Problem-Solving Beauty Products

Travel and tread lightly: EcoTools Cosmetic Applicators are washable and feature sustainable-bamboo handles. Each pack of the tiny tools includes differently sized heads for lining and shading eyes.

To buy: $2 for 20, iherb.com.

Featured November 2011

Behold the universal soldier of mascaras. This magic wand takes the place of five formulas—lengthener, primer, growth serum, tint, and curler. But the real secret weapon is the wand’s ball tip, which lets you reach those little hairs at the corners of your lash lines.

To buy: $29, qvc.com.

Those rogue hairs on your chinny chin chin? Gone, courtesy of Dermadoctor Gorilla Warfare. It contains 14 gentle botanical ingredients that help dissolve facial hair over time and slow future growth—and it doubles as a daily moisturizer.

To buy: $53, ulta.com.

Mixing and mingling is for cocktail parties, not your makeup palette. Who wants to pick flecks of shadow out of the lip color? Dior is on the case with the Blue Tie Palette, which has a flap inside to separate the various blue shadows (for shading and defining eyes) from the pretty cherry gloss.

To buy: $70, nordstrom.com.

Describing this product as a lip pencil only scratches the surface of what it can do. The chubby stick lines, tints, moisturizes with skin-softening vitamin E, plumps with peptides, and has a built-in sharpener. Comes in four shades, from a subtle nude to a sexy scarlet.

To buy: $18, sephora.com.

Glitter nail polish—one of the biggest holiday trends, hands down—can be a real pain to remove. Celebrity manicurist Deborah Lippmann is here to help: Glitter comes right off, she says, with a piece of felt soaked in polish remover and held against each nail for about 30 seconds. The slightly rough surface of the felt catches the sparkly stuff and swiftly clears it away.

The straight story on defining your eyes with liquid liner? You get the most control if you hold the liner horizontally to your lids as you draw, says Stephanie Vazquez, a makeup artist with Smashbox cosmetics. Want to make it even easier? Ready to Wear Line by Design Black Eyeliner has a firm felt tip that doesn’t wiggle while you work.

To buy: $17, hsn.com.

Most flat irons lose heat, and therefore flattening power, with every pass through your hair. Not so with the John Frieda Sleek Finish 1-Inch Straightener. Its frizz-busting ion-infused plates heat to a whopping 455 degrees Fahrenheit in 15 seconds and stay hot until every last strand is in place.

To buy: $50, ulta.com.

Face it: Dull, dry skin doesn’t stop at your jawline. Fruit-derived alpha hydroxy acids are a powerful way to slough off dead skin cells, but until now many of the body lotions that contain them have come in small packages or been too medicinal-smelling to slather on. Enter St. Ives Naturally Smooth Body Lotion. It is fragrant, is infused with AHAs, and costs less than $10 for 21 ounces, so you might even consider sharing it.

To buy: $6, kmart.com.

The awesome effects of a salon gel manicure—practically no drying time, superhuman durability—can now be re-created at home. Nutra Nail Gel Perfect UV-Free Gel-Color is a three-part system: It includes an activator (a clear formula that helps color adhere to nails), polish (available in 12 shades), and a cleaning solution to keep both brushes from hardening. Easy as 1-2-3.

To buy: $12, at drugstores.

See all Daily Finds from this month