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At Robb Report, we keep the mailman busy year-round, as hundreds of the planet’s best grooming, hair care, shaving and skincare brands send us their newest products for consideration. We keep ourselves busy too, testing these products and shouting about some of our favorites along the way (like Zuvi’s hair dryer and Bevel’s clippers this past year, both of which you’ll find lauded below). For our inaugural Grooming Awards, we’re rounding up the best products we’ve used over the last 12 months to celebrate the greatest hits, all of which will help you look, feel, and smell your absolute best from head to toe. Below, everything we’ve loved using—and suspect you will, too.
Want to skip ahead to the section you’re most interested in? Click below:
The Best Products for Your Hair
The Best Skincare Products for Your Face
The Best Grooming Products for Your Body
The Best Dental and Beard-Care Products
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The Best Products for Your Hair
Image Credit: Chelsie Craig Studio An innovative blow dryer, a trophy-like clipper, hair retention gems, and more. These are our favorite hair care, styling, and densifying products from the past year.
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Best Shampoo for Hair Retention: The Grey Stimulating Shampoo
Image Credit: The Grey A shampoo’s foremost job is to purify and cleanse the scalp and hair alike. But The Grey’s formula goes the extra mile by boosting circulation in the scalp with camphor and menthol to improve hair growth and retention. And better yet, it used grape seed extract to counter DHT (the hormonal byproduct that chokes out men’s hair follicles and leads to baldness). Yes, you have to have it shipped from the Netherlands. Yes, it’s worth the wait.
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Best Follicle Fortifying Serum: Patricks Anti-Hairloss Serum
Image Credit: Patricks We’d need an hour or more to thoroughly cover all the active ingredients in Patricks’ scalp serum. Its unmatched formula contains a whopping 24 percent active ingredients, which together stimulate follicle growth and boost hair density, while simultaneously balancing scalp pH and fighting DHT.
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Best Hair Growth Topical: Xyon Topical Finasteride
Image Credit: Xyon This topical gel makes it possible to get the same hair-regrowth benefits of oral finasteride, minus the serious threat of sexual side effects. Plus, it absorbs without leaving crispy, glossy residue on your hair (like another popular topical hair loss treatment, minoxidil, and similar topical finasteride serums on the market). Even better, Xyon’s team of doctors will ensure you get the proper compound formula that suits your preferences and actual needs, since there is no one-size-fits-all solution when it comes to hair loss.
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Best Heat Protectants: Kevin Murphy Blow Dry Wash and Rinse
Image Credit: Kevin Murphy Salon staple Kevin Murphy has blessed the industry with this heat-shielding shampoo and conditioner. If you’re one to use a blow dryer (or other hot styling tools), or if you’re prone to frizz and breakage, then these products will coat your strands and shield them from damage and despair.
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Best Hair Product: Davines Medium Hold Fiber Cream
Image Credit: Davines This styler feels so carefully balanced: It’s got the lightness and sheen of a hair cream, but still delivers the pliability of a fiber paste. It’ll leave your hair with a natural-looking shine, and the ability to rework your look throughout the day.
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Best Hair Smoother: Fekkai Brilliant Gloss Glass Anti-Frizz Oil Serum
Image Credit: Fekkai Fekkai’s smoothing oil serum boosts shine, reduces frizz, protects against humidity, and protects strands from temperatures up to 450 degrees Fahrenheit. If your hair feels unmanageable (especially in bone-dry weather or during humid stretches) then it’s probably begging for this remedy.
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Best Anti-Dandruff Shampoo: Ouai Salicylic Acid Shampoo
Image Credit: Ouai Use Ouai’s shampoo at the first sign of dandruff, or substitute it in for your regular shampoo every few weeks to keep flakes at bay. It uses a 2 percent salicylic acid formula to tame oil levels, break down dead skin, and calm itching and irritation.
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Best Hair Clippers: Bevel Pro Clipper and Trimmer
Image Credit: Best Hair Clippers: Bevel Pro Clipper and Trimmer The long-awaited Bevel Pro didn’t disappoint with its barbershop-caliber clippers and trophy-like mass. In addition to powerful mowing, it might be the sleekest device on the market, and its secure magnetic attachments (instead of fiddly clip-ons are a fun innovation.
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Best Hair Care Duo: Hims Volumizing Shampoo + Conditioner
Image Credit: Hims Hims originally started as a hair-growth venture, so it’s no surprise that this volumizing hair care duo is among the best of its recent launches. Caffeine powers the scalp-stimulating shampoo while strand-smoothing argan oil fuels the conditioner. Moreover, a blend of biotin and linden bud extract promotes hair growth and visibly plumps your strands with each use, maximizing the potential of your hair on any given day.
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Best Blow Dryer: Zuvi Halo Hair Dryer
Image Credit: Zuvi Think of how wet clothes dry faster under sunlight, and you’ll understand the idea behind Zuvi’s revolutionary dryer. The Halo works quickly using light (and a far lower temperature than standard dryers) to dry the outside of the hair, without compromising the shaft and the moisture therein.
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The Best New Fragrances
Image Credit: Chelsie Craig Studio Perfumers pour so much personality and expression into each of their bottles, making fragrance the most fun category to score each year. While we could rave about dozens of top scents from the past 12 months, these ones are the best of the best.
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Best Everyday Fragrance: Burberry Hero Eau de Parfum
Image Credit: Burberry Some fragrances are content to use one type of cedar wood oil; Burberry’s Hero Eau de Parfum uses three, and combines them with pine needle benzoin—a suave plant extract with traces of vanilla and cinnamon—to create a remarkably fresh fragrance that you won’t get tired of wearing. If we had to pick one scent from this list to wear every day, for all occasions, this would be it.
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Best Signature Scent: Caswell Massey 2571 Eau de Parfum
Image Credit: Caswell Massey Legacy label Caswell Massey is in the midst of a major modernization. And while some of its signature scents date back three centuries, 2571 (it’s the reverse of the year the American house was founded, 1752) represents the new: It’s a spicy, aromatic, ozonic, and ambrous medley that deserves daily wear—and best of all, you won’t have to worry that all your friends and colleagues are already wearing.
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Best Luxury Scent: Krigler Good Fir 11 Eau de Parfum
Image Credit: Krigler Think of Good Fir as Colorado bottled; it’s a pine-tinged eau de parfum, accented by notes of musk, moss, tobacco, and pepper. It might even recall those days of chopping down the Christmas tree and bringing it home for the season. And as it’s from Krigler, you know this one lasts all day with a single application.
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Best Red Carpet Fragrance: Gucci The Alchemist’s Garden Love at Your Darkest
Image Credit: Gucci Gucci’s high-end fragrance series, The Alchemist’s Garden, is chock full of bottles that smell like nothing else on the market. Case in point: Love at Your Darkest blends black pepper, cedarwood, and frankincense in a surprisingly refreshing mix. It has hints of balsam in it, which give it a green energy that’ll have you reaching for it every time you have to put on a tuxedo.
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Best Cold-Weather Fragrance: Arquiste Indigo Smoke
Image Credit: Arquiste While we’re in the middle of spring and staring down summer, it’s not too early to plan ahead for the next cold-weather stretch. A spritz of Indigo Smoke invites your plus=on for some serious cuddling, and the recipe (guaiac wood, incense, black tea, and pine tar) is the olfactive equivalent of your favorite knit sweater, worn by a crackling fire.
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Best New Fragrance Brand: Perfumehead
Image Credit: Perfumehead Toronto native Daniel Patrick Giles conceived of Perfumehead as series of olfactory love letters to Los Angeles—all of them written with the kind of poetic prose that leaves an impression. (Each of the scents is also an Extrait de Parfum, formulated to last as long on the skin as possible.) Our favorite of these is Room No., which, according to Giles, smells like 9 p.m. at the Chateau Marmont.
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Best Workplace Fragrance: Diptyque L’Eau Papier Eau de Toilette
Image Credit: Diptyque Diptyque’s most recent fragrance launch smells as sophisticated as it reads on paper: It casts an ethereal, musky-woody spell on those who encounter it, but still manages to keep things strictly professional.
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Best Date Night Fragrance: Astier de Villatte Les Nuits
Image Credit: Astier de Vilatte Powdery iris, rousing Turkish rose, and rapturous patchouli make Les Nuits one of the year’s most enticing olfactive launches. Its universal appeal means it’ll help you make a great first impression. It’s up to you to make sure you get the chance to make a second one.
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The Best Skincare Products for Your Face
Image Credit: Chelsie Craig Studio The latest and greatest skincare serums, toxin blockers, sun shielders, blemish busters, and moisture boosters. These products will keep your skin at its firmest, brightest, clearest, and best-looking yet.
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Best New Luxury Brand: Le Domaine
Image Credit: Le Domaine It might be hard to memorize the chemical function behind the proprietary ingredients in Le Domaine’s skin products (the medical-grade compounds are called PROGR3 and GSM10), but it is easy to see how quickly they make an impact on your complexion. The brand’s products, which derive their hero ingredients from vineyards in France’s Rhône Valley, help to significantly slow down signs of aging on the skin. And it counts Brad Pitt as an investor to boot.
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Best Anti-Aging System: Aramore
Image Credit: Aramore Founded by doctors and scientists from Harvard and MIT, Aramore bills itself not as a line of products, but instead as a system designed to improve your skin from the inside out. It does this by pairing topical retinol, the reliably effective and clinically proven ingredient that promotes younger-looking skin, with an NAD+ supplement designed to increase levels of the compound that powers cellular metabolism.
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Best Eye Cream: Valmont DetO2x Eye
Image Credit: Valmont If you’re not careful, the stresses of life in an urban environment can show up on your face, something Valmont’s effervescent DetO2x line is designed to combat. Our favorite of these products is the eye cream, which delivers a dose of oxygen to the delicate skin under the eyes to help brighten dark circles and restore hydration.
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Best Acne Remedy: Murad Deep Relief Acne Treatment
Image Credit: Best Acne Remedy: Murad Deep Relief Acne Treatment Just like a tiny nail can deflate a huge tire, a little sliver of this serum can take down the angriest and most deeply seated blemishes. It combines the traditional 2 percent salicylic acid dosage with phytosterols, saving you an appointment and injection or prescription with the dermatologist.
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Best Moisturizer for Dry Skin: Dr.Jart+ Ceramidin Skin Barrier Moisturizing Cream
Image Credit: Dr.Jart+ Usually, people with dry skin need reinforcements at the barrier level to prevent moisture loss. That’s exactly what Dr.Jart’s cream does, thanks to panthenol and five types of ceramides combined to help fortify the skin’s defenses.
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Best Skincare Regimen: Narcyss
Image Credit: Narcyss It’s difficult to pick a favorite product in Narcyss’ new assortment. Luckily, if you were to buy all five, you’d find yourself with a thorough, proactive, and age-thwarting regimen. (But if you had to choose just one, it’s between the cushioning night mask and the luscious cleanser.)
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Best Overnight Serum: Guerlain Abeille Royale Renew & Repair Serum
Image Credit: Guerlain Many serums require continued use for three or more months in order to show serious improvement, but not Guerlain’s latest product. While it provides significant long-term nourishment and regenerative benefits, its unique combination of slow-release exfoliants and antioxidant-rich honey extracts visibly plumped and firmed our skin the first time we used it.
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Best Skin Brightener: La Prairie White Caviar Essence Extraordinaire
Image Credit: La Prairie If your complexion looks a little dull, reach for La Prairie’s latest serum, introduced in December. It’s deeply hydrating, and over time it’ll help reduce the appearance of age spots and redness. In the meantime, it’ll cover your skin with a thin layer of Lumidose, a molecule designed to reflect light to help create the appearance of brighter skin.
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Best All-in-One Serum: Ursa Major Mountain Glow Golden Serum
Image Credit: Ursa Major A magnificent multitasker, Ursa Major’s outstanding serum is chock full of antioxidant-rich natural ingredients. From collagen-fortifying lichen to firming honey locust seed to radiance-boosting fern phytosterols, this is basically a supercharged liquid multivitamin for your skin.
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Best Night Cream: Dr. Barbara Sturm Super Anti-Aging Night Cream
Image Credit: Dr. Barbara Sturm Just as a good night’s sleep can be the remedy for all kinds of ailments, so too can Dr. Barbara Sturm’s night cream be an overnight miracle worker for dull, dry, and tired skin. It features hyaluronic acid and purslane for their antioxidant benefits, as well as peptides derived from avocado that help your skin focus on repairing itself.
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Best Vitamin C Serum: Aesop Lucent Facial Concentrate
Image Credit: Aesop This serum marries skin-brightening Vitamin C with barrier-fortifying Vitamin B (niacinamide), which will help you bid farewell to dull, dry skin for good. Apply it each morning for a radiant-yet-matte finish. Just don’t forget the sunscreen.
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Best Peel: Embryolisse Active Night Peel
Image Credit: Embrylisse With Embryolisse, you’re always one night peel away from your brightest, smoothest complexion. This one does so gently, too, with fruit acid AHAs from caviar lemon, and supports the skin’s moisture with shea butter, beeswax, plus oils of macadamia and argan.
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Best LED Anti-Aging Device: CurrentBody Skin LED Eye Perfector
Image Credit: CurrentBody With four different LED wavelengths—amber, red, deep red, and near-infrared—this anti-aging eye mask keeps the area around your eyes smooth and firm. It’s easy to incorporate into your morning or evening regimen, too: Wear it on freshly cleansed skin for just three minutes a day, six days a week.
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Best Purifying Face Mask: Argentum Apothecary Le Masque Infini Clay Mask
Image Credit: Argentum Argentum‘s patented cellular-regenerating formula is derived from the refinement of colloidal silver and a polymer extracted from salmon milt. Yeah, you may have to read that part twice, but the next bit will stick with you: This clay mask calms, clarifies, and balances skin better than many others we’ve tried.
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Best Exfoliator for Oily Skin: Payot Stick Gommant Purifiant
Image Credit: Payot Clear away blackheads, dead skin, and acne marks with Payot’s gritty, tingly-fresh stick exfoliant. It pulls excess and grime from pores while also smoothing surface texture—not to mention, its formula is 96 percent natural.
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Best Exfoliator for Dry Skin: Dr. Loretta Resurfacing Enzyme Polish
Image Credit: Dr. Loretta Part face scrub, part resurfacing face mask, Dr. Loretta’s latest leaves you with some seriously smooth, bright skin. It also visibly plumps skin and leaves it more fortified against the aging effects of pollution.
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Best New Skincare Brand: Atwater
Image Credit: Atwater Built by former Kiehl’s president Chris Salgardo, Atwater is this year’s most exciting new brand. And instead of relying on a one-regimen-fits-all approach, Atwater targets different skin types (dry, oily, combination) with its roster, allowing you to create a more tailored approach to putting your best face forward.
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Best Anti-Aging Moisturizer: La Mer Moisturizing Soft Cream Reform
Image Credit: La Mer La Mer’s Soft Cream isn’t new, but this “Reform” adopts a more modern delivery system. Now, the brand’s signature Miracle Broth (a blend of fermented kelp and other ingredients pulled from the sea) is deployed into microscopic spheres that sink further into the depths of your skin, allowing the active ingredients to be absorbed more fully.
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Best Face SPF: Supergoop Daily Dose Bioretinol + Mineral SPF 40
Image Credit: Supergoop Supergoop’s mineral SPF fluid protects your skin from the sun’s harmful UV rays, even as it delivers the same anti-aging, breakout-busting benefits of retinol, minus the sun sensitivity. That’s because instead of retinol, it uses bakuchiol, a natural answer to Vitamin A derivatives that promotes collagen production without the irritation that some people can experience using the real deal.
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Best Cleanser: Jaxon Lane Boom Cica Wow
Image Credit: Jaxon Lane This gel cleanser boasts an ingredient roster on par with most nourishing skin creams: hydrating hyaluronic acid, soothing cica (a popular nickname for Centella asiatica, a grass whose extract helps with irritation), nourishing coconut, barrier-fortifying ceramides, and much more. It suits all skin types, but was formulated with the most sensitive types in mind.
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Best Anti-Aging Serum: Dr. Dennis Gross Derminfusions Fill + Repair
Image Credit: Dr. Dennis Gross The four weights of hyaluronic acid in Dr. Dennis Gross’s most impressive new serum seep deep into the skin to leave it looking plumper and firmer, helping to fill in fine lines and wrinkles and even enhance the skin’s barrier function. Think of it as a more proactive, DIY alternative to injectable fillers.
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Best Hydrating Face Mask: Augustinus Bader The Face Cream Mask
Image Credit: Augustinus Bader Augustinus Bader’s new moisturizing mask is an instant pick-me-up, whether your skin is perennially parched or only dries out in colder weather. It can be worn as a 10-minute treatment, or you can massage a smaller does onto your skin before bed and wake up to a radiant new complexion.
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The Best Grooming Products for Your Body
Image Credit: Chelsie Craig Studio The term “skincare” often fixates on the face while ignoring the large majority of your actual skin. Here are the year’s best grooming products for everything neck to toes, from lotions and oils, to deodorants and SPFs.
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Best Body Wash: Barneys New York Beauty Sentiage Body Wash
Image Credit: Barneys New York Beauty Once you unleash this body wash’s aromatherapeutic, woody fragrance, it grows increasingly difficult to stop showering with it. Use it as catnip to get out of bed without hitting your snooze button, and to ensure you start each day on the right foot.
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Best Bar Soap: Claus Porto Deco Soap on a Rope
Image Credit: Claus Porto Claus Porto’s nourishing, extra-large soap-on-a-rope could replace a pack of 12 dimestore bars in your regimen. It’s undroppable and smells pleasingly of musk, vanilla, citrus, and lavender.
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Best Body Care Set: Flamingo Estate Garden Essentials Bathhouse Edit
Image Credit: Flamingo Estate When Flamingo Estate founder Richard Christiansen realized he’d prevent excess carbon emissions by shipping his luxuriant cleansers and lotions in light aluminum cylinders instead of the glass he’d been using, a new line was born. Garden Essentials—which is complete with body wash, body lotion, shampoo, and conditioner, uses alluring botanicals such as clary sage, lavender, and rosemary—turns a daily ritual into a quotidian pleasure.
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Best Loofah Alternatives: Joanna Czech Body Care Pads
Image Credit: Joanna Czech Joanna Czech is renowned for her highly customized, attentive facials—and for curating some of the best skincare products on the market to offer alongside her own in her spas and online. Her new body care pads, crafted from cotton and linen, bring that level of care below the neck, and help you gently exfoliate and cleanse your skin.
Buy Now on Joanna Czech (Body Pads): $49
Buy Now on Joanna Czech (Back Pad): $55
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Best Body Lotion: 111Skin Celestial Black Diamond Body Cream
Image Credit: 111Skin We don’t often use the term “anti-aging” to describe body moisturizers, but 111Skin’s collagen-boosting cream is the most proactive defense against elasticity loss and Father Time. It goes well beyond the “daily skin-softening” baseline in the body cream category—but with a hyaluronic acid-packed recipe, it’s also a superior hydrating agent.
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Best Deodorant: Geologie Natural Deodorant
Image Credit: Geologie Geologie feels like that neighbor kid you knew who grew up to be big and famous. Each new launch from the brand is exceptional but still feels approachable. And in a field of terrific products released this past year, its aloe- and tea tree-infused natural deodorant that takes the top spot. (We prefer the crisp Moab scent best, but all of the scents are great, and each of them effectively keeps odor at bay.)
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Best Body SPF: Vacation Sunscreen Whip SPF 30 Mousse
Image Credit: Vacation Vacation’s lightweight SPF 30 is a joy to apply (it looks like you’re dispensing whipped cream onto your skin), plus it’s water-resistant up to 80 minutes and carries the brand’s signature coconut scent. The only downside is that it’s inedible, so please resist any such urges.
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Best Foot Care Assortment: Pedestrian Project
Image Credit: Pedestrian Project We’ve had smooth, soothed soles ever since crossing paths with Pedestrian Project. Pick your poison here—the foot soak, the CBD balm, the daily cream, the cracked-heel roll-on—you can’t go wrong with any of these products—or get all four of them to keep your feet free of dead skin and calluses.
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Best Body Oil: Lazarus Douvos Rose 1845 Body Oil Mist
Image Credit: Lazarus Douvos Most people have never used a body oil. That’s because few oils wear as sumptuously on the skin as this one from Lazarus Douvos. A simple rose-tinged mist from this one gives skin a velvety glaze (without any greasiness), and might just have you retiring your standby body lotion.
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Best Hand Soap: Sachajuan Exfoliating Hand Wash
Image Credit: Sachajuan Ever noticed how your hands feel smoother after a day at the beach? That’s because those sand granules buff away dead skin cells, which is exactly the effect of Sachajuan’s hand soap. In this case, milled pumice gently polishes your skin as you scrub your mitts clean.
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The Best Products to Use Above the Neck
Image Credit: Chelsie Craig Studio Here’s a hybrid of two subcategories: oral care and facial hair upkeep. To keep your breath fresh, your face smooth, or your beard especially lustrous, stock up on these top options from the past year.
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Best Shaving Cream: Dior Homme Shaving Cream
Image Credit: Dior Homme Dior’s skin-cushioning shave cream lathers up lavishly. But it’s the whole “smells like Dior Homme” part that makes it practically addictive. Start using it and you just may shave more frequently (and slowly) than ever before. Follow it with their terrific Dior Homme after-shave balm so the scent lingers even longer.
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Best Toothpaste and Mouthwash: Selahatin Of Course I Still Luv You
Image Credit: Selahatin Selahatin is carving out a new path in the oral care game: Each of its toothpaste and mouthwashes is more inventive and exciting than the last. Our recent favorite is Of Course I Still Love You, with their citrus-crisp blend of verbena and bergamot, juxtaposed against rich pine and spicy cardamom. Plus, few products look as sexy on your bathroom vanity as this hefty glass bottle and sleek metal tube.
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Best Electric Toothbrush: Philips Sonicare 4100
Image Credit: Philips Sonicare Philips puts both power and control in your hands with this 4100-Series sonic electric toothbrush. It has two power modes, one ideal for people with sensitive gums and another that unleashes the full capabilites of the battery, and a two-minute timer that’ll tell you to move onto a different section of your mouth every 30 seconds.
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The Best Beard Care Set: Supply Ultimate Beard Set
Image Credit: Supply Supply built its reputation on facial hair removal, but this soothing and pine-scented beard kit marks a move into different territory. A taming balm, growth serum, follicle-stimulating roller, and nourishing conditioner all work to ensure you grow the fullest, softest, and most lustrous beard possible.
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The Best Grooming Tool: Panasonic Multishape
Image Credit: Panasonic This multitasking shaver-trimmer-clipper blows other grooming devices out of the water, and not just because of its powerful performance. What we love most is that buyers can opt into the attachments they want instead of having to buy them all at once. So if you just need the market’s best nosehair trimmer and electric-shaver combo, that’s your perogative—but you can also add on the toothbrush, too.
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Robb Report 2023 Grooming Awards
Image Credit: Chelsie Craig Studio Senior Editor: Justin Fenner
Photo Director: Irene Opezzo
Photographer: Chelsie Craig
Stylist: Nicole Louie
Graphic Designer: Chandler Bondurant
