The 2024 Most Powerful Beauty Brands

These brands are all over 15 years old – but the bloom is still very much on the rose, thank you. They embody the principles of long-term success and have laid the groundwork for continued relevance with an always-on approach to innovation and an understanding of beauty’s ever-evolving landscape.

Driven by its cult favorite Perk Up Dry Shampoo, Amika is a powder keg in the prestige hair care market. The 14-year-old stock keeping unit is the number-one dry shampoo in prestige hair in the U.S., helping to make Amika one of the fastest share gainers in the category and the sixth-largest brand overall. It’s also increasing its presence in the professional market, adding hundreds of points of sale this year in the salon world. No wonder searches are up 40 percent, according to Spate. But Amika is much more than a one-hit wonder. Its Soul Food mask is a Sephora bestseller, while the entire range took home CEW’s excellence in sustainability award for 2023.

Leave it to an OG indie to show the young guns how it’s done. Anastasia Beverly Hills, one of the earliest brands to harness the power of Instagram, has shown it’s no one-trick pony. This year, it’s effectively tapped into the TikTok generation, too, boosting its EMV by 30 percent in the first five months of 2024 to $155.6 million, according to CreatorIQ. (That’s on top of a 27 percent year-over-year increase for the six months prior.) Break those numbers down by platform, and the brand’s TikTok presence grew 263 percent year-over-year, driven by a new generation of content creators who are clamoring for the brand’s on-trend, industry leading launches like Beauty Balm Serum Boosted Skin Tint and Lip Velvet Liquid Lipstick.

Has there been a more viral beauty campaign in the last year than CeraVe’s hilarious Super Bowl spot with actor Michael Cera, which drove a 12,000 percent spike (no, that’s not a typo) in engagement according to Trendalytics? Indeed, its numbers are superlative: CeraVe is the number-two skin care brand in the mass market, according to Circana, the number-three share gainer and the number-four beauty business overall. And while its cleansers may have first propelled it to prominence, CeraVe is quickly becoming known for its well-rounded lineup, winning industry honors for its acne and sunscreen products, too.

It makes sense that Chanel was the first-ever fragrance brand to tap the Sphere, the Las Vegas landmark that opened in 2023, with a 90-second activation for the No. 5 L’eau. The brand is a perennial prestige powerhouse, the top-ranked beauty business in the U.S., according to Circana, with three scents occupying the second, fifth and sixth spots in the top 10. (Ulta Beauty reports that Bleu de Chanel, Chance and Coco Mademoiselle are all bestsellers in its aisles.) It’s also the second largest fragrance brand by media impact value, according to Launchmetrics. But that’s not to say makeup and skin care are given short shrift. The brand has been doubling down on research and development at its five global innovation centers, including in France, the U.S., Japan, Seoul and Shanghai, and named three hot young makeup artists to its Cometes Collective to help drive creativity and innovation in cosmetics.

Classic never goes out of style — no wonder Clinique maintains its top spot in the rankings year after year with a consistency that has become the envy of competitors. Ranked first in skin care and second in makeup in prestige beauty, and the second largest brand overall in the U.S., Clinique has successfully updated its tried-and-true heroes for today’s target consumers. The TikTok generation can’t get enough of Black Honey, launched in 1971, which is a bestseller at Ulta beauty, as is Moisture Surge, which debuted in 1988. Engagement figures back up the sales: Trendalytics reports TikTok engagement is up 286 percent, with the classic 3-step routine garnering 27 million posts on the platform.

Dior may have a bestselling bag called Lady Dior, but its prowess with men is nothing to sneeze at, either. Its men’s Sauvage fragrance franchise has a veritable lock on the top-selling fragrance spot in the U.S., and its popularity shows no signs of waning. (Dior is also the world’s largest fragrance brand for 2023, reports Euromonitor.) Sauvage’s social engagement rose 1,033 percent last year per Trendalytics, and collectively, Dior was the top fragrance brand by earned media value according to CreatorIQ, and the seventh largest brand overall in that metric. In terms of sales, Dior is the third biggest prestige business in the U.S., according to Circana, driven not just by its strength in scent but also by perennially popular products like Lip Glow Oil (a bestseller at both Sephora and Ulta Beauty) and the Capture Totale skin care franchise.

The number-one mass beauty business in the U.S., Dove continues to soar above the competition with a combination of purpose, innovation and effective products. It is the top-ranked skin care brand, per Circana, and the number-six hair care brand overall. Globally, its hair care business is the fifth largest in terms of sales, as per Euromonitor. Deodorants are a strong suit, too, and the brand has led the charge with the whole-body approach. From the men’s category to body care to baby and beyond, Dove’s products are resonating as its Campaign for Real Beauty feels particularly apropos now, as we enter the age of AI. This year it celebrated the 20^th anniversary of the campaign with a global study encompassing 33,000 people assessing the state of beauty, a guide to using AI and a vow to never use AI to create or distort women’s images. Keeping it real indeed.

Power Grip is a suitable name for one of E.l.f.’s hero products, because the brand’s status as the largest and fastest growing indie brand at mass shows no signs of waning. It has been the top-share gainer in mass beauty overall this year (gaining market share for the fifth year in a row), Circana reports, and the number-two makeup brand. It has seemingly mastered the art (and science) of going viral: Its collab with Liquid Death, for example, drove over 9,500 percent brand page traffic on social media, and its overall social engagement increased 90 percent in 2023 according to Trendalytics. The brand’s performance helped parent company E.l.f. Beauty reach over $1 billion in net sales for its fiscal year 2024, a 77 percent increase, and Wall Street can’t get enough of the 20-year-old company. As of press time, its stock price hovered in the $218 range, almost double its price from early January.

The world’s largest beauty brand shows no signs of relinquishing its position anytime soon. A powerhouse in the U.S., where it ranks first in hair, third in makeup and second overall, it stays consistently on the cutting edge of both trend and innovation, not an easy feat. Lumi Glotion is a veritable powerhouse, with one sold every 20 seconds, according to Nielsen; Panorama Volumizing Mascara has almost 1,000 five-star reviews on Ulta.com (and superstar ambassador in Kendall Jenner) and the newest member of the family, the ColorSonic Hair Color Device, launched this year, looks poised to change at-home hair color forever.

Forty years young this year, MAC is surging, the top prestige makeup brand in the U.S. and globally, according to Circana. Sure, the brand is benefiting from the nostalgic renaissance of ‘90s hits like matte lipstick and Spice lipliner, but it’s the very up-to-date products like MACStack Mascara and Locked Kiss Ink Liquid lip color that are garnering awards from the likes of CEW and Allure respectively. And social media savants love it, too, with MAC the fourth largest beauty brand by EMV overall according to CreatorIQ. Sure, those numbers are impressive. But perhaps most impressive of all is the $500 million — and counting — raised by MAC’s ongoing Viva Glam campaign, beauty’s original purpose-driven initiative which is celebrating its 30^th anniversary with the goal of hitting the $1 billion mark.

Sure, Maybelline New York, the world’s largest color cosmetics brand according to Euromonitor and America’s largest mass makeup brand, knows how to bat a lash — can anyone else hold a candle to its dominance in the mascara category? — but it’s also proved its appeal is much more than skin deep. Maybelline’s Brave Together initiative to support those with anxiety and depression, created in 2020, continues to gain global traction with its support of nongovernmental organizations worldwide, efforts that were highlighted in a four-part BBC documentary series. Still, the brand has its eye on the prize, winning two Allure Best of Beauty honors for Shadow Blocks Palette and The Falsies Mascara.

It’s one thing for indies like E.l.f. or Olive & June to gain share in the mass market. It’s another for a brand like Nyx, almost 25 years old, to continue to post substantial gains. Yet that’s just what it did this year, nabbing a spot as one of the three top share gainers in the mass market makeup category. The brand has perfected the art (and science) of virality, with hit products like Duck Plump High Pigment Plumping Lip Gloss, Fat Oil Slick Click (the top-selling lip oil in the U.S.) and Face Freeze Cooling Primer + Moisturizer. Its social media standings bear out its prowess. Nyx is the third-ranked beauty brand by EMV, according to CreatorIQ, earning over $460 million in EMV. Moreover, broken down, it’s clear that Nyx is succeeding across platforms,  increasing its impressions on Instagram by 24 percent, TikTok by 80 percent and YouTube by 27 percent.

Parent company Kenvue may be in a state of transition, having just completed its carve-out from Johnson & Johnson, but that doesn’t seem to have had an adverse impact on Neutrogena, which sat solidly in the spot as the third-largest brand in mass beauty overall and the third-largest skin care brand. While it’s not a social media standout, Neutrogena has nailed product-solution products, enabling it to leverage its history as a derm favorite. Built on key pillars like sunscreen, the retinol-based Rapid Wrinkle Repair and HyrdroBoost, Neutrogena continually ups the ante on innovation, as with its latest franchise Stubborn geared toward acne-prone and uneven skin. And one thing is clear why Neutrogena remains steadfast in its approach to healthy skin: it flexes with the best of them when it comes to keeping current with changing consumer mores.

Sure, Tarte generates equal parts buzz and backlash with its high-flying creator trips to exotic locales like Dubai that seem to have divided the internet. But dig deeper into the numbers and its clear: By sticking to its vision and its unique place in the beauty-verse, Tarte is not just building buzz — it’s building an ever-bigger business. The third-largest makeup brand in the prestige market, according to Circana, Tarte is also the eighth-largest beauty business overall in the U.S., with its Shape Tape concealer the top franchise across categories at Ulta Beauty. (Can its Maracuja Juicy Lips be far behind?) Sticky, indeed.

Yves Saint Laurent Beauté has always been in the business of creating icons (see Opium and Touche Eclat, to name just two.) But this is not a brand inclined to rest on its laurels. Instead, it’s constantly reinventing, rethinking, revolutionizing, creating new heroes for the modern age. Take Myslf, the top share gainer in prestige fragrance, a bestseller at Ulta and the winner of the Fragrance Foundation’s Men’s Prestige fragrance of the year. But it was no one-hit wonder. Black Opium search volume increased by 132 percent according to Trendalytics, while Y Homme is a top-10 prestige fragrance in the U.S. YSL’s success extends beyond fragrance, though, with a makeup business that is on fire, particularly Loveshine Lip Oil Stick and Candy Glaze Lip Shine and Butter Balm. But sweetest of all? YSL’s social media stats: Ranking ninth overall with almost $400 million in EMV, YSL had the largest year-over-year change of any brand, posting a 175 percent increase. Shine on.

At least five years old, these brands have blossomed in a fast-paced, ever-evolving beauty landscape. Now in full flower, where they go, others follow. While many began as indies, some have become branches of larger corporations, but they all share common ground: a breakthrough spirit that has defined the modern age.

In its quest to become a 1 billion-euro brand, Charlotte Tilbury is well on its way. The Puig-owned makeup powerhouse — the fifth largest in the prestige market in the U.S., per Circana, and ninth-largest prestige beauty business overall — extended its prowess into heady new territory, fragrance, this year. The brand debuted a collection of six neuroscents, developed with IFF, that build on Tilbury’s long-held desire to create mood-enhancing fragrances. That launch, along with others, help set the internet on fire. Even as CreatorIQ’s second largest beauty brand by EMV, it’s still gaining steam, with Trendalytics reporting engagement online up 93 percent. Charlotte Tilbury is the fourth-largest makeup brand globally, per LaunchMetrics, with MIV hitting $209.5 million. The industry is taking note of its success in cosmetics, with multiple products in its Pillow Talk franchise garnering Allure Best of Beauty Awards last year, and a WWD Beauty Inc Award for Makeup Category Builder of the Year.

Wow, indeed. Prestige hair care’s seventh-largest business in the U.S. is also the market’s top share gainer. The brand is the second grand slam for founder Gail Federici, who built John Frieda Professional Hair Care into an asset with a $450 million price tag at the time of its 2002 acquisition by Kao Corp. Adapting well to today’s digital age, though, Federici’s latest is the 10^th largest hair care brand by EMV, according to CreatorIQ, with Google searches up 60.5 percent, per Spate. Trendalytics also reports social engagement has climbed 84 percent, driven by ColorWow’s hero Dream Coat Spray, and its famous fans. Celeb hair stylist Chris Appleton regularly demonstrates the product’s performance on Jennifer Lopez, who joins brand fans including Amal Clooney, Kim Kardashian and more. The business is hardly a one-product wonder, though, with its volumizing mousse snaring an Allure Best of Beauty Award last year.

Long before the latte makeup craze, there was Drunk Elephant’s D-Bronzi Drops. One of TikTok’s original viral skus, the Shiseido-owned beauty brand was also a pioneer in nabbing younger consumers, who love the format — its B-Goldi Bright Drops grew the brand’s engagement by nearly 3,000 percent. Total social engagement for the brand is up 28 percent, by the same metric. Drunk Elephant’s first category, skin care, is still a bright spot for the brand, with the Bouncy Brightfacial winning an Allure Best of Beauty award. While Drunk Elephant helped spark the so-called “Sephora tween” phenomenon of the first half of the year in the U.S., its appeal is universal, with Shiseido reporting significant year-over-year sales in its annual results.

Dyson may make building a beauty division look breezy. But the brand’s success is built on hundreds of millions of pounds in investments and decades of research, which have culminated in a bustling assortment of products that defy the traditional notions of what a hair dryer, straightener or curler can do. Consumers are taking note, with growth on TikTok as supercharged as the new Nural hair dryer, which features a network of sensors to enhance shine and protect the scalp. On a weekly basis, its TikTok views grow nearly 27 million views, according to Trendalytics. Dyson has no intention of slowing down, having announced in 2022 that it would invest 500 million pounds to develop 20 new products in the category and open beauty research labs to support that pipeline.

With its Olympics and Paralympics partnership, Rihanna’s Fenty is going for the gold — literally. After resetting the celebrity beauty paradigm with its 2017 launch — and 500 million euros of sales in its first year alone — the brand is on the upswing again, having become the third-largest share gainer in prestige beauty in the U.S. and the second-largest share gainer in prestige makeup, Circana reports. Outside of makeup, Fenty eau de parfum is a Sephora bestseller, while the June launch of Fenty Hair drove a 770 percent spike in the parent brand’s engagement across categories. According to CreatorIQ, it’s the fifth largest beauty brand by EMV. (“We’re off to a great start,” wrote the superstar herself on @Badgirlriri, which counts a whooping 150 million followers, as she reposted a trove of user-generated content.) Shine bright like a diamond.

Long before athletes were the beauty ambassadors du jour, Glossier partnered with the WNBA, a partnership it renewed this year and culminated in a revamp of the Tompkins Square Park basketball courts in New York. Glossier has always been willing to rewrite the rules of the game — from forging one of the first direct-to-consumer brands to expanding into retail on its own terms. Granted, the brand struggled during the pandemic. But the buzz was considerable when it launched in Sephora, and business followed suit, with first-year sales expected to hit $100 million. Overall retail sales for Glossier rose 73 percent in 2023, including its own distribution, with sources saying sales were expected to reach $275 million. And in an age of hero products, Glossier’s success was well spread out, with foundation, fragrance and even deodorant garnering strong support from consumers. No surprise it has expanded further abroad, including Space NK in the U.K. and Mecca in Australia, all the while increasing its own fleet as well.

Things are looking peachy at Glow Recipe, which closed 2023 with $300 million in retail sales. Cofounders and co-chief executive officers Sarah Lee and Christine Chang have struck the balance between core and newness, with its bestselling Watermelon Glow range of drops and a toner swelling 2,500 percent in engagement, per Trendalytics. Searches are up nearly 120 percent, according to Spate, and the brand is stretching consumer desire into new avenues of growth. Glow Recipe entered Mexico via Sephora earlier this year, and expanded on key formats — serums and toners — with the launch of tinted Hue Drops, as well as its Cloudberry Bright Essence Toner. Its new lip gloss won an Allure Best of Beauty Award, while the brand also was WWD Beauty Inc’s Skin Care Category Builder of the Year in 2023. Fruitful, indeed.

From launching the brand on Amazon nearly a decade ago, to beautifying a utilitarian product, acne patches, in one of skin care’s more staid categories, Hero Cosmetics is a first adopter in more ways than one. (It’s a top beauty seller on Amazon.) Also on its list of firsts, Hero tapped Alix Earle as its debut ambassador earlier this year, and has taken its brand equity to new territories, such as the launches of cleansing and hydrating balms. Though founder Ju Rhyu has transformed Hero into a bonafide beauty powerhouse, most of its customers still enter through its Mighty Patch, with the majority coming back to opt in for a fuller routine. And if that’s not a hero product, we don’t know what is.

Mielle Organics is no stranger to breaking the mold. Among 2023’s fastest-growing hair care brands in the mass market, Mielle found success with stars like its Rosemary Mint franchise. The brand has since parlayed that staying power into purpose. As a part of its acquisition by Procter & Gamble last year, both parties donated $10 million to Mielle Cares, its nonprofit that is geared toward boosting the mental resilience and overall well-being of teens. Mielle has also homed in on athletic partnerships, starting with the WNBA in 2023 and bringing on two brand ambassadors — A’ja Wilson and JuJu Watkins — who join Angel Reese and college swimming, diving and cheer teams.

Milk Makeup is having a moment. The makeup brand’s Cooling Water Jelly Tints amassed a 60,000-person waitlist before stock even hit shelves, and sold out within 24 hours of its launch. Three months and 400,000 sold units later, the brand is still going strong on TikTok, a key growth driver. Meanwhile, Milk’s Hydro Grip Hydrating Makeup Primer shows no signs of loosening its stronghold on the primer category, and its collab with Reebok, which got an expanded reboot earlier this year, has been a runaway success, too. While parent company Waldencast has struggled due to accounting issues with sister brand Obagi, the bottom line is that Milk, which is outperforming the market over fourfold, is not only alive and well, it’s kicking, increasing its fiscal-year revenue 39 percent to $100.5 million.

One of the mass market’s newer entrants is dominating the market — and doing so across categories. Now part of the P&G family, Native has expanded its hero status beyond its cult-favorite deodorant to become the second-largest share gainer in mass beauty in the U.S., and the top share gainer in both skin care and hair care, per Circana. According to the firm, it’s also the 10th-largest beauty brand in the mass market overall. It’s still popular as ever in its original category, with its latest deodorant spray winning an Allure Best of Beauty Award.

Everything is coming up roses for Sol de Janeiro, which has parlayed its cheekily named debut stock keeping unit into a tri-axis heavyweight. The brand’s body mists have spawned dozens of imitations after they grew that category threefold in prestige beauty last year. Currently, Sol de Janeiro is the top share gainer in both skin care and beauty overall, as well as the sixth-largest prestige skin care business, said Circana. The myriad hair and body fragrance mists are bestsellers at Sephora and Ulta Beauty, the latter of which the brand joined at the top of the year. Social engagement grew 58 percent while Google searches swelled nearly 20 percent, according to Trendalytics and Spate, respectively. No wonder it’s CreatorIQ’s third-largest skin care brand by EMV and took home a WWD Beauty Inc Award for prestige brand of the year.

Summer Fridays’ business has boomed like a hot knife through butter. The brand’s Lip Butter Balm — a Sephora bestseller — has propelled the business to new heights and a level of social media stardom previously only reserved for mega-influencers such as its cofounders. Summer Fridays is the third-largest skin care brand by EMV, per CreatorIQ. Business insiders and beauty aficionados alike love the product, evidenced by its wins of an Allure Best of Beauty Award and an CEW Beauty Award. So do investors. In July, TSG Consumer Partners took a majority stake in the company.

The Ordinary made its name on straightforward ingredients, packaging, education and marketing, but there’s nothing banal about its $1.7 billion deal with the Estée Lauder Cos. finally closing earlier this year. Closing in on billion-dollar brand status, it’s become a growth driver at its parent company. Domestically, it’s the second-largest prestige skin care brand and the third-largest share gainer, according to Circana, thrust in part by hero products like Niacinamide 10% + Zinc 2% Serum, Hyaluronic Acid 2% + B5 Hydrating Serum and its Glycolic Acid 7% Exfoliating Toner, all of which are bestsellers both at Sephora and Ulta Beauty. New products are still capturing share of mind, with its Glucoside Foaming Cleanser winning an Allure Best of Beauty Award. Extra ordinary is more like it.

The sweet smell of success has taken hold at Valentino Beauty. The second-largest gainer of share in prestige beauty overall also holds the third slot for fragrance, thanks to the success of Valentino Donna, Circana reports. Consumers can’t get enough of the men’s, either, with Born in Roma Uomo Eau de Parfum Intense taking home a Consumer Choice award at the 2024 Fragrance Foundation Awards. Fragrance comprises nearly 99 percent of all of the brand’s retail sales, and year-to-date, it’s the third-largest women’s fragrance brand and seventh in men’s. It makes sense the brand is moving up in more ways than one. Drawing inspiration from haute couture, Valentino has created an ultra-luxe offering called Anatomy of Dreams, which is composed of seven products that are estimated to reach 200 million euros in global retail sales in the three years ahead.

While the seeds of growth are still being watered, these brands, all less than five years old, are shooting up. Social media savviness? Check. Boundary-breaking products? You bet. Their impact is already being felt industrywide — and they look set to flourish well into the future.

Don’t let the name fool you. Interest in Bubble Skincare shows no signs of bursting any time soon. Since its launch in 2020, founder and CEO Shai Eisenman has expanded the product range and points of distribution in record time. Moreover, the brand is profitable and said to have a wholesale volume of $85 million last year. That number is expected to grow exponentially as Bubble expands distribution Stateside to CVS Pharmacy and Ulta Beauty, while also going bigger with Boots in the U.K. and Ireland. Gen Z, whom Eisenman considers her co-creators, can’t get enough. Bubble has more than 2 million TikTok followers and 250,000 subscribers on YouTube, and brand searches are up nearly 600 percent, according to Spate. All that to say, it’s become a true industry darling, nabbing CEW’s Indie Brand of the Year in 2023.

Byoma skin care is known for its barrier-strengthening benefits, so it makes sense founder Marc Elrick has also solidified the business’ viability. Upon entering Ulta Beauty two years ago, the brand was projected to reach between $300 million and $500 million in sales by 2025 — not too shabby considering Byoma only launched at Target in 2022. Based on how quickly the brand has adapted to market trends, the lofty sales goal doesn’t seem like a long shot. Byoma is quickly tapping into new categories, including body care last year and lip balms in early 2024, superpowered by its new clinical testing lab at its Glasgow facilities. No wonder Byoma is said to be exploring market opportunities, reportedly tapping Raymond James earlier this year to explore deal options.

The line to get into the Danessa Myricks Beauty booth at Sephoria last September snaked across the floor, and no wonder: Danessa Myricks built her eponymous makeup brand on decades of experience as a product developer and pro makeup artist, and the resulting offering is as user-friendly as it is heavy on payoff. Fellow makeup artists, as well as the C-suite, have taken note, and consumers, too. In the digital sphere, the brand’s engagement on TikTok grew nearly 30 percent in the first half of the year, according to Dash Hudson data. Meanwhile, industry insiders voted Balm Contour as one of the top 50 products in Beauty Inc’s 2024 Makeup Essentials, while Yummy Skin Blurring Balm Powder is a repeat Allure Best of Beauty winner.

Dieux’s trio of founders each bring a different skill set to the brand, from Charlotte Palermino’s social media and skin care savvy to Joyce De Lemos’ formulating prowess to Marta Freedman’s creative know-how. The result is a brand with multibenefit, harmonious formulas that collapse skin care steps at an accessible price point and the results have been glowing. Gen Z can’t get enough: On TikTok Shop, where Dieux was an early arriver, more than 75,000 units of product have been sold, while at Sephora, which the brand entered early this year, Dieux is steadily outpacing projections in brick-and-mortar and online. With apologies to Nike, just Dieux it.

Negin Mirsalehi is the queen of buzz. Literally. The beauty influencer and cofounder of Gisou — alongside partner Maurits Stibbe — has spun her beekeeping lineage into a honey-focused line of hair care and skin care products that has become a Gen Z fave. The brand recently expanded its purview into fragrance with a hair perfume and cosmetics with tinted incarnations of its cultish Lip Oil. The latter sold out in three days and quickly amassed more than 24 million views on TikTok. Sales like that have led to reports that Gisou will top 100 million euros in retail sales. If its social stats are anything to go by — CreatorIQ reports the brand was the top brand by EMV in hair care and skin care for the month of April — that number is well within reach. Sweet.

Kourtney Kardashian Barker and business partner Simon Huck have fashioned a wellness winner with Lemme, whose whimsical marketing and clinically backed claims have propelled rapid sales gains and an ever-expanding retail universe. It’s a top ingestible brand at Target, where it entered earlier this year, per IRI data. It’s also the top vitamin brand at Ulta Beauty nationwide. Key franchises like Lemme Purr, Burn, Curb, Focus, Smooth and Matcha have all taken their turns as top sellers on Amazon, too, and that’s not the only place where the brand plays well digitally. Lemme is the most liked vitamin brand on TikTok. With results like those, it’s only natural the brand would take the winning formulas into new formats, including capsules and soft chews.

The king of contouring is dominating outside of the makeup chair, too. In just four years, mega-makeup artist Mario Dedivanovic has built one of the hottest brands in color cosmetics. Revenues for this year alone are expected to reach between $150 million and $200 million for the brand, which is in about 1,600 points of sale via Sephora globally. (Meanwhile, he’s as busy as ever with celebrity clients like Kim Kardashian.) And to think the prestige retailer is where he began his career in beauty at age 17, starting as a greeter before cutting his teeth as a makeup artist. The hard work has paid off: Dedivanovic now has roughly 14 million followers on Instagram, while his brand has 1.6 million on TikTok. The brand’s most recent launch is called The Brights, vivid hues of blush and lip gloss that are well named: Having just tapped J.P. Morgan to explore deal options, Makeup by Mario’s future looks bright indeed.

Despite being the younger of mega-entrepreneur Katherine Power’s two beauty brands, Merit is all grown up. After just its third year in business, retail sales are soaring, topping $100 million and the brand has expanded into the U.K. Searches for Merit are up 64.6 percent, according to Spate, and Trendalytics reports social engagement is up 47 percent. A single video with Kelly Rutherford caused an 18,000 percent engagement spike. With a trajectory like that, it’s little wonder Power tapped cosmetics heavyweight Philippe Pinatel, the former architect behind MAC Cosmetics’ continued success, to oversee its next chapter. Watch this space.

Naturium made headlines when it fetched a $355 million price tag last year in one of 2023’s buzziest acquisitions — and the sole one by E.l.f. Beauty. With a bifurcated distribution strategy across Target and Amazon, as well as the brand’s own website — where it all was expected to fetch $90 million in net sales last year — it’s obvious why. Its Glow Getter Body Wash, which was voted one of WWD Beauty Inc’s 100 Greatest Skin Care Products of All Time, crossed one million bottles sold and has since spawned a body oil under the franchise, which debuted earlier this year.

With dual-action products and tripling sales, it’s easy to see why Patrick Ta’s namesake brand has captured share of mind and wallet. When Stride Consumer Partners took a minority stake in the business in 2022, sales were expected to reach $30 million; that figure was estimated to be almost three times that in 2023. Ta’s own roster as a professional makeup artist is heavy-hitting, featuring the likes of Karol G., Gigi Hadid and Salma Hayek, but he’s found his own notoriety with 3.6 million followers on Instagram alone. His Major Headlines Crème Blush Duo is a bestseller at Sephora, and was also named one of WWD Beauty Inc’s 2024 makeup essentials — even after Ta took home Creative Force of the Year at the 2023 Beauty Inc Awards.

For a brand with a hero product called Missing Person, Phlur seems to be everywhere at once. It’s always among the first to market with key olfactive trends — think its Vanilla Skin eau de parfum, or Strawberry Letter — as well as formats, with body mists and oils to boot. Behind the scenes, influencer-founder Chriselle Lim named Elizabeth Ashmun as the brand’s CEO, as well as Linette Kim as its chief marketing officer — both the first to hold those roles at Phlur, which Ben Bennett’s Los Angeles-based incubator The Center acquired in 2021. Since then, sales have blossomed. It’s on track to reach between $60 million and $70 million this year in its core distribution of Sephora, while on TikTok Shop, hundreds of thousands of products have been purchased.

True to form with a name like that, Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty has hit many a milestone that can take most brands years, if not decades, longer than its four-year time on the market. Net sales were reportedly around $350 million in 2023, thanks to a powerhouse digital strategy, hero products like Soft Pinch Liquid Blush and successful expansions into fragrance and body care. CreatorIQ reports Rare is the top makeup brand and overall beauty brand by EMV. Add to that an equally oversized impact for the Rare Impact Fund that benefits mental health initiatives around the world. As of the end of 2023, Rare had reached $12 million in donations, well on the way to its goal of reaching $100 million in 10 years.

Hailey Bieber’s Rhode to success isn’t just paved in lip balm, but in an accelerated pace of product and retail expansions that keep the brand top of mind for Gen Z. In addition to a headline-grabbing pop-up in New York that saw near immediate product sellouts, Rhode and its famed founder have been working on a steady churn of newness. Most notably, the brand’s Pocket Blush, its latest manifestation of Bieber’s skin-care-meets-makeup ethos. It’s a philosophy that’s resonating beyond its founder’s celebrity. While Bieber herself still holds 53 million and 13.1 million followers on Instagram and TikTok respectively, Rhode is also CreatorIQ’s top skin care brand by EMV, with social engagement up 717 percent according to Trendalytics. Google searches for Rhode, in fact, increased 950 percent when the core assortment expanded into lifestyle with its instant hero phone case, now available in multiple colorways.

Community building may be among marketers’ favorite catch phrases, but when founder and CEO Laney Crowell first founded Saie, she mined insights from a home-grown Facebook group to best understand what consumers wanted from clean makeup — and what they didn’t. Such insights have fueled Saie’s rapid rise in beauty, a juggernaut which shows no signs of slowing. Google searches for it are up 52.8 percent, according to Spate, while its Dew Blush is a Sephora bestseller in makeup. Marketing activations, such as its consumer pop-up Cafe Saie, are quick to garner lines around the block, and Glow Sculpt, a blush-highlighter hybrid, won an Allure Best of Beauty award last year. Purpose is still at the fore for sustainably minded Crowell, who also founded The Every Body Campaign, gathering together 36 brands to donate 100 percent of net proceeds from hero products to SisterSong, an organization that benefits communities impacted by nationwide abortion bans.

Its hero product may be called SOS, but when it comes to winning in beauty, Tower 28 doesn’t need any help, thank you. Founder Amy Liu’s guiding product development ethos of skin care-infused makeup that’s safe for eczema and sensitive skin has found legions of fans across categories. SOS Daily Rescue Facial Spray has performed so well it’s spawned a franchise (and earned multiple awards), while ShineOn Lip Jelly glosses and Swipe concealers are also bestsellers at Sephora. With sales that tripled in 2023, it only made sense Prelude Growth Partners took a minority stake in the business at the tail end of last year to usher in Tower 28’s next chapter. Named after a lifeguard stand on Venice Beach in Los Angeles, the brand’s future looks bright indeed.

WWD Beauty Inc took a variety of sources into account to compile the 2024 Power Brands list, including our own reporting.

Sales:

For domestic sales across the mass and prestige markets, Circana provided the top 10 brands by category for skin care, hair care, makeup and fragrance, as well as the market overall, and the top share gainers in each. Globally, Euromonitor International contributed sales rankings across skin care, hair care, makeup and fragrance for 2023, and we also referenced the WWD Beauty Inc Top 100, an annual ranking of the biggest beauty companies.

Digital:

Data from CreatorIQ, Trendalytics, Launchmetrics and Spate quantified brands’ digital agility, while bestseller pages on Sephora.com, Ulta.com and Amazon illustrated top performers at retail.

Agility and Innovation:

Our own reporting informed how impactful launches were evaluated. As for donations and philanthropic endeavors, companies provided their own figures.

Industry Awards:

2024 winners of the Fragrance Foundation Awards, WWD Beauty Inc’s Makeup Essentials and Greatest Skin Care Products of All Time franchises, 2023 Allure Best of Beauty Awards, 2023 CEW Beauty Awards and the 2024 Marie Claire Prix d’Excellence also informed our compilation.