Presenting the Winners of Allure 's Best of Beauty Awards for 2018

Allure Executive Beauty Director Jenny Bailly introduces the 2018 winners of our esteemed Best of Beauty Awards and offers an inside look at our testing process.

Options are amazing. We love them. We’re grateful for them. And then, at a certain point, for-God’s-sake-just-tell-me-what-to-do-already. And that’s what Allure is for. That’s what the Best of Beauty process (and, believe me, it is a process) is all about. Over two billion new beauty products launched in 2018. OK, I made that up. But as The Beauty Expert (est. 1991), Allure receives almost every shampoo, lotion, serum, salve, shadow, balm, pencil, and polish that comes to the market, and I swear that number can’t be too far off. In the past few years, we have truly been overrun. Innovation is happening at a furious pace, niche brands are multiplying like cruelty-free rabbits, entire families are koming out with their own beauty kommodities (we won’t name names).

It’s a lot to take in, and it’s why we do what we do. It’s why our Best of Beauty process doesn’t involve just one editor swatching a few lipsticks on the back of their hand. It’s why we have five-person teams vetting products in dozens of categories for months, and panels of 10 staffers with 10 different skin tones testing every lipstick shade. It’s why we call cosmetic chemists for feedback until they contemplate changing their phone numbers. (But we will always find you, Ginger King and Ni’Kita Wilson... always.) By the end, we have winnowed down the deluge to the stuff that we really love, that we really use, that we really stand behind.

This year, we deemed 300 products worthy of a Best of Beauty Award, which sounds like a lot... until you remember that first estimate: 2 billion! So you can get right to the stuff you care about most, we divided the winners into categories: Base, Body, Eyes, Lips, Nails, Scent, Hair, Tools, Skin (including some of our top picks for sensitive types), Naturals (products that meet Allure's clean beauty standard), Breakthroughs (2018's most innovative, first-of-their kind launches), Steals (all under $10), and Splurges (some of our fanciest favorites). You'll find them all on our Best of Beauty homepage. Every product on every list has earned that red seal, a guarantee that you have found a really great — actually, the best — option.

And the winners of Allure's Best of Beauty Awards for 2018 are...

Best of Beauty 2018: Base

Best of Beauty 2018: Body

Best of Beauty 2018: Breakthroughs

Best of Beauty 2018: Eyes

Best of Beauty 2018: Hair

Best of Beauty 2018: Lips

Best of Beauty 2018: Nails

Best of Beauty 2018: Naturals

Best of Beauty 2018: Scent

Best of Beauty 2018: Sensitive Skin

Best of Beauty 2018: Skin

Best of Beauty 2018: Splurges

Best of Beauty 2018: Steals

Best of Beauty 2018: Tools