The Editor’s Letter
I only choose the best. That sounds like a slogan. It’s closer to a problem.
I have never been able to buy the first acceptable version of anything. I will test eleven sunscreens to find the one, read four hundred reviews of a carry-on, and put two different moisturizers on two halves of my face for six weeks to be sure. For most of my life this was a slightly exhausting personality trait. Now it is the job.
Best by Lauren is where all of that testing goes. It is a magazine that happens to load in a browser — every page opens as a cover, every section is a spread, every product is a clipping. It is also, unavoidably, my personal life: the apartment in Malibu, four months in Bangkok, a sandbank in Baa Atoll I still think about weekly, the gym in Lombok with one rusting dumbbell rack.
The rule
Nothing goes on this site unless I bought it, used it, and would buy it again. Not "tested for a week and it seems fine" — used until it ran out, then replaced. That rule is why some categories here are empty and will stay empty until I have something honest to say about them.
Where something was gifted, it says so on the page. Where a link earns a commission, it says so above the fold, not in the footer in six-point grey. And where I got something wrong, I go back and change it — the guides here are evergreen and dated, not published and abandoned.
How it makes money
Affiliate commissions, mostly. If you buy something through a link here, I may earn a percentage at no cost to you. I do not take payment for inclusion, for placement, for a ranking, or for an award. Those are different things and the difference is the whole site. The longer version is on the editorial standards page.
What’s coming
More best-of guides, the 2027 awards filling out category by category, a proper recipe index, and the map — which is the thing I am most looking forward to, because it turns four years of travelling into something you can actually click on.
If you want the short version once a week, The Weekly Best is one email: what I bought, what I sent back, and the one thing I would tell a friend.
