Add to cart: The best, Vogue-approved beauty products to shop this April 2022

When it comes to cult hits, it takes one to know one. Which is why this whimsical collaboration between Hello Kitty and Provence-born beauty brand, L’Occitane just makes sense. While these limited edition bottles could be almost too cute to actually use, skincare and Sanrio fans alike will appreciate the deep yet gentle cleanse of this nourishing shower oil. It effectively removes dirt and impurities without stripping the precious barrier of dry or sensitive skin types. Best enjoyed when used on damp or wet skin, the Almond Shower Oil transforms into a cleansing milk upon contact with water, making every shower moment a luxe one. Kawaii.

L’Occitane x Hello Kitty Limited Edition Almond Shower Oil, $62, available at L’Occitane

A dream cream for complexions that are oily on the surface yet dehydrated deep within, Biossance’s Squalane + Probiotic Gel Moisturizer delivers weightless hydration sans the greasy residue. Formulated with sugarcane-derived squalane oil, probiotic technology with lactococcus ferment lysate and red seaweed, this moisturiser helps to improve with the skin’s clarity and tone by reducing the appearance of redness, irritation, and dark spots while delivering moisture deep within. This fast-penetrating formula performs like a drink for parched skin and serves as a great base for make-up. The result is a complexion that’s healthy and radiant with consistent use.

Biossance Squalane + Probiotic Gel Moisturizer, $76, available at Sephora

Skincare fiends extol the virtues of niacinamide, and for good reason. Billed as the active to help improve uneven skin tone while refining the look of pores, texture, dryness, and fine lines, niacinamide or vitamin B3 is an all-round skin reviver. Use this booster alone or mixed into your serum or moisturiser of choice if you’re after a radical improvement to your complexion.

Paula’s Choice 10% Niacinamide Booster, $65, available at Paula’s Choice

This make-up and skincare hybrid comprises a multitude of nourishing ingredients to ensure your complexion stays smooth and hydrated despite long-hours of wear. Think biomimetic oat to visibly improve skin-clarity thanks to its redness-reduction capabilities; Japanese lilyturf revered for its moisture-retaining function; as well as milk thistle to negate the harmful effects of  blue light and environmental stressors. Its buildable formula also allows for increased versatility, where you’ll be able to dictate the amount of coverage you’d like depending on your skin concerns—blemishes, hyperpigmentation as well as dullness are amongst the few imperfections that are easily concealed by a few coats of Nars’s latest foundation.

Nars Light Reflecting Advanced Skincare Foundation, $78, available at Sephora

Combining the caring, sensorial qualities of a lip balm and the sheer but buildable colour of a satiny lipstick, Chanel’s Rouge Coco Baume is an everyday essential that comes in six blooming shades. As the skin on the lips is remarkably thin, this formula is enriched with an exclusive active ingredient, Olive Oleoactive, derived from the leaves and fruit of 100-year-old olive trees, extracted through a patented, sustainable process called oleo-eco-extraction. This is packed with polyphenols and omega-9s for optimum antioxidant protection, while the Hydra Boost Complex is formulated with moisturising shea butter and three plant waxes to provide complete care for your pout, housed in a silky non-sticky texture that glides on oh-so-effortlessly. 

Chanel Rouge Coco Baume, $53, available at Chanel

Loved by global beauty insiders and celebrities, Italian facial expert Pietro Simone founded his namesake skincare brand with the goal of creating results-driven luxury formulas and tailored regimes by fusing biotechnology with natural but potent active ingredients. From the Fierce Collection, Dewy Reboot is a multi-functional serum that sets out to boost radiance, improve plumpness, provide environmental protection and increase probiotic defences. It does so with a powerhouse ingredients list: 100 percent stabilised vitamin C combined with submicrometric gold particles and a glutathione complex to fight free radicals and diminish spots; cell-energising peptides; a four-dimensional hyaluronic moisturising system; an advanced probiotic compound that soothes and restores skin’s defence systems; and marrubium vulgare extract that shields, strengthens and repairs against environmental damage while refining texture and pores.

Pietro Simone Dewy Reboot, $170 for 60ml, available at Freia Aesthetics

Veiling miens with weightless, satiny colour, the Hermès Beauty Plein Air Natural Enhancing Complexion Balm SPF30 PA+++ is a light pigmented cream that glides across the skin, instantly delivering colour correction, blemish-blurring effects and luminosity, with blendable coverage in 12 versatile shades. This unique formula also boasts mineral sunscreen protection and a hyaluronic acid complex that helps to smooth away fine lines and keep complexions supple, while evening primrose oil and Baikal skullcap help to shield the skin against external aggressors. Plus, it caresses the skin with notes of sandalwood, green tea and herbaceous arnica, which form the uplifting fragrance blend created by in-house perfumer, Christine Nagel. This sensorial texture is best applied by dotting the cream across the forehead, temples, cheekbones and chin, then using the fingers to melt everything in for a seamless, second-skin finish.

Hermès Beauty Plein Air Natural Enhancing Complexion Balm SPF30 PA+++, $148, available at Hermès

Offering SPF 50+/PA++++ protection, Sekkisei’s Clear Wellness UV Defense Milk does more than shield your skin from damaging UV rays and airborne particles such as dirt, dust and pollen. The ultra lightweight and super waterproof chemical sunscreen contains 70 per cent Itowa serum with soothing Job’s tears and moisturising squalane to drench the skin’s outer layer with moisture, freeing it from dryness or irritation. The result? A comforted complexion that feels velvety-soft to the touch. It works both as a make-up base and on its own, and is heavy duty enough to withstand sweat and water. Happily, it doesn’t pill and leaves the skin radiant without a white cast.

This SPF is just one in four new face and body sunscreens formulated by Sekkisei, with the aim of protecting and promoting the health of the skin’s natural moisture barrier.

Sekkisei Clear Wellness UV Defense Milk, $32, available at Shopee

A nourishing infusion of zinc and aloe vera ensures that skin stays hydrated during make-up removal, eliminating waterproof and budge-proof formulas with ease. Its gentle blend also means that stinging sensations are reduced even when it comes in contact with your peepers, leaving skin feeling clean and mattified after.

Sephora Hydrating Micellar Water, $19, available at Sephora

If you have sensitive skin, don’t respond well to skincare acids, or are just getting into chemical exfoliation, PHA, or polyglutamic acid, is a gentle yet effective, irritation-free ingredient to start with. Packed with seven percent PHA, Dr.Jart+’s Pore-Remedy PHA Exfoliating Serum is a nourishing bi-phase formula that delicately resurfaces uneven skin texture and refines enlarged pores by sweeping away dead skin cells and excess sebum buildup in pores—the two major contributors to blackheads and acne. It also has glycoprotein to help regulate sebum production, panthenol that hydrates skin and reinforces the skin’s moisture barrier, as well as macadamia seed oil that moisturises and improves suppleness.

Dr.Jart+ Pore-remedy PHA Exfoliating Serum, $58, available at Sephora

Seborrheic dermatitis aka dandruff doesn’t stand a chance against Percy & Reed’s Scalp Soothing Shampoo. If your scalp is on the temperamental side of things and you’re digging your heels in about not switching to medicated anti-dandruff shampoo because, let’s face it—they’re not the sexiest—this is for you. This herbal-scented clarifying scalp shampoo helps to calm irritation while rebalancing sebum and reducing and preventing dandruff. It contains pro-vitamin B5 to strengthen and restore shine, alongside Dandrilys® and piroctone olamine to further purify scalp from build-up, preventing further flakes from forming without drying your tresses.

Percy & Reed I’m No Flake Scalp Soothing Shampoo, $40, available at Sephora

Redness, sensitivity, roughness, acne and congestion are just some of the symptoms of inflammaging, or damage caused by skin inflammation—a result of microscopic irritations triggered by anything from mask-wearing and UV exposure to fatigue and unhealthy lifestyle habits. This can weaken skin’s resilience and natural regeneration, leading to premature signs of ageing and slower recovery and healing. Looking to nutrify and refuel complexions is Sulwhasoo’s new and improved Concentrated Ginseng Renewing Serum EX. It harnesses the triple resilience-boosting powers of the brand’s proprietary Ginsenomics—the world’s first anti-ageing extract derived from ultra-rare ginseng saponin—together with retinol to fortify regeneration systems, promotes collagen and hyaluronic acid production, nurture natural vitality and longer cell life, and boost skin’s autogenic power, allowing it to better respond to external aggressors and age-inducing stimuli that can damage the skin. Essentially, it sets out to restore skin’s youthful radiance across the various layers of skin. 

Sulwhasoo Concentrated Ginseng Renewing Serum EX, $275 for 50ml, available at Sulwhasoo

Those who have oilier skin often tend to shy away from the moisturising step in the skincare routine. Well that shouldn’t be the case, especially with The Inkey List Water Omega Cream. The name says it all, with water as a base, to hydrate your skin without excessively oiling it. It’s lightweight and glides on with a matte-like finish. Apart from being a good moisturiser, its formula comprises traces of glycerin, betaine and niacinamide—to improve skin texture and balance oil levels. Not forgetting, Omega fatty acid complex that doesn’t just help to lock in moisture but to also aid in skin elasticity. 

The Inkey List Water Omega Cream, $15, available at Sephora, from 21 April

Never underestimate the power of a humble at-home scrub. It works wonders for your mental being, mid-week, when you’re feeling slightly battered down from the work overhaul. The Body Shop Tea Tree Purifying & Balancing Hair & Scalp Scrub caters to an oily scalp, with the key ingredient—tea tree oil, that’s of fair-trade from Kenya. To apply, scoop a palm-sized amount and lather it with water, before massaging into your scalp. Gently scrub the salt crystals to exfoliate and cleanse your hair of excess oils and any build-up. Use this invigorating scrub in place of your shampoo once a week and be sure to condition after. 

The Body Shop Tea Tree Purifying & Balancing Hair & Scalp Scrub, $31, available at The Body Shop

As long as you choose your colours right, a mini palette far rivals any heavy-duty 30-tone pan out there. Bonus points for travelling light; less is always more in this instance. With Natasha Denona’s highly pigmented formula, this palette is all the eye make-up you need—especially on frenzied days from the gym to the office. Just be sure to prime your lids beforehand. The earthy shades in this set will easily complement any effortless day look, while giving the option for an intense gradient glam-glow when the evening seeps in.

Natasha Denona Mini Biba Eyeshadow Palette $39, available at Sephora stores.

When searching for a go-to lipstick, it’s easy to err more on either side of a product that looks better than it feels, or vice versa. With the Dior Addict lipstick, there’s no such compromise. The lipstick is available in a diverse range of shades and slides on with a buttery, gliding sensation. The colour itself can be built up in sheer layers depending on your preferred look. Consisting of 90% natural-origin ingredients, this lipstick has the added benefits of being refillable and also available in a variety of couture case styles.

Dior Addict Lipstick, $58, available at Dior

Patchology is known for their range of eye gels targeted to different concerns, and if it’s pure rejuvenation that you’re after than this is your best bet. Containing essential ingredients such as caffeine and hydrolysed collagen designed to target your under eye area with brightening, de-puffing and hydrating, these couldn’t be easier to incorporate into your skincare regime. At any time, slip them onto dry skin for just five minutes—or longer, should you desire. Conveniently staying put, left over serum can then be patted into the skin once removed. Cooling and soothing is instantaneous.

Patchology FlashPatch Rejuvenating Eye Gels, $20.48 for 5 gel pairs, available at Revolve