It's Official: These Makeup Brands Score Our Beauty Editors the Most Compliments

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(Image credit: @court_higgs)

As beauty editors, it's no secret that it's our job to know (and try) pretty much every single makeup brand on the market, whether it's a popular label someone as out-of-touch as my dad would recognize or a lesser-known brand slowly but surely climbing the ranks of fame. We don't discriminate, and we've even taken it upon ourselves to test out some of the most popular makeup brands like Charlotte Tilbury and Marc Jacobs to see if their most iconic products stand up to the hype. 

That got us thinking, with so many makeup brands on the market, which popular names are actually the best? And beyond that, which popular makeup brands are so good that innocent bystanders (like our co-workers, friends, family, significant others, or even total strangers) take note by offering compliments? My beauty PIC Courtney Higgs and I put our heads together to compile the ultimate list of 20 popular makeup brands that never fail to rack in the compliments. Be it frenzied DMs asking us what products we're wearing or IRL questions at a fancy event or work meeting, we're sharing the exact brand names and formulas that help us feel our best—even without the aforementioned compliments they instigate. Keep scrolling!

Charlotte Tilbury

Kaja

Koh Gen Do

Kosas

Ilia Beauty

Armani Beauty

Kevyn Aucoin

Chantecaille

Anastasia Beverly Hills

Nars

MAC Cosmetics

Sisley-Paris

Hourglass

It Cosmetics

Huda Beauty

Laura Mercier

Pat McGrath Labs

Stila

Too Faced

Tarte

Beauty Director

Erin has been writing a mix of beauty and wellness content forBest Knockoff Luxury Clothing 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 andBest Knockoff Luxury Clothing 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.