After a summer of sunscreens, your skin is undoubtedly begging for a brisk exfoliation—and Summer Fridays is up to the task. Their new exfoliating pads come from Korea, the skin care capital of the world. Each one is soaked with glycolic, lactic, and mandelic acids, along with the gentler PHA gluconolactone. There’s also a mix of glycerin and aloe to soothe the situation. One side of the pad is smooth, the other is nubby to add a little muscle to the process. The upside of your daily diligence: clear pores, a brighter surface, and better absorption of the active ingredients in your serums. One and done. ($42, summerfridays.com) —Linda Wells

It’s not often that I encounter a foundation that doesn’t feel like a chore—or a mistake waiting to happen. But No Makeup Makeup foundation is a true pleasure, and it’s nearly foolproof (and by “fool” I mean me). It was created by Victoria Jackson, the original queen of the beauty infomercial, who devised a formula that’s a creamy delight. The real magic may lie in the application brush. It’s stiff, stubby, and angled just so to pick up the foundation and help it glide smoothly over your face, around your nose, and under your eyes, practically blending as it goes. There are 13 shades—and I wish there were more—but Jackson says the formula adapts to each skin tone with light-reflecting and blurring ingredients. The biggest challenge with foundation is finding a match, and No Makeup Makeup tackles that with a clever guide using your iPhone camera and the brand’s “virtual mirror.” It’s foundational. ($85, nomakeupmakeup.com) —Linda Wells

If you find it hard to get excited about a sheet mask, maybe that’s because you haven’t met the right sheet mask. Allow me to introduce you to the French masks from Talika. They’re made not of cotton but of biocellulose, a natural, thin matrix derived from fermented coconut water that conforms snugly to the face. That means they can hold all the beneficial ingredients exactly where you want them without peeling off annoyingly in the process. Each one delivers a lavish amount of serum—20 milliliters—and contains no water, allowing the same mask to be reapplied up to five times. With hyaluronic acid, chamomile, yarrow, and aloe, it’s the perfect antidote to a summer of salt water and chlorine—and the idealprotection before the cold winds do a number on your skin barrier. ($13 for one, talikacosmetics.com) —Linda Wells

A good eyeliner is hard to find. They’re either too smudgy and end up raccooning before you’re out the door. Or they’re not soft enough and tug your lid while barely leaving a trace of pigment behind. And have you ever tried sharpening one, breaking the point, and whittling it down to a stub? Sarah Creal comes to the rescue with Eyes Up, an elegant liner that glides like a dream. You can smoke out the line with ease by whisking it with the attached brush. It’s designed for eyes over 40 and works beautifully on hooded or crepey lids. Creal worked on Victoria Beckham’s Satin Kajal eyeliner—one of the best in makeup land—and this measures up brilliantly. ($35, sarahcrealbeauty.com) —Linda Wells

Fluctuating hormones are a fact of life, but their effects on the skin—dryness, redness, sensitivity, and lackluster elasticity (slackticity?)—are especially vexing. Happily, La Prairie’s new Pure Gold Revitalizing Essence is ready to roll up its sleeves. Formulated with peptides and hyaluronic acid to boost hydration, along with extracts of soothing wild portulaca flower and exfoliating prickly pear, it also includes a proprietary Gold & Peptide Powered Meno Complex that targets skin density and boosts radiance. It’s intended to be a first ablution in La Prairie’s four-step Gold Radiance routine, but La Prairie loyalists have been known to use the essences on their own. So add a top layer of SPF, and start the day glowing. ($530, laprairie.com) —Ashley Baker

The tuberoses in the garden of the Hotel de Russie, a bowl of cacio e pepe at Roscioli—I never imagined that my favorite scents of Rome could be bottled so seductively. And yet in Valentino’s Anatomy of Dreams collection, there they are. To create seven fragrances, perfumer Fabrice Pellegrin has channeled the aromas that might permeate a Roman palazzo throughout the day. The latest release, Sogno in Rosso, takes us into its crimson-colored theater, where some sort of dinner party is about to unfold. An homage to the color red, its top notes are black pepper and schiuma di latte, an Italian milk foam. Rich and sensual, it’s as hedonistic as the Romans’ signature plate of pasta, and so delicious that you could be forgiven for going back for a second, third, and even fourth spritz. ($340 for a 100 milliliter bottle, valentino.com) —Ashley Baker