Welcome to Anna’s Favorites! Here you’ll find my absolute favorite items across beauty, style, home, tech, and media categories.
Before you start browsing, here’s my promise: the products on this page have met my absolute highest standards. If one of these items were lost or broken, I would replace it instantly without exploring other brands or products. These picks are also time tested: I’ve had every item on this list for at least a year, and far longer in most cases!
Also, none of these mentions are sponsored, and no brand or individual is paying me to talk about their products. However, some links below are affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission if you purchase through the link.
Beauty
Tower 28 lip gloss
This gloss is excellent. It’s not sticky and leaves your lips feeling moisturized as it fades. I own and love the shades Wild (my top pick!), Coconut, and Spicy.
Thrive Causemetics Liquid Lash Extension mascara
The best! This tubing mascara helps your lashes look extra long and doesn’t clump, smudge, or create a smeary disaster when it gets wet. Plus, it’s one of the few tubing mascaras I can find in brown. I have this on subscription.
Avene skincare
I have incredibly sensitive skin, and Avene products rarely let me down. You can find the specific products in my current skincare routine here.
AmLactin Daily Lotion
I have rampant keratosis pilaris (did I mention my problematic skin?!), and this is the one thing that tames it. Use it regularly for best results – I apply it every three days immediately after showering.
Billie razors
I paid way too much for drugstore razor blades for way too long. These are legitimately great razor blades, and they’re cheap. Plus, the magnetic shower holder gets two thumbs up.
Nizoral shampoo
My scalp is naturally a little gunky, and I make a questionable situation worse with regular dry shampoo usage. I use this shampoo once a week or so, and it’s a great scalp reset that keeps dandruff and grossness at bay.
Megababe Thigh Rescue
This will save your thighs from painful chafing. A summer staple.
Style
Birkenstocks Mayari sandals
My go-to sandals. I wear them almost every day in the summer – I was even (unintentionally) wearing them when Adam and I got engaged! My current ivory ones have lasted for four years and are still going strong, but I will replace them instantly when they finally bite the dust.
Blundstone dress boots
My go-to boots. These look a little sharper than other Blundstones thanks to the square toe, but they are still incredibly comfortable. I wear them most under straight-leg pants or over leggings with visible socks.
Taos sneakers
My go-to sneakers. These are the first thing I pack on any trip that will require a lot of walking, as the support is unbeatable. The canvas ones are great but will get grungy eventually – if that bothers you, they also come in leather.
Beyond Yoga spacedye leggings
These are expensive, yes. But they are simultaneously so soft AND quite durable over multiple seasons of wear. I’ve had mine for years, and they haven’t pilled or stretched out at all! Plus, they don’t fall or roll down, and they have a variety of lengths. I’ve scoured out lots of online forums about leggings and lots of people agree these are an underrated gem. PLUS, if you’re a student, educator, medical professional, or military personnel, you can get 20% off!
Brooks sports bras
Brooks makes the best sports bras I’ve tried: they’ve got smooth, seamless fabric; functional but cute styles; and actual bra cup sizing. And most importantly, they work. No bouncing or no mid-workout adjusting! The crossback style is my favorite, and I buy the on-sale colors exclusively so they’re more affordable. Find them here.
Soma Vanishing Edge underwear
I did a gigantic underwear comparison a few years back (see all the results here!), and these were the winners for everyday. That verdict still stands. These are the greatest because they don’t create visible panty lines BUT they also don’t slide around and cause wedgies. Multiple cuts are available, but any of the cotton blend with lace are my very favorite. They’re the underwear I reach for first, and I’m sad when there aren’t any left in my drawer. Find them here.
Darn Tough socks
For this recommendation to have full weight, you need to understand how picky I am about socks. I could never handle the cute frilly socks my mom tried to make me wear as a child because the darn seam across the toe brought me to tears. Even now, socks with lots of ribbing or texture make me crazy if I walk in them at all.
So it should come as no surprise that when we go hiking, I need really good socks. And Darn Tough’s cushion socks have converted me. They have great padding and just the right amount of support across the arch. Plus, they’re crazy durable – I’ve had issues with Smartwool socks developing holes, but that has not been a problem with Darn Tough. The pair I’ve worn on tons of hikes barely shows any wear. I’ve even worn these for a rowing class, where they were shoved in sweaty communal shoes and had Chicago River water dumped on them, and they do not smell. At all.
Even better, if my favorite socks do ever get holey, Darn Tough has a lifetime guarantee – they’ll replace them with no questions asked. (!!!)
The hiking ones are the strongest standouts, but their casual socks casual socks are great, too!
Home
Gammy’s Beezwax candles
I burn whatever scented candles I want in my office while I work, but if we’re burning candles in the rest of the house, Adam prefers these. They have a gentle honey scent, burn clean, and last forever.
Mrs. Meyer’s Clean Day liquid hand soap
This hand soap smells great and isn’t too drying. We use the Daisy scent in the spring and summer and the Acorn Spice scent in the fall and winter.
Target Y-weave bins
If you open any closet or cabinet in our house, you’ll find these. They’re inexpensive, sturdy, and attractive.
Laundry sorter
Presorting our laundry has possibly saved our marriage? We use this as our hamper so loads are always sorted and ready for Adam to toss in.
Pan and lid organizer
Sanity-saving and worth every cent. No more nesting pans! These also work well for organizing baking sheets.
Tech
Kindle Paperwhite
I use my Kindle Paperwhite every single day; it’s how I read probably 90% of my books. I have an entire review extolling its virtues (and offering a few caveats) here, but long story short, there’s nothing better for reading at night or on the go.
iOS Notes app
You’re probably already using this, but I have to share because approximately 95% of my brain lives here. I link or scan articles I want to save, note restaurants I want to try, save quotes I find inspiring, take notes while I’m on the phone…truly, I open this app every single day. The searchability, folders, syncing across devices, and ability to pin notes make finding information so much easier.
Paprika Recipe Manager app
For years, I’ve used Trello to keep track of my recipes (as seen here), but my collection was getting a bit too unwieldy. Enter Paprika, an app specifically for housing recipes. IT IS THE BEST.
- No more scrolling through tons of preamble and ads on recipe blogs. When you enter a website url, Paprika identifies the recipe text and pulls them into a clean, annoyance-free interface.
- You can create categories to organize your recipes and then filter by those categories.
- When the app is open, it keeps your device screen from automatically closing down – no more contaminating your phone screen with chicken-juice hands because your recipe disappeared!
- For recipes on paper or in cookbooks, your phone’s text recognition can grab the text and you can copy it into the app – for me, this means I actually make a few of the recipes that were floating around on crumpled magazine pages.
There are even more features with timers and automated grocery lists that I’ve barely used, and I still think the cost is worth it.
Fair warning, you do have to purchase a version of this for each device separately. I tried it out first on my phone, then got the desktop version on Black Friday sale once I’d used it for a few months and knew I liked it. I still think it’s 100% worth it.
Asana
If you have to organize to-do lists, especially for a group of people, Asana is brilliant. You can categorize your tasks, add deadlines, and assign tasks to other people. We use it at my day job and wouldn’t survive without it.
Media
The Popcast podcast
Knox and Jamie make me laugh so hard and are the only thing keeping me current on pop culture. I am a BFOTS and support them with actual dollars on Patreon.
Youtube channels
The following are my most-watched channels:
- Hannah Louise Poston: Hannah is a poet who talks about fashion, beauty, and aesthetics in thoughtful ways. Her style videos are my absolute favorite.
- Natalie Bennett: I love Natalie’s calming “clean and decorate with me” type videos – she’s just the right blend of minimal, realistic, and encouraging. I also support her on Patreon.
- The Minimal Mom: if I need good motivation to declutter, Dawn is the Minnesota neighbor I turn to. Putting on one of her videos is my best hack to get myself to clean or organize.