nail polish (I bought a total of 11 lip products and 13 polishes throughout the year). Following the pattern of recent years, only one eyeshadow made it into my favorites, along with one skincare product and two blushes. For variety’s sake, I didn’t want to put three Revlon lipsticks (and two Super Lustrous lipsticks!) on the list, but 2025 was sort of my year of Revlon.

-Eight brands are represented on this list, two of which (Merit and Pyunkang Yul) have never appeared in a year-end roundup. Some formerly reliable brands are missing, though: I believe this was the first year since 2014 that I bought nothing new from Glossier or Urban Decay.

-All products are pictured as they look right now, so you can see the amount of wear on each one. As usual, they’re listed in the order in which I bought them—this isn’t a ranking.

-I bought nearly a quarter of my 2025 beauty products during two Black Friday sales (ILNP and Ulta) and didn’t have time to test all of them thoroughly before the year ended. Accordingly, this list favors my pre-November purchases.

-My only beauty-related resolution for 2026 is to TAKE FEWER PHOTOS, and to be more diligent about deleting the ones I don’t love, so that it doesn’t take me weeks and weeks to compile a blog post.

Let’s go!

1. Merit Flush Balm in Le Bonbon (January)

Believe it or not, I rely on this garish-looking blush for a subtle, somewhat natural-looking flush of pink. One of my main takeaways from my color analysis in 2024 was that a True Winter’s “natural” makeup look should eschew brown tones in favor of colors that may look screamingly bright in the pan. While I’m certainly not religious about adhering to my color season (as you’ll see, one of my most-worn lipsticks this year is brownish), many of the new products I bought in 2025 fell into one of the two “bright seasons” (winter and spring). I continue to enjoy the lightweight, hydrating Merit Flush Balm formula, and if Merit offered a peach shade pinker than Lusitano, I’d buy it in an instant.

2. Cirque Colors Pink Lady Jelly (January)

Cirque Colors has faced valid criticism for its business practices, customer service, and price hikes in the past couple of years, and 2025 was the year that ILNP officially supplanted Cirque as my favorite nail polish brand. But I can’t deny that Cirque continues to dominate the field of jelly polish. I own Cirque jellies in light, medium, and dark shades, and all of them—even the deep red Bonbon Jelly, another 2025 purchase—apply smoothly and evenly. However, I’m especially fond of the lighter jellies, which are perfect travel polishes for me: even when they chip or wear away at the tips of my nails, they look nice at a distance, and they’re easy to touch up. I bought Pink Lady Jelly as a brighter, cooler-toned alternative to Rose Jelly (which I’ve almost used up) and wore it this summer on a road trip to Ithaca, NY. I have now, entirely by accident, been to every Ivy League university except Dartmouth.

3. Pyunkang Yul Intensive Repair Cream (February)

Toward the end of last winter, I felt the urgent need for a thick, nourishing overnight moisturizer to soothe my weatherbeaten skin. On a well-timed trip to NYC, I visited the second outpost of my favorite Asian beauty store, senti senti (formerly oo35mm). The new store in Williamsburg is much larger than the original one on Canal Street, so I felt confident that I’d find a suitable moisturizer there…

…and I was right!

Intensive Repair Cream’s ingredients include peptides, ceramides, turmeric root, peony-bark extract, and shea butter, and while I don’t know enough about skincare to vouch for (or call bullshit on) any of those components, I can vouch for this moisturizer’s overall effectiveness and pleasantness. It’s thick and silky without feeling greasy or clogging my pores. It has zero fragrance. It comes in an adorable cobalt-blue glass jar. When I put it on before bed, my skin actually feels smoother and looks more hydrated the next morning. What more can I ask?

The one drawback of Intensive Repair Cream is the price: $28 for a relatively meager 50 ml (1.7 oz). Accordingly, I don’t use it on every cold night; instead, I alternate it with the more affordable Trader Joe’s Night Cream ($10 for 2 oz), which has similar ingredients but, predictably, feels a little less luxurious.

4. ILNP Jellybean (March)

Though Cirque still reigns supreme in the world of cream-finish jellies, ILNP excels at sparkly holo jellies. I have mixed feelings about holo polishes (in my opinion, a large amount of holographic glitter can overwhelm the base color or just look tacky), but the scattered holo in Jellybean is the perfect complement to the cheery spring green jelly. Someone on Reddit compared Jellybean to Easter grass, and I can’t do better than that analogy: this shade of green reminds me of childhood Easter baskets and malted-milk eggs and stuffed bunnies and little floral dresses.

Jellybean also lasts several days on my nails without chipping, which is unusual for me. I have a couple of other ILNP shades in this jelly holo formula and love them almost as much as Jellybean; this is definitely one of the formulas to check out if you’re new to ILNP.

5. Revlon Glass Shine Balm in Glossed Up Rose (March)

Glossed Up Rose was my second-most-worn lip product of 2025, racking up 21 wears! It looks brighter on my lips than it does in the tube, but still shows up as a toned-down pink, making it the perfect companion for both cool-toned and warm-toned eyes and cheeks. Glass Shine remains one of the most moisturizing and comfortable lip formulas I’ve ever tried, and I’m so happy Revlon brought it back. In my review of Glossed Up Rose, I complained about the limited shade range of the new lineup, but Revlon just announced the return of ten more original Glass Shine shades in a bolder palette! I finished Beaming Strawberry in 2024 and will definitely replace it, and I might have to pick up Luminous Lilac as well.

Here I am wearing Glossed Up Rose with one of my 2025 honorable mentions (see the end of this post), About-Face Fractal Glitter Eyeshadow in Augmented Reality:

6. NARS Afterglow Lip Balm in Turbo (May)

And now for my most-worn lip product, at 26 wears! Turbo is another one of those bright True Winter “neutrals.” Before finding it, I’d spent a couple of years hunting for a sheer cool-toned red lipstick or balm…and once I finish it, the hunt will resume, because NARS just discontinued its original Afterglow Lip Balms. The shade Miseducation from the “upgraded” Afterglow line is described as “cherry,” but the swatches I’ve seen make it look much sheerer than Turbo, which can be built up to an impressive pigment level without becoming thick or sticky:

Turbo isn’t a perfect product: it’s not particularly hydrating, and I wish it lasted longer on my lips. All the same, it’s comfortable, fragrance-free, and versatile (it even works well as blush), and I really should have bought a backup when the Afterglow balms were 50% off in November. If you know of a similar product, please leave a comment!

Here I am wearing Turbo on my cheeks and lips:

7. MAC MACximal Matte Lipstick in Captive Audience (July)

The reformulated MAC matte lipsticks continue to impress me, being as long-lasting and opaque as their predecessors while delivering a bit more comfort. Captive Audience (an updated version of Captive, which I never tried) was my go-to Professional Lady lipstick this fall and winter, harmonizing nicely with my work wardrobe, which is dominated by blue, white, and black. This shade of plum-rose is a difficult one to capture on camera, and the photo above, taken in bluish winter light, leans a little more purple than it should. The shot below, from August, is more faithful to reality:

In both color and texture, Captive Audience reminds me of an all-time Auxiliary Beauty favorite, Revlon Matte Balm in Sultry, my constant companion in the mid-2010s. Captive Audience isn’t quite as warm-toned as Sultry was, but it delivers the same sedate-yet-vampy vibe. And MAC’s National Lipstick Day sale allowed me to buy it for $15 instead of $25, another nice throwback to a decade ago!

8. MAC Extra Dimension Eyeshadow in Smoky Mauve (September)

Smoky Mauve disappointed me at first. I’d never seen it in person before ordering it, and the “Extra Dimension” moniker made me expect something sparkly and shifty and, I don’t know, impactful. What I got instead was a sheer, shimmery, demure gray-lavender that didn’t even show up on my eyelids unless I packed it on with my finger. However, Smoky Mauve’s surprising subtlety made it the perfect accompaniment to my various teaching looks. And that wave design is so cute!

9. Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Iced Amethyst (October)

I bought Iced Amethyst on October 26, and it still managed to become my seventh-most-worn lip product of 2025, accruing 14 wears before the end of the year. I’m starting to understand why frost lipstick was so popular for decades: the finish draws light to your face and makes you look a little more alive…and also a little more like a sexy extraterrestrial. And because Iced Amethyst is a medium-deep purple (ironically, it deserves the name “Smoky Mauve” more than Smoky Mauve does), it stays out of costume territory.

In my previous post, I wasn’t able to answer the question of when Iced Amethyst joined the Super Lustrous lineup. Well, now I have a partial answer! My Pinterest algorithm recently showed me an ad for Revlon’s LavenDare collection of 1998, in which Iced Amethyst was promoted but, interestingly, not identified as “new.” The shade looks so mid-to-late-’90s, though, that I can’t imagine it was introduced earlier than 1996 or so. (Also, damn, can some time traveler go back to CVS in 1998 and buy me that entire collection?)

10. Fenty Cheeks Suede Powder Blush in Drama Cla$$ (November)

Have you noticed a pattern yet? 2025 was not only my year of Revlon but also my year of shimmery lavender. Longtime readers will know that my search for the perfect lavender blush—not too sheer, or too pink, or too muted, or too light, or too dark—spanned more than a decade. Well, I’m delighted to announce that my quest is at an end!

I really wanted to write a proper review of Drama Cla$$ before the end of the year, and I still plan to do so before too long. For now, I’ll just say that Fenty nailed it, not just color-wise but also formula-wise. I’ve mentioned that Fenty makes my favorite cream blush formula on the market, and now I can report that its newish powder blush formula, introduced in 2024, is also excellent. Drama Cla$$ blends out beautifully on my skin and lasts all day, and the shimmer, though visible in direct light, is understated (its main function is to pull the base color slightly cooler). Here it is swatched (left) next to About-Face Score:

11. Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Fire & Ice (November)

The world often felt very dark in 2025, and Fire & Ice is very bright. That’s all I have to say about that.

12. ILNP Shapeshifter (November)

Shapeshifter is basically a grown-up version of Deborah Lippmann Superstar, which I bought at Bluemercury circa 2012 and featured on my short-lived nails-and-books Tumblr. Superstar was an indie sleaze shade par excellence, a dark brown jelly packed with medium-sized copper glitter. It made me feel like a fancy bitch, but like many chonky glitter polishes of that vintage, it was a pain in the ass to remove and dried out within a few years. By contrast, Shapeshifter contains copper flakes instead of glitter particles, plus a sparse and very pretty sprinkling of holo sparkles. The base color, a cool-toned brown with a hint of purple, comes through more clearly than it did in Superstar, making the overall effect more flattering to my skin tone. Like Jellybean, Shapeshifter lasts a while without chipping (for my clumsy ass, four-ish days is “a while”). And—a rarity for dark jelly polishes—it applies with no patchiness and is practically opaque in two coats. Resembling fancy gingerbread or a wintery whiskey cocktail, it was the perfect shade for mid-December.

Honorable Mentions: Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Electric Melon (swatched here), About-Face Fractal Glitter Eye Paint in Augmented Reality, Cirque Colors Twinkle Tweed, ILNP Lured (which I’m wearing in some of the photos in this post), Trader Joe’s Honey Hydration Face Mask.

My favorite manicure of the summer, Twinkle Tweed over Essie After School Boy Blazer (it’s past time for the bar-glitter renaissance):

Finally, a huge thank you to everyone who read my posts, left a comment, and/or donated to my Ko-fi account in 2025! Despite everything, the internet does make me feel less alone, and for that I am very grateful.