mbg Beauty Refresh Awards 2024: The Most Refreshing Innovations Of The Year

Initially, we created these awards to highlight all of the amazing product launches we tested over the past year. Along the way we started realizing there was so much more to celebrate outside of just the formulas themselves.

Exciting innovations were happening across the beauty space that extended far beyond what we found in jars and bottles. And we decided those initiatives were worthy of celebration too. Because beauty isn't just about how you care for yourself—but how you better the world around you too.  

We felt these brands—and the people behind them—pushed the industry forward in meaningful ways.

From elevating the science of skin longevity to advocating for women's recognition in STEM, sports, and research, the missions championed by these companies over the past year made the beauty industry a better, more thoughtful space. 

Two of Estée Lauder Companies' brands won awards for product innovation: Aveda's Botanical Repair Bond Flash Treatment and Origins' Origins Plantscription Active Wrinkle Correction Serum. Their products were grounded in the latest science, but I was equally impressed by the scientific endeavors ELC was making behind the scenes. 

More specifically, ELC has spearheaded initiatives in a variety areas we feel very passionately about: skin longevity and closing the research gender gap, two topics we wrote about in our 2024 Well-Being Forecast reports.

Last summer, ELC presented several preclinical and clinical findings at the 25th World Congress of Dermatology, all around the growing field of skin longevity. "As we live longer, research on health span and longevity will only accelerate. To meet these innovation challenges, we are thinking differently, and in a manner enabled by novel science across all our global laboratories and clinics," Lisa Napolione, senior vice president, Global Research & Development (R&D), said at the time in a news release.  

And then to further establish their commitment to skin longevity, at the end of last year, their namesake brand, Estée Lauder, established a new Skin Longevity initiative. As part of this initiative, the brand partnered with the Stanford Center on Longevity, a cross-disciplinary research center at Stanford University, and established the Estée Lauder Longevity Collective, a curated group of pioneers in the longevity sciences. 

ELC also huge advocates for women-led scientific research. Partnering with the scientific journal Nature1, they host the Nature Awards for Inspiring Women in Science2 each year. I was able to attend the sixth annual awards ceremony last year, where they hosted shortlist applicants and winners from around the globe to celebrate the important work being done by these scientists. 

From the record-breaking views during the Women's NCAA tournament to the excitement brewing for the forthcoming Olympics, women's achievements in sports have never garnered so much attention. Honestly, it's been breathtaking to watch.

Not only is it invigorating to witness, but it's an important cultural moment to be part of: Sports has a gender gap problem, one that stems from several factors, the first being the lack of attention given to professional women athletes means less money is funneled into women's sports. But the other issue is that young girls drop out of sports earlier and faster than their boy counterparts, which is often due to low self-esteem. 

This is an issue because sports can provide a myriad of benefits—far beyond physical—as research shows it can improve mental health, cognitive development, leadership skills, and overall confidence levels. So ideally the growing attention on women's sports can have many positive downstream effects for young women and girls. 

But long before these women were getting their rightful attention (and brand deals and media profiles and etc.), beauty giant e.l.f. was championing women and girls in sports initiatives. e.l.f.—a company that owns e.l.f. SKIN, e.l.f. Cosmetics, Keys Soulcare, Naturium and award winners Well People—has been one of the most exciting companies to follow, largely due to the inspiring ways they're using beauty to break boundaries. 

Earlier this year personal care company Kenvue launched an entirely new venture: Versalie, a digital destination addressing menopause and women's hormonal wellness. 

Kenvue is the parent company of many household name brands, including Neutrogena, OGX, Tylenol, and award winners Aveeno (I adore the award-winning serum, Aveeno Calm + Restore Age Renewal Face Serum). So they're no strangers to building big brands. 

But Versalie is entirely different from anything they've done before—it's also not something I've seen done before by a major beauty conglomerate. 

Versalie is an educational and resource platform—meaning it's a destination for women looking for answers about perimenopause, menopause, and various other hormonal health topics that might happen later in life. It's a brand whose sole mission is education, not product development. Yes, that's right: At this time, Versalie offers no products of its own. 

What it offers is arguably more important: It's a place for people to gather information, receive virtual care services, read expert-reviewed content, and explore a curated storefront of products specifically for women dealing with menopause (which does include some of Kenvue's offerings but also many others). This is especially important since menopause has historically been a taboo topic for those who experience it. 

The platform is backed by a board of 12 menopause experts, including functional and integrative care physicians like Tara Scott, M.D., psychologist Shannon Chavez, Psy.D., and holistic nutritionist Jennifer Hanway, who is a regular source for mindbodygreen.