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New York City's beauty scene is unlike any other in the entire country—the sheer density of nail salons, blowout bars, and Sephoras is enough to overwhelm even the most experienced YouTube tutorialist. It's a highly competitive market, and just for the fun of it, we've decided to compile a list of the absolute best.

After the jump you'll find our updated Beauty 38, a highly subjective rundown of the city's best beauty stores, spas, salons, and more. The ones who made the cut are all on top of their game in the beauty biz. We've done our best to include all elements of the terrain, so included you'll find the best places to get a bikini wax intermingled with independent fragrance boutiques.

To keep the list manageable, we've come up with some exclusions. Since there are simply too many hair salons to tackle, we've left off those that focus on cuts and color, but kept blowout bars. Barbershops were also removed (but here's a separate list of some great ones).

Single-brand retailers were only included if they're New York-centric (like Bond No. 9 and Obsessive Compulsive Cosmetics) or have a huge following (Nars and M.A.C., et al). But fear not: just about all of the independent beauty brands you'd want to shop can all be found at other stores on the list, like the beauty floors at Barneys, Saks, and Bergdorf, or places like Space NK and Shen.

Without further ado, let's get to it. And oh, if you disagree, let us know in the comments or via email to ny@racked.com.