I always forget something when I pack for a trip, and this time, it was a Davines product—which I spritz on damp hair to protect and glossify it—that got left behind. I was slightly bereft, as I couldn’t imagine another product doing the job quite as well. But I took a chance on this leave-in conditioner from Whole Foods, and I must say it’s kind of a miracle. It detangles brilliantly, and leaves my hair smooth and virtually frizz-free. And it doesn’t make your hair feel heavy and sticky, the way some leave-in conditioners can.

I have a ton of barely-used, abandoned lipsticks that I hang on to for way too long, thinking maybe I’ll come back around to liking some slightly wrong hue I’d previously forsaken. This almost never happens, but it did the other day, when I pulled this Bite Beauty lip color—the shade is called Mulberry—from the reject pile. It’s a rich color that goes on pinker than it looks like it would, and is kind of ideal for summer, as the matte formulation stays put on lips for—literal—hours. Only problem is that Bite Beauty has recently gone out of business—you can clean up on favorite products at Sephora, where they’re all marked way down—and the Mulberry shade is sold out both there and on the company’s website (where there are also big markdowns). I finally found one tube, on Ebay, but with shipping from Canada it’s $60, and I can’t quite abide that. But all of this has made me curious: what’s your favorite beauty product that disappeared, and to what lengths did you go to accrue more of it?

I’m having a particularly good hair moment, which is quite unusual occurrence for me, and especially so in the summer. I’ve got coarse, dry, frizzbo hair, and the humidity this time of year—especially out in Sag Harbor, where I am right now—plays hell with it. But I’ve come up with a regimen that really seems to be working lately, and it starts with this shampoo, which cleans without stripping hair of natural oils and drying it out.

I follow it with this conditioner, which is effective enough to feel like you deep conditioned, but doesn’t make your hair feel coated with gunk—even after you rinse—the way that can happen with some deep conditioners.

After towel drying with this, I spray probably more of this  All in One Milk than is probably recommended, and it detangles and  smooths hair, and also protects hair from the extreme heat of the blow dryer.

And here is my blow dryer. It is not cheap, but Dermstore often runs specials on it. It cuts down on drying time significantly, and is more smoothing than any blow-dryer I’ve tried.

As you might have noted, I am a newfound superfan of the brand Sachajuan, which I discovered at my hair salon. This stuff adds shine and smoothness but doesn’t make hair feel coated, as some serums can do.

I use a curling iron instead of a straightening iron to smooth out my hair once it’s dry, because they don’t do quite the damage that straightening irons can do. I’ve had this one for years, and it is lightweight and effective, and heats up fast.

My last step is this anti-humidity spray, which doesn’t feel tacky like hairspray sometimes can, and really seems to help matters