January's Best Beauty Buys

Crème of the Crop

When you're required to try hundreds of luxurious body creams for your job, as I am, it's hard to be wowed. (Yes, I know how that sounds....) So when I opened a jar of Côté Bastide Fleurs D'Oranger Creme de Corps and got a whiff of the scent—a unique and alluring combination of sweet orange and bitter rind—I thought, "Okay, that's nice." But the snow white, glistening, buttercream icing texture! And the subtle sheen the cream leaves on your skin! That's why this jar now sits on my bathroom sink (and why I smell a little like an orange grove in bloom). —Valerie Monroe

($52; minnewyork.com)