12 Beauty Buys With Serious Results — But One Really Big Catch

Getting everything you want all the time would be nice, but unless your name is Veruca Salt (and even she paid the price eventually), life is a series of trade-offs. You resist the urge to start a post-debate Facebook fight with your second cousin in order to maintain your sanity — and the peace at Thanksgiving. You buy a flight that departs at 5 a.m. because it's £150 cheaper than the rest. You hold your breath and slap on a mask that smells like hydrogen sulphide because nothing else gives you glowy, baby-angel skin quite like it.

Yes, we wish everything in our makeup bags and medicine cabinets smelled like roses and citrus and coconuts — or like nothing at all — but, sometimes, great results come by way of not-so-great-smelling ingredients (or packaging). Ahead, our editors share the beauty products with benefits that far outweigh their odours.