Christine: Hey, it's Christine. If you read Wire Cutter, you probably know that our writers test a ton of products. Thousands of products, in fact, each year from tech gadgets to home goods to everyday essentials. And of those many, many products, sometimes we find absolute gems, things that we just talk to our friends and family about, the things we say you got to get. And we actually recently launched an award for this type of recommendation, our best new Pix Awards, which highlights the best things we tried over the past year, the new things our writers are loving, the things they just are gushing about non-stop. This episode, we're going to hear from some of our staff members about the particularly delightful, surprising, and useful things they tried this past year. And if you're curious about the full list, which includes over 70 products, we'll link to those in the show notes. Stick around. We'll hear from our staffers after the break.

Christine: We're back and now we'll hear from some Wire Cutter staff members about the items they tested this year that they really, really loved. These are part of our best new picks awards. Enjoy.

Britney Hoe: My name is Britney Hoe. I am a supervising editor on the newsletters and programming team and I am very much obsessed with my Shark Cryoglow LED face mask. I will say from the jump it's like slightly terrifying. Like you strap it on, it looks like a hockey mask and lights start glowing and it starts like worrying a fan. It can be kind of scary at first glance, but it feels like so so so incredible to use. It's the best 5 minutes of my night every single night easily.

Britney Hoe: The fit is really really comfortable. It's a hard shell mask, so it has these straps that you can kind of connect behind your head and make it so that it fits snug, will never slip and slide. I really like that it hovers just over my face rather than directly touching it like other masks, so I never have to worry about any breakouts. The mask also has these cooling eye pads that come in direct contact with your under eyes that feel so incredible. It's like you're at a spa and somebody just cut fresh cucumbers from the fridge and laid it over your eyes. I love doing it in the morning um right before applying makeup so that it's a perfectly deeppuffed canvas or at the end of the day after I've spent 8 hours staring at screens. It can just feel like really really refreshing. But probably the most important part is that I've just noticed a really big difference in my skin since I've used it over the past 6 months. It has red, blue, and infrared lights that penetrate the skin. And since I've started using it, I've really noticed that my texture has really smoothed. My overall tone has gotten brighter when I have acne. The breakouts heal faster. And in general, I've noticed that I've stopped getting these really painful acne breakouts since I've started using it. So, the whole thing just feels so luxe. I really enjoy the time that I use it every single night. And yes, it's definitely pricey, but in my mind, totally worth the investment.

Mitch Moxley: Hi, my name is Mitch Moxley. I'm a senior writer covering men's style and I'm here to recommend the Ellis suit by Spear and McKay. Spear McKay is an online only retailer in Canada and they're really well known in the menswear community for offering really nice, well-tailored suits at a reasonable price. If you have a budget of about $500 and you're looking to buy a new suit, this is where I'd recommend you start. The Ellis line is part of their core line at Spear and McKay. And they are a very classic looking suit with a nice wide lapel, slightly padded shoulders, slim but not skinny fitting, and really lovely proportions. The one I tested was made of 100% marino wool that felt very luxurious, especially for a suit at this price. This suit comes in a ton of different colors, so you're bound to find one that works for you. And there are a lot of nice structural design flourishes on these suits that you just don't find at this price range, including half and full canvas options for the jacket. A half and full canvas means that there's a canvas interlining running down the front of the jacket and it helps for shape and longevity and it's really something important that you want to look for in a suit whether it has good half canvas or full canvas lining and these suits have it and it's the type of suit that's just never going to go out of style. It should last you a really long time if you take care of it. So Spear McKay Ellis suit, it's a great pick and you can't go wrong.

Kathleen Squires: Hey, it's Kathleen Squires, writer on the kitchen team. The Pyrex Ultimate 10piece glass storage set is one of my best new picks. These food storage containers are made entirely of glass with glass and silicone lids. So, they're a great option for anyone who's trying to reduce plastic in their kitchen. I also like their minimalist look and that their lids are easy to suction on and peel off with a convenient pull tab. They nest and stack really well, keeping my kitchen organized, and they're available in various shapes and sizes. They're great for reheating as you can pop them in the oven and microwave, and they're equally handy in the freezer. We didn't encounter a lick of freezer burn during our tests. Of all the containers we tested, these were the best at defying odors. They're particularly sturdy and durable, too, standing up to our drop test without breaking. and they didn't scratch or chip during use. But my favorite thing about them, they're easy to clean as they're entirely dishwasher safe.

Lauren Dragon: Hi, I'm Lauren Dragon, senior staff writer covering personal audio. And my pick nomination was the Sony WHh1000 XM6, which is a really long name, I know, but they're basically Sony's flagship headphones. And the reason that I recommend them is because, first of all, they're super comfortable. You wear them all day. They're lightweight. They won't give you a headache. They're just comfy. Secondly, excellent noise cancellation. Some of the best we tested. Third, amazing sound quality. They just sound really good. And also, they have microphones that are very, very, very good at reducing background noise. So, you know, I tested right near traffic and you could not hear cars going by, sirens, things like that. So, they're excellent for things like if you have to take a phone call and you have to step outside. Aside from that, they just have a lot of little details to them that make them a joy to use. You know, you can put a palm to the ear cup and turn on awareness mode briefly for a conversation. You can nod or shake your head to accept or decline calls. So, there's just a lot of things about them that make them headphones that do what you hope headphones will do. and they're one of the sets that people will come up to me and say, "I got these because you recommended them and I love them." That's usually a pretty good sign. So, I hope that you love them as much as I do.

James Austin: Hi, I'm James Austin, a staff writer covering games and hobbies for Wire Cutter. Just One is a pick in our guide to party games that we published late last year. And it's a fantastic pick because it's very good at getting multiple generations, multiple people who are to have different experience at board games and have different interests all together at a table all talking at the same time. So the way the game works is there's a clue that you're trying to get a person to guess. Everybody who is not the guesser puts down little hints on whiteboards that they keep secret from each other and then compare with each other. If anybody has written down the same thing to try to get the guesser to guess the word, then those clues are eliminated and only the clues that are different remain. It's a really great way to have a little bit of a connections like experience for the guesser as they're trying to ascertain sort of what the similarities between all these disparate clues are. And it's a good challenge for the clue givers because you're trying to put something that will actually get your guesser to the right place, but not so obvious that somebody else has written the same thing. It's a really fun puzzle. It's uh great for a bunch of different age ranges and uh is probably the easiest game to set up and explain that we recommend. It's really great.

Maxine Builder: Hi, I'm Maxine Builder and I'm the deputy editorial director here at Wire Cutter. I've owned Yamazaki Home's magnetic storage organizer since 2022 and it honestly looks as good as the first day I got it. It's basically just this like perfect little extra shelf that you can stick on any magnetic surface. And I love how versatile it is, even going from space to space. In my apartment in Brooklyn, I loaded it up with a ton of coffee stuff like filters and beans and even a mocha pot at one point. I now live in Boston and I still use it. It's where I keep all my vitamins and supplements. And because it's stuck just right on my fridge, I never forget to take them, which is another benefit. I am just so endlessly impressed by how sturdy it is. It feels so It just feels rock solid. And the magnet just doesn't slip down no matter how much I load this little shelf up. And in all my years of testing and writing about products, I just think everything Yamazaki Home does is so simple yet clever. And this is just truly no exception. It's such a great little thing to maximize your counter space or just make a little extra space in an area that's just tight.

Andrea Barnes: I'm Andrea Barnes and I cover dishwashers and laundry. I really love our new pick Stingray Spot Remover, which is a clear and odorless spray-on spot remover, which removes all kinds of stains. It's great for wine. It's great for touchup. It's great for soy sauce. And one of the things that makes it particularly awesome is that it's really easy to blot out of both carpets and clothing. So that is really what made it rise to the top. We test so many stain removers every year and this one was able to take out some really old stains in carpets and shirts and it's a family operated company and made in Las Vegas.

Brent Butterworth: Hi, I'm Brent Butterworth. I am the senior staff writer in charge of home audio coverage. And for our best new Pix Awards for 2026, my top pick was the Scit R300 CD player. When I bought it, I was just looking for an easy way to play my CDs, but I ended up using and enjoying this player a lot more than I expected to. It's got a Bluetooth transmitter, so you can stream the CD sound to Bluetooth speakers and headphones. And you can also hook it up to sound bars and wired headphones and old school stereo systems and probably anything you have around to listen. It's got a rechargeable battery that runs about 9 hours, so you don't have to keep swapping out batteries like we used to have to with the old portable CD players. And um in our technical evaluations that we did, it was the best we tested that was, you know, in the roughly $100 price range. So, it's a it's a really good player. If you have a bunch of old CDs you want to play, or if you're like me and you like uh supporting bands by buying their CDs, the R300 is a great buy.

Zoe Vanderweed: Hi, I'm Zoe Vanderweed. I'm a senior staff writer covering style and accessories. My best new pick of the last year is the Gap vintage soft sweats. These sweats come in both men's and women's sizes. They come in lots of different cuts and styles. We especially like the men's joggers and the women's high-rise relaxed joggers. Both of these are just really easy, classic styles. It's nothing too exaggerated, just relaxed, comfortable, very mix and matchable with, you know, other sweat clothes or other things in your wardrobe. What's so great about these is one, they're incredibly soft. They're made from a really snuggly, touchable fleece material that feels cozy yet still light. It's not bulky or heavy at all. They come in different inseam lengths, which is not the norm necessarily for sweats. So, this, you know, allows them to fit at just the right length on a wider variety of people, which we love. And they're affordable. Sweats can be surprisingly, off-puttingly expensive. But these are listed at like 60 bucks, and Gap has frequent sales, so you can often get them at an even better price. And to be honest, they feel on par with a lot of the more expensive things that we tested. That's why we love them.

Jen Sullivan: Hi, I'm Jen Sullivan, the senior editor on the beauty and personal care beat. My favorite new wire cutter pick of the year is Censey Bio. It's a MyIcellar water from the French brand Bioderma. I've known about it for years. I've seen it in makeup artist kits when you're on a photo shoot and things like that. So, when we put together a panel to test myicellar waters and makeup removers, I was really curious to see like, is this going to live up to the hype? Let me tell you, it does. So, I personally use it to remove those last bits of eyeliner that the cleanser never seems to remove, but you can use it to remove water resistant sunscreen or to wash your face in a pinch and then you don't have to rinse it off afterwards. But unlike some other myicellar waters we tried and tested, this one wasn't irritating at all and sensitive skin and it was really good at removing waterproof makeup more easily than the others. After we wrote the story about myellar water, I was interviewing an independent product formulator. was for another story on French pharmacy skincare, but she told me she actually used the Bioderma as the benchmark when she was trying to create a MyIc myellar water for another brand and she never was able to match how effective it was and how gentle it was. So, she actually didn't even make the other myicellar water. So, knowing that experts think it's the best and then all of our testers loved it and that it's great for my super sensitive skin, it just confirms best new pick status for me for sure.

Ben Fman: Hey there, this is Ben Fman, Wire Cutter's editor-in-chief, and I am here to tell you about my absolute favorite wire cutter pick. It's a lamp. Uh, I guess it's a serviceable tablet stand, too. But look, more fundamentally, my favorite wire cutter pick is a deceptively simple symbol of impossibly complex and destabilizing truths. A physical manifestation of the This is fine meme dog. An all too real tribute to the unfathomable weight that bears down upon each of us as we grapple with the unknowable underpinnings of our existence. And yet, my favorite wire cutter pick is also an amusingly affirming reminder that when we stare into the hideously frightening maw of meaninglessness at the heart of so much of modern life, the sest, the healthiest response is a goodnatured chuckle. Also, it's a duck. Yes. Yes. My favorite wire cutter pick is a duck lamp that we recommend as a terrific gift. Now, this duck lamp, this this is not a happy duck. He's not well. He's laying on his side. And if you look at him, you'll see the duck is going through it. The duck just can't. But the duck still does. He's lying there passively, calmly, as the trivial outrages of work and life rain down upon him. And this little desk's top companion, he actually makes me feel great because the fact that he's a duck and look, quite a cute little duck. Check out his adorable hairdo. He makes the depressing realities at the heart of his appeal seem like a delightful joke. When you look at him, I mean, he's a duck. Smile, laugh. He brings a little bit of joy, a little bit of delight to the tougher moments of every workday.

Christine: Thanks to all our staff who shared the best new picks. And if you're curious, there are so many other recommendations on this awards list, from beauty products to office gear to kitchen equipment. We'll link to the full list in our show notes. Thanks for listening. Bye.