Makeup, skin care and hair

Valentine’s Day is less than a week away, and if you’re still looking for last-minute gift ideas, you may want to consider skipping traditional gifts with a limited shelf life like candy or fresh flowers. Instead, why not surprise the beauty lover in your life with a highly-rated beauty gift set?

To help simplify your search for Valentine’s Day gifts, we perused Shopping reader-favorite stores like Nordstrom and Walmart, plus popular brands, including Dyson and Charlotte Tilbury, for their best beauty deals and gift sets, some of which are expert- and editor-recommended, to boot. After securing a Valentine’s gift for your favorite beauty obsessive, don’t forget to practice self love and treat yourself to one (or all) of these skin care products, beauty gadgets and makeup sets.

Best beauty gifts of 2021

If your Valentine is hard to shop for, you can surprise them with one of these thoughtful beauty gift ideas.

Best beauty gift for hair: Dyson

1. Dyson Corrale Hair Straightener Gift Set

Dyson’slatest beauty gift set features an expert-recommended cordless flat iron with 30-minute battery life (you can also leave it plugged in if you want). “The quality and price tag makes this flat iron like the Rolls Royce of hair tools,” noted hair stylist Courtney Foster in our guide to hair straighteners. Notably, this tourmaline flat iron heats up to 410 degrees Fahrenheit.The set comes complete with a paddle brush to smooth your strands and a wide-tooth comb to rake through curls.

Best luxury beauty gift: Slip

2. Slip Pillowcase and Sleep Mask Set

Deanne Mraz Robinson, MD, a board-certified dermatologist, previously recommended Slip’s highly-rated bedding in our guide to the best bedding for your skin. According to dermatologists, silk pillowcases can help prevent frizzy hair and wrinkles. Plus, they are great for those dealing with sensitive skin because silk is a “lightweight, breathable and non-irritating” material, noted Hadley King, MD, a board-certified dermatologist. Slip’s pillowcases are available in two sizes — King and Queen — and a plethora of colors, like Pink and Caramel. This kit also includes the brand’s top-rated silk eye mask, which helps block the sun from disturbing your sleep.

Best body care gift: Rituals

3. Rituals The Ritual of Karma Medium Set

This four-piece gift set includes two of my go-to body products since 2019: A foaming shower gel that lasts up to 50 showers and a sugar-based body scrub to buff away dead skin and hydrate. The kit also includes a body cream to help restore moisture post-shower and a hydrating hand wash. All four products are made with sweet almond oil to help soothe and restore moisture, along with white tea to help nourish skin.

Best beauty gift for pandemic skin: Chanel

4. Chanel Le Lift Firming Anti-Wrinkle Flash Eye Revitalizer

We recently dubbed this dermatologist-recommended product the best set of high-end eye patches. This two-step kit starts with a roll-on serum infused with various vitamins to help fade the appearance of dark circles and puffiness. The rollerball also pushes away liquid from the under-eye area, where it likes to collect. Immediately follow up applying it with the hydrogel eye patches, which will “create an evaporation-free barrier,” so your skin can absorb the moisturizing ingredients, explained Rachel Maiman, MD, a dermatologist at Marmur Medical.

Best beauty gift for nails: Olive and June

5. Olive and June The Mani System

If your loved one misses frequenting the nail salon, surprise them with this highly-rated Olive and June manicure kit comprising six tools and up to eight nail polishes. Choose from winter-inspired shades like Besties, a deep emerald; XOXO, a hot pink; Obsessed, a dark ruby; Exclamation Point, silver glitter; and Obvi, gold glitter. This set also includes the Poppy, an ergonomic cover you place over the nail polish bottle handle. The pale pink gadget keeps your hand steady for more precise at-home manicures, even when you paint with your non-dominant hand.

Best travel-friendly beauty gift: Hourglass

6. Hourglass The Bestsellers Set

Hourglass, a highly-rated luxury cosmetics and skincare brand, created a travel-friendly gift set featuring four bestsellers, which happen to be everyday staples of mine since 2019. Veil Mineral Primer boasts SPF 15 sun protection and doesn’t leave behind a pesky white cast. The matching Veil Translucent Setting Powder plays nicely with my oily skin and doesn’t clog pores. This set also includes Unlocked Instant Extensions, a rich black mascara that lengthens and volumizes lashes, along with the Mechanical Gel Eye Liner, which makes tight-lining your upper lash line a quick and relatively easy process.

Best makeup gift set: Charlotte Tilbury

7. Charlotte Tilbury Pillow Talk Makeup Secrets Set

Editor and Shopping reader-favorite makeup brand Charlotte Tilbury created a gift-worthy beauty set inspired by Tilbury’s signature pink lipstick: Pillow Talk. Choose from three variations of the cocoa butter-scented lipstick — Original, Medium and Intense — and a matching Lip Cheat liner. Your Valentine can add a healthy flush to their face with Cheek to Chic, a rosy blush with a luminous shimmer available in two colors: Pillow Talk and Pillow Talk Intense. Rounding out the four-piece set is a choice between an eyeshadow quad dubbed the Pillow Talk Luxury Palette, which is more daytime appropriate, or the glittery Pillow Talk Luxury Palette of Pops.

Best beauty tool gift: Foreo

8. Foreo Luna 3

If your loved one is dedicated to their skin care routine, consider giving them the Foreo Luna 3, the brand’s most recent facial cleansing brush. The popular Luna 3 is equipped with antimicrobial and antibacterial silicone bristles to help remove dirt, oil and sweat, according to Foreo. Unlike previous versions of the Luna, this model offers 16 vibrations to massage skin and improve signs of aging. The device boasts a long-lasting battery, too. Users get up to 650 uses on a single charge.

Best beauty gift for lipstick lovers: Fenty Beauty

9. Fenty Beauty Stunna Boss Bolds

Rihanna, founder of Fenty Beauty and Fenty Skin, created Stunna Lip Paint, a long-lasting lipstick that doesn’t rub off while drinking. This beauty gift set features three vibrant shades of her full-sized liquid lipsticks: Unlocked, a hot pink; Unattached, a bright coral; and Undefeated, a purple. It also sports a small applicator, which makes it easy to trace and fill in your lips, no lip liner required. To help create a barrier between lipstick and a face mask, Talia Favale, a makeup artist at Naked Poppy, previously recommended dusting a little translucent powder over your lips.

Best clean beauty gift: Drunk Elephant

10. Drunk Elephant The Littles Head to Toe

Drunk Elephant‘s gift set includes seven travel-sized hair and body care products, like the Cocomino Glossing Shampoo and Cocomino Marula Cream Conditioner, two lightweight items made from plant oils and butters. The T.L.C. Happi Scalp Scrub incorporates alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) to buff away dead skin cells and product buildup, while the Wild Marula Tangle Spray acts as both a heat protectant and detangler. Your loved one can also cleanse and hydrate their skin with the amino acid and plant oil-rich Kamili Cream Body Cleanser and lock in moisture by slathering on the Sili Body Lotion. Post-shower, they can also swipe on the Sweet Pitti Deodorant Cream, which is made from arrowroot powder to soak up sweat and mandelic acid, an AHA which helps neutralize odor.

Where to find the best beauty gifts

Mega retailers

Shopping readers have shown a keen interest in department stores and readily accessible chain retailers. Here are seven of those preferred retailers that sell a wide variety of beauty gifts like the Dyson AirWrap Complete and fragrances.

1. Amazon Luxury Beauty
2. Bloomingdales
3. Macy’s
4. Nordstrom
5. Revolve
6. Target
7. Walmart

Reader favorite beauty brands

If you’re looking for top-rated brands favored by Shopping readers, consider these 10 well-liked companies making everything from the ever-popular Differin acne gel to Charlotte TIlbury’s Pillow Talk lipstick.

1. Aveeno
2. Charlotte Tilbury
3. Differin
4. Dyson
5. Eucerin
6. Fenty Beauty
7. Fenty Skin
8. Glossier
9. Necessaire
10. Neutrogena

Specialty stores

These 12 beauty specialty stores range from Black-owned AMP Beauty LA to Violet Grey, a luxury beauty boutique nestled on Melrose Place in Los Angeles. Here are our picks for well-known and emerging beauty retailers.

1. AHALife
2. AMP Beauty LA
3. Blue Mercury
4. Credo Beauty
5. Dermstore
6. Follain
7. Sephora
8. Shen Beauty
9. Skinstore
10. Space NK
11. Ulta Beauty
12. Violet Grey