We’ve rounded up some of our favorite beauty brands across skincare, makeup, and hair to buy this month. Whether it be the Gen Z favorite Topicals or clean beauty brand MOB Beauty placing community over marketing, these brands are the future of beauty and skincare. Keep scrolling for our April picks.
Topicals
One of the most raved about skincare labels, Topicals is the science-backed brand founded by Olamide Olowe and Claudia Teng that’s been making waves all across Instagram. The brand was launched with hyperpigmentation and chronic skin conditions in mind, formulated with ingredients that soothe sensitive skin, fortify the skin’s moisture barrier, and ultimately don’t irritate melanated complexions.
Topicals’ product lineup includes the highly coveted Faded Brightening & Clearing Mist and Like Butter Hydrating Mask. The serum combats scars, stubborn marks, and dark spots using active ingredients such as tranexamic acid and glycerin. Meanwhile, the mask is packed with powerful botanicals like ginseng root and turmeric, and as the name hints, applies just as smooth as butter. Both products are available in mists, allowing for treatments to extend beyond the face and hard-to-reach spaces. Elsewhere, the brand has other fan favorites including the High Roller Ingrown Tonic, which prevents bumps from ingrown hairs.
GLORY Skincare
Feeling that women of color were often overlooked in regard to beauty and skincare, GLORY Skincare founder Alisia Ford launched her beloved label with skin essentials formulated for melanin-rich skin that also work on every hue. Its first product, an overnight treatment, launched this past year with 7,000 women participating in a study designed to create the perfect, non-toxic skincare routine for women.
GLORY’s Own Your Tone Dark Spot Overnight Treatment is a potent serum that utilizes the label’s patented 5RUITFUL blend. It helps renew skin, gently exfoliates and reduces dark spots, fine lines, and post-acne marks for visibly even-toned skin. The treatment uses active ingredients such as tranexamic acid and lactic acid, the latter of which hydrates and exfoliates the epidermis. Meanwhile, white mulberry and green tea extracts provide antioxidant benefits that help calm and soothe the skin.
MOB Beauty
With the emergence of several accessible clean beauty brands, it can often be hard to decipher what is in fact clean given how often the term is used. MOB Beauty, however, aims to build beauty for a better future by placing community over marketing and Earth-first formulations that are ethically sourced in Mica. MOB uses performance ingredients such as Vitamin C and E, bisabolol, and phytosphingosine which locks in moisture and protect the skin’s barrier.
The brand’s extensive product lineup includes highlighters, matte lipstick, volumizing mascara, and a cream clay blush available in eight different hues. Elsewhere, MOB’s Cream Lipstick comes in 17 different shade options, while its eyeshadow, bronzer, and blush are equally noteworthy. The label also has customizable, refillable palettes made of post-consumer recycled PET resin, available in three respective sizes. If one thing’s for certain, MOB Beauty is the beauty brand of the future.
LESSE
Skincare essentials brand LESSE creates formulas and highly effective products intended to transform mindful skincare routines into rituals that elevate the skin. Founded by Neada Deters, the label was created with the intention of being more than just a skincare brand, but rather a space created for representation and sustainability. “We believe organic skin care is a universal necessity, transcending binaries and essential to our individual and collective health,” she previously stated. “Our focus is on creating real solutions for common and chronic skin concerns.”
The products span across bioactive masks, cleansers, serums, and even tools such as the Everyday Comb. The Ritual Serum, formulated with sensitive, acne-prone skin mind, regenerates the lipid barrier and regulates natural oil production, while the Regeneration Mist is formulated using glycerin and tremella, the latter of which has anti-aging properties. Not to mention the label’s Hands collaborative Candle Set inspired by ancient vessels.
LYS Beauty
LYS Beauty, often praised for being the first Black-owned Sephora Clean Color Cosmetics brand, serves as a pioneer within the clean beauty space. The Tisha Thompson-founded label aims to empower and inspire through strict formulation standards that help reshape the way consumers approach clean beauty.
Among the brand’s matte cream blush and serum foundation, all LYS products are priced under $30, democratizing the hefty price tag that many clean beauty brands tend to carry. The No Limits Matte Bronzer is available in five buildable shades, while the Aim High Pressed Highlighter Powder glides onto the skin, providing an interstellar glow. Moreover, the label boasts a brightening concealer, lip treatment oil, serum primer, and liquid highlighter, as well as a handful of brushes and sponges to choose from.
Elsewhere in beauty, POC beauty label EADEM cements itself as one of Gen Z’s most admired breakout beauty brands of the pandemic.
