The Best Mother's Day Gifts

After years of sleep deprivation, I don’t know a mom who wouldn’t want a gadget that gives her some glow back. A great LED face mask has consistently helped my skin glow more and recover from acne and scarring faster. The CurrentBody LED Face Mask Series 2 is our all-time favorite pick here on the WIRED team after we’ve tested many a mask. It packs three wavelengths—red (633 nanometers), near-infrared (830 nanometers), and deep near-infrared (1072 nanometers)—with 236 LED lights to blast those wavelengths at your skin. The soft, flexible mask is comfortable for daily sessions, and the straps make it easy to secure around your head and walk around the house without it falling off. The attached remote has a little clip too to clip it to your outfit. It's a great mask that you can't go wrong with.

Coffee and chocolate go together in every sense of the word. They grow in the same places, each is the seed of a tropical berry but is mysteriously called a bean anyway, and each is a rich little luxury that just about every mother I know seems to love. The past couple years for Mother’s Day, WIRED’s favorite coffee subscription, Atlas Coffee Club, has teamed up with boutique California chocolatier andSons to offer a lovely little batch of coffee and chocolate pairings. And so a roasty dark-roast Peruvian has its chocolate notes deepened by single-origin Madagascar chocolate, while a light and citrusy coffee from India pairs with a stunningly complex macadamia meringue made with Sicilian lemon. It’s six coffees from all over the world, and 12 bonbons, so each coffee gets two pairings: I used Aeropress to make my coffee, and found that each pairing made me love both the coffee and the chocolate a little bit better. Perhaps my favorite pairing of the bunch, by the way, was a honey-hibiscus-pomegranate bonbon, which brought out floral notes in that same complex Indian roast. Maybe I just like having an excuse to eat a rich, lovely piece of chocolate in the morning. But so would your mom. —Matthew Korfhage

If your mother (mother of your children, or beloved person in your life who is also a mother) is stressed about balancing everyone's schedules and to-do lists, this is the gadget for her. I've been surprised by how much I like the Skylight Calendar 2, a digital wall calendar that lets you see everyone's shared calendars, to-do lists, meal plan, and more all in one place. While it's called a wall calendar, most come with mounts so you can put them on a table or countertop, which is my preferred location. The Calendar 2 lets me chat with my husband about the week's plans without staring at our phones the entire time, and best of all it doubles as a digital photo frame when we aren't using it. It does have a paywall for the digital photo frame feature, though, so maybe have Dad buy the calendar and the kids buy a year's subscription ($79).

If the mom in your life loves keeping her makeup organized everywhere she goes, she will love the Parallelle Traveller cosmetic bag. It took career bag designer Annie Fan 60 iterations to realize her idea of a perfect makeup and toiletry bag, and it shows. The Traveller's thoughtful design and details are sure to impress anyone who has ever had to do their makeup in a car, gym, or hotel bathroom. Zip it open and the sides peel down like a banana to reveal a makeup caddy with up to 20 pockets in varying sizes. Zip it back up and it’s a sleek bag sturdy enough to toss into a tote or carry-on. The only difficult decision you’ll have to make is choosing from among the available four sizes and seven colors. —Kat Merck

What better gift for a mother than the Mother of All Pans? This 6-quart All-Clad has the broadest surface of any of All-Clad’s stainless steel pans—it is broader, frankly, than any pan I own—making this a big and versatile stainless steel pan for one-pot rice meals, short ribs, taco fillings, and entire breakfasts. All-Clad is, of course, the Pennsylvania company that invented tri-ply stainless steel, with an aluminum core that heats up fast and spreads heat evenly. They’re not cheap, generally, but they are prized for their durability and often passed down to the next generation of family. Until Mother’s Day, this Mother is a downright ridiculous 50 percent off. And given All-Clad’s reputation for lasting decades, giving this pan as a gift to your mother might mean it’s also a gift to you, and maybe even to your kids. —Matthew Korfhage

Moms love a great accessory, and if she’s looking for something more tech savvy or health-focused, a smart ring will check both of those boxes. Oura’s Ring 4 will track a ton of interesting stats, from heart rate and blood oxygen levels to sleep, and it has smart algorithms that can automatically detect and recognize what activities mom is doing. I find it the most interesting how Oura's smart rings can alert you about how your body is doing right now: One of my girlfriends knew she was pregnant, since Oura alerted her her body temperature had risen and stayed high, while another was alerted her body was “strained” after I dragged her to an aerial silks class I promised was easy (oops). The newer ceramic colorways of the Oura Ring 4 are downright dreamy and promise better resistance to scratches. If my husband is reading this, my favorite color is baby blue.

I love Drybar’s blow-dry brushes, and its multi-tool set is equally fantastic. It comes with four attachments: a concentrator, a round brush, a curler, and a flat iron. The combination of these makes it a great all-in-one device. I can blow-dry my hair with the concentrator until it’s dry enough to use the round-brush attachment for a blowout, or the curler attachment for more curls. I can also grab that same curler or the flat-iron attachment and use them with heat only, since the device gives you control over both heat and airflow. There are three settings for both of those, and you can turn one off if you want unheated air to dry your hair, or just heat and no air to style your hair. There's also a pause-play button that quickly pauses your session without fully turning it off, and you can hold it down to switch to heat-only mode to finish styling your hair after a blow-dry session. It's the device I'm always grabbing to style and dry my hair, and would make any mom's morning routine easier.

If you—or your mom—are a woman of a certain age, or live in a neighborhood with women of a certain age, you have seen someone walking around with a weighted vest. Along with eating your weight in grams of protein, the weighted vest is a rite of passage for newly minted middle-aged women. In fact, I’m surprised they aren’t assigned one at their annual physical when they turn 40. A form of resistance exercise, wearing a weighted vest is supposed to help stave off osteoporosis and the slow, inevitable decline into enfeeblement.

I have seen a lot of these vests, and rucking backpacks, and most of them are either made of smelly neoprene or have a clasp that fits inconveniently straight across the chest. The Spy Ruck is the best weighted vest I have ever used. It’s made just for women, designed by former CIA officer and GoRuck cofounder Emily McCarthy, and is not only small and manageable but has a clasp that fits up higher, so you don’t feel like you’re being cinched down like a mummy. The straps are nicely padded, the steel pellets inside won’t rust if the vest gets wet (yes, this happens on cheaper vests), and there are reflective stripes for increased visibility. You can choose from 8-, 12-, or 16-pound weights (aim for 10 percent of Mom's body weight; or your best guess, anyway) in five colors. I especially like that this vest is low-profile enough to wear out and about on errands without looking like you’re training for a tactical raid. —Kat Merck

I got these PJs as a gift and they’re one of my all-time favorite sets. It's extra lightweight since it's made from Tencel Modal, created from wood pulp and loved in bedding and clothes for its cooling properties. I find it lighter than my favorite bamboo pajamas, which I love as a hot sleeper. The long-sleeve and shorts combo keeps me cozy without getting too hot or needing to kick off all my sheets. The short-sleeve and shorts sets would also make a great gift with summer heat around the corner (and there are many more colors in that style right now).

These would make for a great companion gift to a hotel room for the night—getting a mom a night at a hotel by herself has been a much-talked-about gift in recent years. Put a printout of her hotel room stay with these comfy pajamas for a perfect sleepy getaway.

Something about motherhood makes me want to be crafty. I want to be able to personalize things for my kid, or put together perfect party favors or decorations. On my own, I’m not great at these things; I’m more of a digitally creative kind of gal. Christmas card designing and making a great Partiful invite are where my skills shine. However, Cricut helps me become an IRL crafter while using my digital skill set. I’m able to design something on the Cricut Design app, like a fun label for my son’s water bottle or cute letters for a party banner, and instantly print and cut them out to my exact request. I love using my Cricut with vinyl sticker paper ($35) to easily stick what I made onto whatever surface I want.

This tote from Yardsale is my must-have. I’m constantly using it, whether it’s to pack it to the brim for three different dance practices, stuffing it with all my son’s favorite bedding for his first red-eye flight, or just grabbing it for daytime outings because I know it can handle it. It has a magnetic snap that separates the bag’s main compartment in half, so you can have two large, separated pockets or one giant pocket, plus a couple of mesh pockets and a laptop sleeve inside. It’s waterproof, so it’s safe to bring to a pool day or the beach (or anywhere with my 3-year-old, because spills and water are inevitable). The drawstring closure also helps rein this bag in, making it feel smaller without limiting what fits inside. It’s a great bag any mom would love.

Moms are always prepared for everything—not always because they want to be, but because they have to be. When my very active son was younger, I carried around a bag the approximate size and weight of a small farm animal because I never knew when I might need bandages, tape, plastic bags, an entire lunch, or a change of clothes (for either of us). I needed—and still need—a multi-tool like the Leatherman, which comes with scissors, pliers, screwdrivers, tweezers, a bottle opener, and more. This is critical Mom equipment, but it’s also bulky and depressingly utilitarian. The Micra is only three-quarters of an inch long—small enough to fit on a keychain, but it still contains all the necessary tools, including scissors, screwdrivers, tweezers, and a knife. Best of all, it comes in 11 cute colors, including six new combos for summer, along with a 25-year warranty. —Kat Merck

If a regular tote isn't enough for your mom, maybe this Hulken bag will solve her needs. This oversize, folding tote bag is sturdy and roomy. It’s perfect for hauling in groceries, taking clothes to the thrift store, or bringing home books from the library. I’ve never had an issue with the wheels getting stuck or the bag tipping over. My only bit of advice is to remind Mom to periodically check on the weight of the bag—it’s easy to accidentally overstuff it. The bag is available in tons of patterns in three different sizes. I’ve also found it easy to clean. If Mom is always lugging stuff around, she’ll get a ton of use out of it. —Louryn Strampe