Calling this year tough is an understatement, and to cope many of us have turned to different things that make us feel in control, or in some way comforting. For some, it’s bread baking and cottagecore. For some, it’s investing in a Peloton and setting up their own home gym. And for some, it was really going back to the basics with our skincare routines and getting to the bottom of what really works.

While our 2019 acne awards were all about acne representation. This year, it was important for us to keep in mind the current state of the world. Instead of getting sent hundreds of products to test, we crowdsourced our winners from a survey completed by over 150 people (and relied on the expert advice of dermatologists Dr. Shereen Idriss, Dr. Joshua Zeichner and Dr. Papri Sarkar and cosmetic chemist Kelly Dubos to explain exactly what the ingredients in these products are supposed to do). The world truly doesn’t need any more excess, so we wanted to know what was already working for you in combating your acne and back that up with science. We narrowed down our list from 35 product winners, as adding more skincare products is almost never the solution, less is more when it comes to protecting our skin barrier. And finally, all of the products selected are under $75 as expensive skincare is not a necessity when it comes to being effective and with so many people losing their jobs, many have less money to spend on non-essential skincare.