Wallpaper* Gift Guides: What beauty editor Mary Cleary has on her wishlist

I’ve always thought the mark of sophisticated adulthood was having a reliable roster of go-to things: a bottle of wine you always bring to dinner parties, a restaurant where everyone knows your name, a dish you can cook with your eyes closed. Despite the fact that I’m well into adulthood, I’ve achieved none of those things, but I have found a gift that I know everyone loves: a Loewe candle.

Their beautiful ceramic vessels and somewhat off-kilter botanical scents make them incredibly chic and an easy crowdpleaser. This year, the brand has released three new scents for the holidays: Black Sesame, Earl Grey, and Sweet Almond, which, in my opinion, are their best yet. The Black Sesame scent is particularly intriguing, with a rich, treacly, spicy character that makes you want to stay in the room forever.

In my early teens I read that Andy Warhol used perfumes as memory devices – wearing them for just long enough that they attached themselves to a particular moment of his life. Then, when he was feeling nostalgic, he’d go back, smell one and instantly be zapped back to that time. Since then, I’ve been switching up my perfumes on the regular because I’ve never been good at keeping a diary, and it turns out Warhol’s method works a treat.

Still, there are a few scents I love too much to relegate to one era of my life, and Celine’s Nightclubbing is at the top of the list. It smells like cigarettes, whisky and sweat with a touch of vanilla. Having it on makes me feel like I should be in black and wearing leather, just like the kids in former creative director Hedi Similane’s photographs.

If Nightclubbing is the nighttime fragrance I can’t part with, then Régime des Fleurs’ Himitsu Violets is the daytime one. I’m usually attracted to rich, tobacco-y scents and Himitsu Violets is none of that: it has a powdery, sweet smell, almost like Smarties candies, with a touch of leather and a strange synthetic element running throughout. It’s weird, but for some reason totally beguiling.

Last year, I visited Régime des Fleurs’ New York office to learn more about the scents in their collection (all of which are amazing) and immediately fell in love with this one. I fell in love with it even more when I found out that it was inspired by Japanese schoolgirls wearing latex suits under their uniforms – fun!

I only have a travel-sized vial of it left, and I've started saving it for days when I need an extra bit of luck because good things always seem to happen when I’m wearing it. Is it the perfume that causes the good things, or my attitude when I have it on? Who knows, but imagine how amazing 2026 will be if I get a full-sized bottle.

For months, I’ve been dreaming about owning a pair of heeled, knee-high, bright purple boots. I don’t know why this vision came to me, but I haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. So imagine how I felt when I was walking Bond Street recently and saw these in the Miu Miu store window. It was like running into your celebrity crush at a party, or King Arthur happening upon the holy grail during a walk through the woods – what are the chances?! These boots and I are obviously destined to be together, so someone please buy them for me for Christmas.

For most of my life, I’ve avoided white leather. It reminded me of the Brooklyn women I knew growing up who smoked Parliaments and enjoyed a glass of white wine with ice at noon. Fabulous, yes, but just not my style. Then, a few months ago, I was in Florence and happened upon a leather shop that was selling a long, white leather coat with a popped collar and big, round buttons. I tried it on, and suddenly I was like Monica Vitti or Romy Schneider – enigmatic, European, living in 1977. This was the woman I wanted to be!

So now I can’t stop buying white leather, and next on my list is this Acne Studios bag. It’s roomy enough that it can fit all the books, magazines, makeup, and backup shoes I like to bring with me wherever I go. It also has a lot of pockets, which is always handy.

I already have a Foreo Bear, but I feel like I need another one because this little device has totally transformed my skin. I use it for a few minutes every day, and it eliminates blackheads, reduces my pores, evens my skintone, brightens, tightens and generally makes me look better, something that is much needed as we enter holiday party season and the skin-destroying winter months.