Allure editors leave no stone—or compact, palette, or tube—unturned when determining our Best of Beauty Award winners. And considering the number of submissions we receive (this year’s count was around 5,500), you’d be correct to assume that doing so takes a whole lot of time and commitment.
But for you, dear reader, we’ll happily do it again and again—and we have, for 30 years. That little red seal you see on Best of Beauty-winning products has become synonymous with trust—and that’s something we take very seriously.
What else does our seal symbolize? Medicine cabinets overflowing with products, several dozen testers (and friends and family members of those several dozen testers), a whole lot of makeup remover, and an immense sense of pride.
We’re often asked “when” we start working on Best of Beauty. But the better question might be: When are we not working on it? Our decisions don’t happen overnight or in one long meeting. It’s a yearlong process that happens steadily, in the background, as we conduct interviews with experts, meet with brand founders, attend launch events, and pass face mists around the office. Even when the process is over, it’s not over—by the time the awards drop in the fall, we’re just about ready to open submissions for the following year.
We know, we know: That sounds unbelievable. But we’ve got the receipts. Ahead, discover an annotated timeline of our 2026 Best of Beauty testing process, along with some candid, behind-the-scenes moments that make this journey as fun for us to put together as we hope it is for you to read—and shop.
Mid-October 2025
We send out a call for the 2026 awards…
And brands answer. After posting an open call on social media inviting brands to submit their top products for Best of Beauty consideration, publicists and founders begin to complete our submission form.
Submissions fall into various categories such as skin, body, makeup, hair, and tools—plus niche categories like Clean and Breakthroughs (more on that later). We ask brands to submit any product, old or new, that they believe is a contender. The only condition is that it’s available for purchase in September 2026, when the awards are announced—and it can’t be a limited-edition launch (to ensure broad accessibility for winning products). For 2026, we received a whopping 5,568 submissions.
End of October
More than 5,500 products have been submitted, so there’s a lot of sorting to do.
We start organizing the submissions—exporting all the data, making spreadsheets…you know, the fun stuff.
Simultaneously, we begin reaching out to members of the Allure team to ask which categories they want to test, based on their hair and skin types, their makeup styles, etc. This part is always exciting. Some editors go wild for fragrance while others are skin-care fanatics, so this is a chance for everyone to really lean into their favorite beauty categories. Each category has at least three officially assigned testers (although plenty of other editors won’t hesitate to throw in their own opinions on formulas throughout the process).
Early November
We get really familiar with those spreadsheets.
Each editor receives a personal spreadsheet that includes a list of every category they’re testing and the products within it. (This year, we had 75 in-house testers). At this point, the feedback fields on each sheet are blank, ready for the editor to add detailed notes about each product as they test (and re-test). And we mean detailed. We want to know everything from how difficult a jar of moisturizer is to open to how a foundation holds up throughout the day.