I've Given My Roommate Hundreds of Beauty Products—These 20 Changed Her Life

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(Image credit: @aysha.sow)

As much as I would love to try and fall head over heels for every single beauty product I receive, it would be physically impossible. I mean, if I quit my job this second, moved to Antarctica, and brought my current hoard of products along, I’d still be more than set for life. Of course, that’s certainly not happening anytime soon (although after 2020, who can know what the future holds!), so I recruit my friends and family to test all of the products that currently runneth over my apartment. Even my 73-year-old dad has been coerced into the process once or twice!

My angel of a roommate, Steph Limiti, always gets first dibs—a responsibility that has grown exponentially since COVID. You see, pre-pandemic, all of my packages were sent to the office and any extras I didn’t want to immediately test or take home were stowed in the WWW Beauty closet. Well, R.I.P., because over a year later, that sucker probably has two inches of dust on it and not a single new formula to its name. Instead, every last inch of my apartment has taken over in the interim.

My roommate, Steph, could be annoyed by the fact that jars, bottles, tubes, and tinctures inhabit the majority of our floor space, but again, she’s an angel and has blessedly accepted the Sephora status of our apartment. The silver lining? She has access to—and gets to test—her fill of exciting beauty products, and all I ask in return is her unfiltered reviews and thoughts. Better yet, since she’s the content manager for Who What Wear’s sister skincare brand, Versed, she totally knows a good beauty product from a bad one and offers an informed, fresh perspective. She’s been at this at-home review thing for just over a year (we were still relatively new roomies when COVID hit), so I thought it would be fun to do a quick dive into her current beauty wardrobe. Below, she’s sharing the holy-grail products (out of literally hundreds) that she’s become absolutely obsessed with and why she loves them. Keep scrolling! 

Beauty Director

Erin has been writing a mix of beauty and wellness content for Who What Wear for over four years. Prior to that, she spent two and half years writing for Byrdie. She now calls Santa Monica home but grew up in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and studied writing, rhetoric, and communication at University of Wisconsin, La Crosse. She studied abroad in Galway, Ireland, and spent a summer in L.A. interning with the Byrdie and Who What Wear family. After graduating from UW, she spent one year in San Francisco, where she worked as a writer for Pottery Barn Kids and PBteen before moving down to L.A. to begin her career as a beauty editor. She considers her day-to-day beauty aesthetic very low-maintenance and relies on staples like clear brow serum (from Kimiko!), Lawless's Lip Plumping Mask in Cherry Vanilla, and an eyelash curler. For special occasions or days when she's taking more meetings or has an event, she'll wear anything and everything from Charlotte Tilbury (the foundations are game-changing), some shimmer on her lids (Stila and Róen do it best), and a few coats of the best mascara-type product on earth, Surratt's Noir Lash Tint.