February Favorites: Beauty, Media, & More

+ a spiel on fungal acne & music on repeat.

We don’t have a ton of favorites this month because we were both pretty swamped with academics, jobs, a super cool gastroenterology rotation, and moving, but there were a few beauty products that consistently stood out to us and one realization that changed our game: we have fungal acne. More on that below.

1. Cipher Cloud Melt Cleanser: this is a hybrid oil/gel cleanser with a comfortable gel-cream texture. As with all Cipher products, you get your money’s worth of intentional actives that work together to treat the skin in a gentle, but still targeted manner. While we typically don’t care for treatment cleansers, this one takes such a gentle approach with a genuinely enjoyable wash-off feel that it makes sense to us. You get a combination of hydrators like ectoin, clarifying ingredients like zinc PCA, salicylic acid, and kaolin clay, lipids for barrier support, and prebiotics to support skin flora.

2. Danessa Myricks Yummy Skin Concealer (Shade 8): we were initially on the fence with this one but after we went through a phase of peeling (from Nizoral and tretinoin, more on that later) and our skin textures improved to near-baseline, this concealer really started to shine. It’s not super high coverage so we enjoy it across the face as a spot concealer + overall tint but man, the wear time we get out of this is insane! It looks so skin-like and holds onto that look throughout the day without breaking down into a greasy, creasy mess. If you’re dry, be sure to prep skin very well before application, but otherwise, it will work beautifully for you too. Not to mention the shade range and compact packaging—both major bonuses.

3. Merit Solo Shadows: last month, we shared a one-brand review on Merit but unfortunately, the Solo Shadows were at Sarah’s apartment and not on-hand in the studio. They’re getting their moment today, though. These are great hard-pressed, semi-dry cream eyeshadows if you’re the type of person who likes a smudgy, edgier look. We use the shade Vachetta as a nude eye base and will often apply Midcentury for a warm, slightly deeper base as well, but we actually prefer the deeper tones: Midnight (navy blue) and Nelson (charcoal gray) for smokey eye looks. They apply well with brushes and blend out alright, but our favorite way to apply is with a fingertip. They hold up quite well on us without a lot of creasing or cracking, but we do have slightly dry eyelids by default and don’t experience much creasing across the board. These are cool—we wish they had some more interesting colors: a burgundy, deep teal or emerald green, a true black, some shimmers like the previous LE shade Glacé (also nice, but significantly more emollient than the mattes).

4. Peach & Lily Velvet Biome Smoothing Silky Ointment: we don’t know how we missed this launch but after doomscrolling one afternoon earlier this month, an ad popped up for this ointment and we immediately purchased. This has a unique gel-balm/ointment texture that is silky but not slimy. The ingredient list here is also stacked as heck: a whopping 35% glycerin, ectoin, bifida and rice ferment filtrates, multiple ceramides, glycolipids, phytosphingosines, cholesterol, antioxidants, and a ton of botanical and mushroom extracts, all combined to provide a barrier-replenshing, irritation-reducing dose of occlusion to the skin. If you like slugging but don’t like the feel of traditional ointments and balms, definitely check this one out. We’ve used it almost every single night this month, across the eyelids, and on the lips, and we definitely see ourselves comfortably using this as the seasons warm up.

5. Rituel de Fille Levitation Lash Mascara: every time we wear this mascara, we’re asked about it, and for good reason! It’s rich and dark, provides a very distinct look to each lash, holds a curl well, doesn’t flake on us (smudges a bit, but after many hours of wear), and allows you to sort-of manipulate the lashes for a fanned-out effect before it dries. We have a slightly weird application technique that involves brushing the mascara wand across the lashes vertically first (back and forth, but ending in an outward motion), then applying the product under the lashes like normal—it just gives the most defined, fanned-out look, and works with so many of our mascaras, not just Levitation Lash. Give it a try!

1. MACximal Sleek Satin Lipstick in Hodgepodge: Many years ago, Bite Beauty came out with an “Edgy Neutrals” collection and there were some yellow-greige nude shades in that line that were unlike anything we had ever seen. Fast forward a few years and Bite Beauty is gone (RIP), but MAC has given us the return of Hodgepodge, an olive-brown nude (the website describes it as a mocha mid-tone brown but we feel like our description is more accurate lol) that sounds like an unflattering color, but trust us, it looks incredible on olive skin of all shades. We won’t even touch on the formula much—it’s MAC, so you know it’s good.

2. D.S. & Durga Debaser Scent: Soft Services did a lovely little collaboration with D.S. & Durga a while back and sent us the travel size ($75 still!) of Debaser. We keep it in a work bag but recently got more use out of it and were reminded of how interesting the scent really is. You get the fresh fig and iris notes straightaway, but there is a powdery, but somehow mossy undertone from the blond woods, tonka, and moss notes that really pull the whole thing together. The scent is incredibly long-wearing on us (like 8+ hours) and just super unique. We’ll have to keep D.S. & Durga in mind for future fragrance shopping—Cowboy Grass sounds very much our style as well.

3. Nizoral Antifungal Shampoo: alright folks, we figured out we have fungal acne. To clarify, it’s not true acne, but an overgrowth of fungal species that are part of normal skin flora. We—the internet, collectively—call it “fungal acne” because it pretty much presents the same way as acne, that’s all. Anyway, we took some time at the beginning of this year to really assess our acne individually. Both of us have had some fantastic results with BHAs, BPO, and of course, OTC retinoids and tretinoin Rx, but there was one area of the face that just would not let up: the forehead. It’s just a consistently congested area of the face, which is a good indication that the concerns of this region are different from the concerns on the rest of our skin.

   Another hallmark sign to be aware of flaky skin, especially in the eyebrows, which we often experienced as well but usually wrote off as simply dry skin. Long story short, we looked into possible options we could implement quickly without changing much in our existing routines and came to the conclusion that for once in our lives, we would follow a dermfluencer’s advice and put shampoo on our face. You guys won’t believe us when we tell you, but our “fungal acne” cleared up about 75% in a matter of eight days (2 days off during that time). We would apply the Nizoral like a gel face mask for about 5 minutes each day, then rinse off in the shower, and it made our skin flake off quite a bit, but eventually revealed a pretty smooth, congestion-free forehead. We’re thrilled.

   This is, of course, not meant to be medical advice. If you think you may have similar concerns as us, be sure to bring it up with your dermatologist, who will be able to evaluate you most accurately. There are more targeted treatments for fungal overgrowths on the skin if you do end up having this, all of which are prescription-based. Explore the more common causes of your skin concerns first before diving straight to fungal overgrowth!

Non-Beauty Favorites of February:

We’re on Substack now, which means there’s enough space to share more than just beauty content! Let’s dive into a handful of random lifestyle and media picks:

1. Papier 2025 Planner: we bought the hardcover versions last year and loved them, but decided to try a larger, binder-style planner for 2025 and after a couple of weeks, we ended up running back to the Papier website to pick up the slimmer spiral-bound versions. We prefer planners with large blank spaces per day to write in what we want—if we see our day broken down by the hour, it’s over. We also find the To-Do lists, grocery lists, exercise schedule, and expense sheets to be a waste of a lot of paper, so it bulks up the book too much. Long story short, we like a slim planner that allows us to write in what we want and Papier’s are very, very cute.

   1. Alternatively, Appointed Co. makes gorgeous ones as well that are virtually identical inside. If you’re into minimalist designs, you’ll appreciate these.

2. Chobani High Protein Yogurt Drinks: we’re trying to commit to higher protein drinks that don’t need to be pre-mixed before we run to the hospital or campus, and that also taste decent. Chobani kind of hit the nail on the head for us. It’s basically a liquified yogurt, so if you’re okay with dairy, this isn’t a bad option to keep you satiated. Also helps that they’re $2-4 per bottle depending on flavor.

3. Fujifilm X100VI Camera: Sarah preordered this camera LAST February and it finally arrived in December. We wanted something compact with a built-in lens, with high resolution (40.2MP), and of course with the classic Fuji film-simulation recipes—if you’re unfamiliar, Fuji allows you to save custom presets in the camera. The camera is still on backorder but if resolution isn’t a huge factor for you, we recommend grabbing a X100V (previous version) either new or used, or the XT50, a new model released last year that we actually purchased before reselling after a few months (just because the X100VI was still our top pick and we decided to wait), it has the option to interchange lenses so it will be a bit bulkier, but it has similar resolution. We got a ton of use out of the X100VI this month (all the photos you’ve seen on stories AND feed posts since Feb 1st) were taken with the camera and we just love the customizable recipes, easy transfer from camera to phone, and high-res images. We made a few of our own recipes so if you’re interested in those, leave a comment or send us a DM and we’ll be happy to share!

4. Soundcore Motion+ Portable Speaker with Intense Bass: when Sarah had to move for school post-pandemic 2.5 years ago, our dad (major audiophile) gifted her what he thought was the best sound, value (less than $100!), and size portable speaker. Fast forward to now, we totally agree. This thing isn’t compact but given the mighty sound, it’s perfect—the bass is incredible, sound is crisp, and can truly fill a room. If you’re looking for a portable speaker to hook up to a projector, carry to the beach/camping/etc., or just move with you from room-to-room, this is truly the best thing we can recommend. It also holds a charge for days which is great.

5. Severance on Apple TV: everyone is talking about it so there’s not much for us to add. If you haven’t started the show, give it a try with a friend—a huge part of what makes us enjoy the show is discussing theories and guessing where it goes next.

6. Music on Repeat for February:

   -American Daydream by Electric Guest

   -Texia by Blossoms

   -That’s All I Wanted From You by Jalen Ngonda

   -Temptations by Jitwam

   -Miss You by The Rolling Stones

   -Doechii’s Tiny Desk Concert (incredible performance, we can’t stop playing it!)

We hope you enjoyed this menagerie of monthly picks! Let us know if you have any similar favorites or recs for us to try next.