The Glossy Beauty Podcast: Daily Summaries Delivered

Why Allure Best of Beauty is 'the only seal that matters' and how to get your product on it

What does it take to win Allure’s Best of Beauty awards? In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Allure editor-in-chief Jessica Cruel sits down with host Lexy Lebsack to unpack the ins and outs of its prestigious beauty awards program, including how beauty and wellness brands can better appeal to her team of editors. Launched in 1996, five years after the first issue of Allure hit newsstands, the annual Best of Beauty awards anoints the best products across dozens of categories with its coveted Best of Beauty seal. “The seal can be licensed, so you can put it on your packaging, you can put it on your social media, you can put it in ads, and that's because we know from [our] research that the seal helps that product move,” Cruel told Glossy. “We know that when people see that seal, [the winning product] is more likely to be purchased than the thing that's sitting right next to it, so that seal has power.” The awards are a hallmark franchise for the Condé Nast publication and a powerful tool for the brands that win. The seal is a recognizable differentiator in the market, which is why Allure’s team tests products all year in anticipation of the big reveal. The 2026 award winners will be announced today, September 17. To celebrate, Glossy tapped Cruel to talk through the nuances of making it through the first rounds, how the process works and how winners are selected. Cruel also shares candid advice for brands that want to stand out to her editors year-round, including insights around timelines, the categories and topics performing well today, what’s interesting to her, and what she wishes more brands and publicists understood about working with Allure.

Mary van Praag doubled Milani Cosmetics annual sales to $250 million in five years. Now she’s ready to double them again.

Helmed for the past six years by veteran beauty executive Mary van Praag, 25-year-old mass beauty mainstay Milani Cosmetics is in the midst of meteoric growth. In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, van Praag sits down with host Lexy Lebsack to discuss Milani’s growth engine, including the tactics and retail partnerships she’s betting on to reach $500 million in annual sales in the next three years.

How Lorne Lucree used a beauty playbook to disrupt the allergy aisle with Wizard Wellness

CPG disruptors have entered just about every legacy category over the past few years in hopes of capturing bored consumers looking for more interesting everyday products. We’ve seen this play out across dandruff shampoo, toothpaste and mouth wash, supplements, sunscreen, and, most recently, the allergy aisle. “We did a ton of consumer work up front, probably too much, pulling research reports, data and our own survey of 600 consumers, and what we realized was that there is a huge experience and efficacy gap,” Loren Lucree, the CEO and founder of 9-month-old allergy-care brand Wizard Wellness, told Glossy. “[We found that] only 7% were loyal to their current solutions, which is bananas. … [The] lesson is nobody's writing love letters to Flonase or Zyrtec.” Lucree is a beauty industry veteran formulator and executive. His CV includes Unilever and Estée Lauder brands. “One morning I woke up and told my poor husband, ‘I have to do this,' … because somebody else will do it if I don't,” Lucree said. “[I thought], ‘I have this amazing beauty network around me, and now's the time’.” Lucree secured $7 million in funding from True Beauty Ventures, G9 Ventures, Able Partners and The Venture Collective to launch Wizard Wellness via a DTC model in January. The brand is built on a beauty industry playbook, including cleaner ingredients, clear positioning, clinical testing, a dynamic OOH advertising funnel and social-first marketing. Now, just nine months post-launch, Wizard Wellness has entered CVS, Walmart and, as of Monday, Target stores. Glossy West Coast correspondent Lexy Lebsack sat down with Lucree to learn firsthand how he took on allergy incumbents and what it’ll take to become a leader in the space.

Is bold makeup back? with Jamie Greenberg

There’s an interesting tension happening in the beauty industry today around makeup. Last year, consumer beauty publications and industry executives heralded 2026 as the year bold, maximalist makeup would return. Top publications predicted a shift away from the persistent "clean girl aesthetic" that entered the zeitgeist around 2021 toward bolder, brighter makeup. Meanwhile, executives from Sephora, Ulta Beauty and Revlon told Glossy they were betting big on a return to more expressive makeup in 2026. But that hasn’t happened at scale – at least not yet. Instead, sales at conglomerates that report earnings, like L’Oréal Group and E.l.f. Beauty, tell us that top-selling categories in 2026 remain the mainstays of "no-makeup makeup," like lip gloss, balm and liner; complexion products, like tinted sunscreen, blush, bronzer, and setting spray; and mascara. For today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack sat down with veteran celebrity makeup artist Jamie Greenberg to unpack exactly where makeup is headed next. Greenberg has been a working makeup artist for more than 20 years. Her client list today includes Rashida Jones, Kaley Cuoco, Chelsea Handler, Tracee Ellis Ross and Kristen Stewart, among others. Greenberg is also the founder of the DTC makeup line Jamie Makeup, known best for its blush/highlighter hybrid product called Blighlighter and spray makeup remover named B.F.M.R. Mist. She’s also a prolific social media creator with more than 700,000 followers across TikTok and Instagram, and she runs a monthly subscription beauty box called SwagBag that features her latest favorite products from a wide array of brands. Press play now for a candid conversation on where makeup is headed, including the trends and signals Greenberg is paying attention to now.

Why Midi Health is expanding into 'hormone-informed skin care' with CSO Dr. Kathleen Jordan, MD

Midi Health is betting on topical skin care and body care as it diversifies its telehealth offerings to capture more women. “Women in midlife go through amazing changes with their hormones, … [and] our skin care needs actually change over time with our hormone evolution,” Dr. Kathleen Jordan, MD, chief science officer of Midi Health, told Glossy. “I usually talk about [this care expansion] as ‘hormone informed skin care’ because that's really what the market's been lacking.” That is, skin care that treats a variety of skin concerns that can develop in mid-life such as dryness, loss of collagen, hyperpigmentation, and acne. “We saw patients for many years without having [skin-care] products, but what we saw was them struggling to get good products that were actually designed for them,” Dr. Jordan said. “We now see tens of thousands of women every week, and we actually hear from them. We hear their questions. We understand where they're struggling to get products that actually are meaningful [for their skin concerns], and then in response, we can develop products that actually help them.” For Midi Health, this means offering prescription and OTC products with ingredients like estrogen, retinol, hydroquinone and tretinoin. In June, Midi expanded its skin-care selection to include topical copper peptides. According to Dr. Jordan, this is just the start for the company. Midi Health launched in 2021 and currently treats around 25,000 women per week. Oftentimes, this includes care for issues dismissed by the traditional medical industry, like fatigue, weight gain, mood and sleep disturbance, which can be treated with things like hormone replacement therapies or other OTC and prescription interventions. Midi Health is privately held by its founders plus investors like Connie Britton, Brandi Chastain, Tory Burch, Amy Schumer, and Meghan Markle, as well as private equity firms like Google Ventures and Emerson Collective, plus a laundry list of tech execs including Sheryl Sandberg, the former COO of Meta, and Tekedra Mawakana, the co-CEO of Waymo. Midi Health was valued at $1 billion following a $100 million series D funding round in February. Glossy West Coast correspondent Lexy Lebsack sat down with Dr. Jordan to discuss Midi Health’s skin- and body-care aspirations, the category’s role in telehealth in the future, and how Midi Health hopes to earn more market share.

The ‘ins and outs’ of branded events with Bilal Kaiser

Behind every great in-person beauty or wellness event is an invisible team of insiders that has engineered the gathering for maximum impact. Bilal Kaiser, the founder and principal of Agency Guacamole, is one of those insiders. Kaiser and his team have produced events for leading retailers and brands like Olive Young, NYX, Therabody, Matrix, Redken, Ole Henriksen, Evereden and many more. Kaiser is a former L’Oréal Group executive and marketing instructor at UCLA and NYC’s General Assembly. He launched Agency Guacamole in 2016, a boutique communications agency based in Los Angeles and New York City that provides experiential, media communications, and influencer marketing services to the beauty and lifestyle industries. For today’s episode, host Lexy Lebsack challenged Kaiser to break down the ins and outs of eventing in 2026. More specifically, he was asked to break down the nuances behind a successful event made for different age groups, including Gen Alpha, Gen Z, millennials and Gen X, and industry demographics, like press, influencers and consumers. Kaiser also fielded questions about event budgets, timelines, the future of eventing, and the optics to consider when planning luxury events or brand trips.

How awards show beauty partnerships between artists, brands and celebs come together, with PRTNRS’ Marissa Alfe and Lauren FitzGerald

Have you ever wondered how awards show beauty partnerships come together to create big, splashy red carpet moments that seem to reverberate across social media for weeks or months? Award season partnerships are big business for everyone involved: the celebrity, who may be fulfilling, or courting, a spokesperson deal; beauty and lifestyle brands, which are often promoting a new product or simply seeking brand awareness; and professional artists, who are oftentimes the glue that holds it all together. In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, host Lexy Lebsack interviews beauty industry agents Marissa Alfe and Lauren FitzGerald. The duo opened their full-service Los Angeles talent agency, Prtnrs Mgnt, in 2020. They currently represent 18 standout hair, makeup and nail artists including Patrick Ta, Ariel Tejada and Laura Polko. Together, their artists work with stars like Gigi Hadid, Rosalia, Kylie Jenner, Olivia Munn and Alix Earle, while Alfe and FitzGerald have brokered deals for their clients with brands like La Mer, Chanel, Morphe and Redken. Alfe and FitzGerald are longtime friends and former colleagues at competing agency Cloutier Remix Agency. Alfe’s CV also includes Burberry and founder of Greyscale Management, while FitzGerald has held roles at InStyler and Digital Brand Products, the licensing and products division to Digital Brand Architects.

How Ulta Beauty is reaching Gen Zalpha teen boys through first men’s masstige fragrance launch