Presenting the 2025 Prix D'Excellence Awards
The year's best new beauty products are waiting for you.
To bring you this year's best new beauty products, our team of editors from around the world tried and tested hundreds of the latest launches. The winners—six international and nine American brands—feature the most innovative formulas and breakthrough ingredients that yield exceptional results. Trust us, they're worth a try.
Skincare Winners
Plant-based “bio-retinol,” ceramides, and versillin peptides combine to brighten, moisturize, and firm skin. The unique reverse emulsion technology (think: water suspended in oil) offers an immediate—and impressive—glow upon application.
Swipe this hydrating ectoin- and hyaluronic acid-rich formula on your neck and chest to fend off visible signs of premature aging.
Take your shower from routine to ritual with a luxurious cleanser. Glycerin and coconut oil make for a smooth application, while wrapping you in an intoxicating blend of vanilla, amber, musk, and tonka bean notes.
Mimic a visit to the renowned plastic surgeon’s office—without a trip to Beverly Hills. Engineered to support collagen restoration, the serum includes three types of human-identical micro-collagen peptides, giving you that post-facial shine and smoother, firmer skin.
Makeup Winners
A comfort-matte formula you can use on the lips or cheeks. Hot tip: The priming balm works as a gorgeous highlighter.
Launching with a bevy of cool-toned lipsticks, MAC’s Nudes collection is making one thing clear: ’90s makeup is back. The line shines by taking colors we’ve seen before and making them more expansive and inclusive.
Haircare Winners
Treat your hair to much-needed hydration. Targeted moisture is delivered at the cuticle and you can also revitalize day-old styles with the two different prong attachments and a diffuser.
With nourishing ingredients like radish root and rice water, this lifting spray delivers volume that rivals a professional blowout. Formulated by celebrity hairstylist Mara Roszak, it’s free of volatile organic compounds and silicone.
The magic of the aerosol-free puff is that you can dab it directly onto the scalp. Two shades—translucent and tinted—mean everyone gets oil absorption without the white cast.
International Winners
Touted as a micronutritive skin supplement, this brightening and hydrating serum contains the industry's leading ingredients to promote youthful, dewy skin.
Together with the serum, these products create a pairing unlike any other, doubling up on anti-aging ingredients for a skincare-makeup hybrid.
Backed by years of studies, the formula features pre-biotic water and the proprietary component, melasyl, which helps to address excess hyperpigmentation.
A serum-like, fragrance-free, and non-comedogenic formula that also boasts SPF 30 for sun protection. Plus, nourishing squalene, peptides, and vitamin E make this foundation a makeup bag staple.
This fancy blend comes together to boost shine, seal split ends, and control frizz. With cold-pressed wild camelia oil, it offers heat protection up to 450 degrees.
The antioxidant-rich serum reduces oxidative stress at the cellular level, while also stimulating collagen synthesis and skin regeneration. After a few weeks of use, your skin will be noticeably plumper and more radiant.
A serum that sinks into the skin like water, but don’t let the lightweight texture fool you: the hero ingredient, vanilla planifolia, is rich in polyketones, which lead to a firm, toned, and hydrated complexion.
This article appears in Marie Claire's 2025 Craftsmanship Issue.
