One of our favorite parts of deciding the year’s Beauty O-ward winners is getting to know the founders behind the goods. So many bottles, jars, tubes, and compacts cross our desks that it can start to feel like a blur. But hearing the stories, passion, and relatable frustrations that often lead to bright ideas grabs our attention—and then we’re excited to try everything. We expect you’ll have the same feeling of discovery when you read about each of these amazing women and products:
Danessa Myricks, Danessa Myricks Beauty
The Aha Moment
Myricks has been a pro makeup artist for over 23 years. And “the most common struggle I see when people try to do their own makeup is mastering their eyeliner,” she shares. “So it’s been a mission of mine to create an eyeliner that’s super easy for everyone to use.”
Why This Product
It has two key innovations: The brush tip is flexible, so it works well on every eye shape and can draw every type of line (from extra-thin to extra-thick) easily. It also solves “one of the biggest challenges of liquid eyeliners: the product stops flowing,” Myricks notes. “This liner has an endless flow technology, so you’re able to draw a continuous line of color.”
Lorrie King and Celeste Lee, Caire Beauty
The Aha Moment
King and Lee, longtime colleagues in the beauty industry, shared a vision for a brand that confronted the stigma of menopause and aging. “We’re well into midlife, and the word anti-aging is a misnomer to us,” they say. “Our company focuses on what hormone decline and menopause mean for skin and a woman’s sense of self.”
Why This Product
“We wanted something that could defend against both internal and external agers,” the founders note. Tiny hyaluronic acid and bio-fermented peptides penetrate skin to help cells regenerate. Ceramides sit on top to protect the skin barrier, and antioxidants “help neutralize the free radicals coming at us from the outside world,” they say.
Priyanka Ganjoo, Kulfi Beauty
The Aha Moment
Ganjoo was working at a beauty subscription company, when she saw that South Asian people like her weren’t represented in the brands that were being developed for their skin colors. “I did a lot of customer research, and it wasn’t just me. This whole community hadn’t felt represented in the beauty industry for their entire lives! That gave me the confidence I needed to step up and launch.”
Why This Product
“We created Main Match with hundreds of community members who represent our skin tones, undertones, and skin textures. Our need for coverage varies with our skin condition, so we made sure that this can be built up to full coverage while feeling lightweight. And it comes in 21 shades.”
Main Match Concealer
Sonsoles Gonzalez, Better Not Younger
The Aha Moment
Gonzalez spent 25 years working on haircare brands at L’Oréal and Procter & Gamble, and then, in her 50s, found that the products weren’t performing as well on her changing hair. It was time to create inclusive haircare for older women.
Why This Product
“I’d just given my very long hair a tedious blowout, followed by soft curls with a curler. Within an hour outside in Miami, the soft curls were gone, and then my hair sponged up. I looked like a lion,” Gonzalez says. She needed some hairspray. “But they always leave my hair tacky, dull, hard, and very dry.” So she created one for dry, breakage-prone, aging hair. “It has a very fine mist and thickening ingredients like biotin, burdock, and bamboo extract,” she says.
Madhu Punjabi and Nisha Phatak, Lion Pose
The Aha Moment
While Punjabi and Phatak were working together in the infant-formula industry, they noticed how often expecting or recently postpartum customers mentioned their skin tone and texture frustrations. “So we decided to bring the high regulatory standards of the infant formula market to the relatively unregulated skincare space,” says Punjabi.
Why This Product
“On average, 90 percent of clinical trial participants have lighter skin. This product, however, was tested on medium to dark skin tones, ensuring it is safe and effective for more people,” Phatak says. It’s shown to address hyperpigmentation, melasma, and acne scarring.
Salwa Petersen, Salwa Petersen
The Aha Moment
Petersen grew up in Chad, and her mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother passed down a hair ritual using chébé extract to achieve long, soft, and strong hair. After she graduated from Harvard, she spent years in product development for the biggest names in beauty, and then launched her own haircare brand. “It utilizes chébé extract, which I grow on a farm in Chad, as well as modern science and professional expertise,” she says.
Why This Product
“My customers asked for it,” Petersen shares. She tested 10 versions of styling cream at a salon in Paris to land on her richest and thickest formula yet. “When I saw the results on a woman with tightly textured hair, I knew it would become a winner,” she says.
Janell Stephens, Camille Rose
The Aha Moment
“Finding natural remedies that work will always be my aha,” says Stephens, whose brand started in her kitchen in 2011, when she set out to make a cure for her children’s eczema. It’s since grown globally and focuses on offering holistic haircare solutions, “especially for hair loss.”
Why This Product
It’s all about the rosemary oil. “Honestly, rosemary oil has been around for ages, but I think because of social media, more people are realizing how well it works,” Stephens says. Yes, it can act as a natural alternative to Minoxidil, ”but it’s also full of antioxidants and anti-inflammatories that calm the scalp and contribute to stronger, healthier hair.”
Tina Chen Craig, U Beauty
The Aha Moment
Chen Craig was an experienced TV host who was running the site Bag Snob when she decided to launch her own skincare brand. The idea wasn’t out of left field; Chen Craig’s mother and grandmother had instilled their carefully curated skincare rituals in her. “It’s always been about fewer-but-better products that produce real results,” she says.
Why This Product
The brand’s original Resurfacing Compound, a multitasker with retinol and vitamin C, has a cult following for its ability to brighten and smooth skin without irritation. So it’s no surprise that fans have been asking for a body version. The extra-large tube offers a formula that exfoliates bumpy, flaky skin while also calming irritation.
Nancy Twine, Briogeo
The Aha Moment
As a child, Twine honed her formulating skills with her mother, making DIY hair treatments for her hair texture. When she was ready to leave her Wall Street career, she drew on that experience, launching haircare made with natural ingredients for a wide-range of hair types and textures.
Why This Product
“At first, we wanted to create a serum that encouraged long-term volume. But while we were developing it, we realized that most volumizing products don’t address the root cause, which is hair thinning and excess shedding,” Twine says. “So instead of a short-term Band-Aid, we’ve made formulas that help long-term growth.”
Diarrha N’Diaye-Mbaye, Ami Colé
The Aha Moment
N’Diaye-Mbaye had worked in the beauty industry for 10 years and knew that the brand she needed didn’t exist. “I wanted to give women of color the tools and confidence to see themselves and celebrate their skin and their rich, deep stories,” she says.
Why This Product
To make a lip oil that “makes women of color at every age feel comfortable,” N’Diaye-Mbaye packed it with hydrating baobab seed oil, an ingredient from Senegal, to deliver “old-school shine without the downfalls we hate, like stickiness, the need to reapply frequently, and unflattering shades.” The oil comes in five shades, each to complement melanin-rich skin.
Monique Rodriguez, Mielle
The Aha Moment
When Rodriguez shared her haircare journey on social media, it went viral—and made her realize how much people wanted quality, natural products for textured hair. In 2014, she launched with one product. Mielle is now a global brand.
Why This Product
“I noticed that rice water was trending; people were creating their own variations at home,” Rodriguez shares. She also wanted to fill the void for products made for protective styles. “So we formulated a safe, effective formula that instantly relieves the scalp irritation that may come from protective styles,” she says.
Rice Water & Aloe Scalp Relief
Kate Sandoval Box (she/her) is the Beauty Director at Oprah Daily. She has over 18 years of experience at national women’s media brands; and, in fact, started her publishing career at O, The Oprah Magazine. She’s also held beauty editor roles at Shape, Self, Latina, and Cosmopolitan. Kate tests hundreds and hundreds of beauty products that cross her desk each year and interviews many top experts, celebrities, and indie brand founders to bring you the best in beauty. Follow her on Instagram.
