ELLE’s 2022 Future of Beauty Awards

Facialist Shani Darden incorporates LED when she’s treating clients like Jessica Alba and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley. Now, the benefits can be replicated on your couch with Shani Darden by Déesse’s PRO LED Light Mask, which has triple the number of lights as its direct competitors and is the strongest on the consumer market.

Customers using the Theragun massage tool on their faces and necks (to ease tense foreheads and jaws) is the origin story behind the TheraFace Pro, which has three face-safe percussive attachments plus cleansing, LED light, and microcurrent rings to lift, cleanse, and much, much more.

It took over a decade and 42 revisions before NuFace released an update to Trinity, its popular microcurrent device. Now named the Trinity+, the new tool comes with 25 percent more power and an app for a more precise lift and tone.

The Lyma Laser device combines red LED lights with a 500 milliwatt laser into a handheld anti-aging device that’s safe for all skin tones.

Giving one of Sephora’s top sellers a makeover? Brave. Ole Henriksen’s best-selling eye cream has a new name and an even better formula: the glow-inducing vitamin C that shoppers know and love is more potent than ever.

Glow Recipe also did the R&D to make its beloved facial-in-a-tub product more universally tolerated—but still as smoothing and brightening.

Japanese brand Decorté started researching liposomes (tiny vesicles that help kick-start the delivery of active ingredients to the skin) in 1984, later bringing to market the Moisture Liposome Serum in 1992. This year, the brand revised that technology for the first time in 30 years, releasing the Liposome Advanced Repair Serum, a gel formula made with ceramides that hydrates via time-release over 24 hours.

Ourself’s Lip Filler, complete with “subtopical” plumping technology, goes places typically only reachable by a dermatologist—by wrapping hyaluronic acid in a delivery system that infuses it deep into the skin.

Board-certified dermatologist and reconstructive skin cancer surgeon Antony Nakhla’s work with more than 10,000 skin cancer patients inspired Eighth Day’s Reparative Moisturizer. The PRP blend inside the thick cream also has proven skin-beneficial ingredients like resveratrol, CoQ10, and vitamins C and E to plump skin immediately but also deliver long-term hydration.

Shiseido’s Bio-Performance Skin Filler Serums work in tandem to deliver hyaluronic acid—the Night serum has a compacted version of the HA, and the Day serum triggers the molecule to expand, subtly adding volume.

The inaugural product by beauty industry veteran and e-retailer Thirteen Lune founder Nyakio Grieco took on one of the products women of color find the most challenging: mineral sunscreen. On top of being a truly universal mineral sunscreen formula (the secret for getting such a high SPF rating in boosters), it’s also your morning moisturizer, serum, and primer.

Soho House used its discerning clientele (which is of a certain age) as test dummies when it came to creating its skincare line. The results include the 24/7 Treatment, which works whether you get a full eight hours of restful sleep or a not-so-great four post-dance club. The overnight mask uses lactic acid and fermented ingredients to smooth with ATP—yes, the energy inside of cells—to help the skin function better.

In the post-Zoom world, patients are looking for new ways to enhance their unmasked faces. See: Juvéderm Volux XC, which is FDA-approved as the only hyaluronic acid filler to give you a more defined jawline.

AviClear by Cutera is the first FDA-cleared laser to treat acne by zapping sebum glands to produce less oil, which means fewer breakouts.

Having a stiff upper lip isn’t what you want when it comes to fillers. RHA Redensity smooths severe lines around the mouth with a breakthrough level of flexibility.

The Vivace Ultra offers the first-ever bespoke version of radiofrequency microneedling; each session starts with ultrasound photo mapping to create a custom program that includes optimal needle depth for each area.

Euphoria’s lead makeup artist Donni Davy reinvented liquid liner with the Half Magic Magic Flik Liquid Calligraphy Eyeliner Pen. Its paddle-shaped brush (rather than the usual cone) makes shaping a flick or wave super easy. (Trust us.)

Your body heat triggers YSL Beauty’s The Bold High Pigment Lipstick to create an ultra-vibrant effect. It subtly separates into two layers, invisible to the naked eye: Pigment remains on the bottom, while the oil rises to the top—and your lips become bold and glossy, just like that.

Vegan and cruelty-free brand Velour Beauty added “sustainable” to its résumé with the Plant Fibre Lash Collection. The lashes are made of 90 percent biodegradable hemp fibers and can be worn more than 20 times.

You may not have an identical twin to walk the Gucci runway with, but there’s probably somebody out there with similar coloring and skin type. Hue Twins, a collaboration between Hue and Credo Beauty, maintains a database of over 1,300 real people, so you can see what your beauty doppelgänger is buying from brands like Exa Beauty and more.

Lancôme Lash Anatomy, available at the brand’s counters across the nation, takes ultra-high-def photos of your eyelashes and grades them on stats like length, thickness, and density to help you find your best mascara.

Diversity in beauty doesn’t just mean releasing a line of 50-plus foundations; it’s also about welcoming consumers where they are in their journey. In 2018, actor Selma Blair announced that she’d been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, and this year joined Guide Beauty, helping to launch the Easy on the Eyes Brush Collection. The thoughtfully designed vegan makeup brushes are geared toward those with different levels of hand control. Each has a shorter, ergonomic handle that can be held in several ways.

Hesitant at-home manicurists and nail art pros alike will love the densely-packed brush that comes with the newly-launched Aprés Nail Gel Couleur kits; each one is handmade and densely packed to evenly distribute color in a single swipe.

While we would never—like, ever—suggest you take your makeup bag out into the desert, OTM gives you that option. All three of the bags are lined in a heat-resistant shield that’ll keep your lipsticks, vitamin C serum, and all other precious top-shelf routine items safe from high temperatures, no matter where you’re going.

For hair, colors like the glow of the Northern Lights or gleam of a scarab’s shell are now attainable with Colour Alchemy. The five holographic tints are triggered by heat and light, and work on many different hair shades—even dark ones.

Parfait combines artificial intelligence and the know-how of seasoned hairstylists to solve pain points in the wig-creation process. AI helps capture sizing, so a custom wig can arrive in less than a week, compared to the standard five weeks or more.

At Tracee Ellis Ross’ Pattern Beauty, the team noticed the need for products to support processed hair that’s phasing back to its natural texture, because breakage can happen as a strand goes from straight to coiled. The Transition Mask strengthens hair during this delicate time with white tea and manuka honey.

In 2018, Dyson debuted the Airwrap Styler, a combo hot tool and the first to harness the Coanda effect in a hair-curling device—using the law of physics to manipulate hair. It sold out almost immediately, and at one point had a 113,000-person waiting list. The version released this year, the Airwrap Multi-Styler, has enhanced that same technology, so the Airwrap can switch directions midstyle, as well as work on more hair types.

Forget the notion that shampoo needs to be stripping. This shampoo puts its patented molecule (named the K18Peptide, which reconnects the bonds that are broken in a strand of hair every time you dye, style, or every aggressively brush) back into hair so that each cleanse is a step toward shinier, healthier hair.

If your crunchy curls of the ’90s swore you of foam mousse forever—it’s time to give it another try. Queer Eye and Getting Curious‘s Jonathan Van Ness formulated their version of volumizing foam with hydrating hemi-squalane, so you’re getting lift and shine without hair feeling stiff.

This lightweight treatment caters to the little-addressed F layer, a three-nanometer area between the cells of the cuticle that must be hydrated for hair to look shiny. This leave-in, which should be used post-wash, has fruit extracts, the BLEU molecule (which will give you bond-building benefits), coconut fruit water, and sunflower seed oil.

Founder Babba Rivera was inspired by the important role that gel plays in Latinx community’s hair routine when it came to formulating her own version. But this one has an oil (we know, an oil and a gel seem like they wouldn’t mix) from the pequi, a Brazillian fruit, for a flake-free medium hold that adds shine to all hair types.

It took multiple revisions to perfect the water-based Dior J’adore Parfum d’eau, which uses a high-pressure nano-emulsion technique to give the purest aroma of uplifting orange blossoms sans alcohol.

Costa Brazil’s first fragrance, Aroma, is blended with a mixture of natural Amazonian notes that evoke the calming chemicals given off by trees—so wearing it feels like you’re wandering through a lush forest.

The industry continues to merge wellness and self-care with innovative new ingredients. The Nue Co. expanded its collection of functional fragrances with Water Therapy; a single spritz swaddles the wearer in a blend that evokes a day at the beach (and the serenity that comes along with it).

This fragrant blend of apricot kernel, grape seed, and meadowfoam seed oil locks into the skin and lasts all day.