The 10 Best Body Care Holiday Gifts, Tested by a Beauty Editor
Buying beauty gifts for the people you love isn’t necessarily easy. Skin types, hair types, shade matching—these are all major factors that dictate a beauty purchase, and if you’re trying to err on the side of surprise, it can be a struggle to know exactly what to purchase (and ensure that your giftee will love it!). That’s why when I’m checking items off my holiday gifting list, I always return to body care products. Show me a person who doesn’t enjoy a deeply moisturizing hand cream, or a luxe body wash, or a hand soap so insanely luxurious and highbrow they’d never buy it for themselves. That’s where you, a bona fide beauty expert, come in to treat your besties to the must-have body care essentials for the holidays.
No matter your loved one’s beauty proclivities, I guarantee that they’ll enjoy anything from one of my three hero categories: cleansing, moisturizing, and treating. Anything under the umbrella of this trio is a surefire win with your loved ones—and you don’t even have to guess their shade. Here’s everything I’m eyeing in the body care aisle to finish my holiday shopping ahead of schedule.
All Hail Hand Soap
Something happens when you reach adulthood and you discover the joys of a really nice hand soap. It’s easy to talk yourself out of it when you’re shopping for a restock, which is why I always recommend scooping a luxe option or two as holiday gifts.
Grown Alchemist
Invigorate Hand Wash
The soothing aloe helps this formula from drying out your paws after each wash, and the sweet orange, cedarwood, and sage combo smells ridiculously good. I also love how chic the minimalist packaging looks on your sink.
SIDIA
Soaked: the Hand & Body Wash
The lather on this soap is just perfection and the juniper, cedarwood, amber, and musk scent fills the room with just a pump or two of product. It’s a true luxury experience to use it every day.
Gotta Hand (Cream) It To You
Well, if you’re splurging on the hand soap, you might as well make it a two-part gift, right? With temperatures dipping lower each day, and the rest of winter stretching on endlessly, your friends and family deserve some intense hand moisture to make it through the holidays.
Prada
Hydrating Hand Cream With Niacinamide & Biotin
I didn’t think that this formula would be as superb as it is, just from a skincare standpoint. But it’s creamy, nourishing, and leaves my skin feeling so soothed. Plus, the packaging could not be cuter!
Maison Millais
The World Is Your Oyster Hand Cream
I cannot get over how stunning this tube is! The cap is basically a work of art. Not to mention, the chamomile and shea butter-infused formula leaves your hands feeling silky soft with each use.
Body Wash Wonders
Bath products have long been a gifting staple, but not everyone has a tub or even enjoys taking a bath (which is insanity but I digress). You truly can’t go wrong with a luxuriously-scented body wash that helps transform your giftee’s shower into a spa-like retreat.
Bathing Culture
Cathedral Grove Mind and Body Wash Refillable Glass
This California body care brand has been my go-to for its flawless body wash for almost a decade. The refined earthy scent is exactly what I picture a luxury Joshua Tree spa to smell like, and it lathers like a dream.
This scent is so refined and lovely, it feels like there should be another zero on the price tag. The formula’s coconut-derived emulsion also ensures your skin remains soft and hydrated, never stripped or dry.
Body Cream Couture
Anyone who doesn’t slather their body in a luxe cream after the shower is seriously missing out. Not only is it a heavenly sensorial experience, by the time winter hits, it’s definitely a necessity to keep dry, scaly skin at bay.
This West Coast-based brand makes my all time favorite face oil, so naturally the body cream is a must in my head-to-toe skincare routine. The signature plum extract soothes and nourishes for the softest skin of your life.
Cyklar
Nutrient Rich Body Cream Sacred Santal
The entire Marie Claire team is obsessed with Cyklar, and for good reason—the products are just as jaw-dropping as the scents. This santal body moisturizer has saved my skin, and my sanity, this winter, and I plan to stock all my friends with a bottle of their own, too.
Treat(ment) Yourself
Body care is more advanced than ever, proving that those yummy active ingredients don’t have to stay above your décolletage. A targeted serum product is the ideal new addition to your beauty-obsessed pal’s skincare routine.
Ursa Major
Golden Hour Body Serum
Target dark spots, crepey skin, and dehydration all in one delicious-to-use formula with enough active ingredients to put your face serum to shame. If you’re gifting a friend who adores clean beauty, this brand, and product, is a must.
Hydrate, exfoliate, and boost collagen production for smooth, nourished skin from head to toe. Kakadu plum is the hero ingredient here (I’m sensing a plum theme in body care at the moment), and the lightweight formulation feels like pure silk on the skin.
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