Nominations Process For Beauty Independent’s Fourth Annual Beacon Awards Program Begins

The nominations process for Beauty Independent’s Beacon Awards program, which shines a light on the best and brightest in the emerging beauty market, is open for its fourth annual award season.

Beauty enthusiasts and insiders will be able to nominate people and brands they believe to be worthy of 2023 Beacon Awards, sponsored by Atelier by Voyant Beauty, through the publication’s website until May 10. The 24 people and brands that walked away with Beacon Awards last year include Wende Zomnir, founder of Caliray and founding partner of Urban Decay, Olaplex CEO JuE Wong, health and wellness retailer The Vitamin Shoppe, skincare and body care brand Kate McLeod, and pharmacist-developed skincare brand Plantkos.

The Beacon Awards program’s focus on the indie beauty segment is unique. Its 24 categories cover a wide swath of actors in the beauty industry such as brands, investors, retailers, products, executives and social media, and showcase to the industry the pioneers breaking new ground in beauty.

This year, the retail categories have been updated as a result of learnings from previous Beacon Awards programs. The four retail categories now are Brand Booster, Audience Educator, Assortment Innovator and Service Maven. For the first time, each of these categories will spotlight a single honoree rather than five nominees and a subsequent winner.

A Brand Booster is a retailer that excels by giving brands the stage to generate major awareness and offers scale in a meaningful way. An Audience Educator is a retailer that goes above and beyond product detail pages by employing a highly trained staff, and integrating digital or in-person activations, tutorials and ingredient deep dives. An Assortment Innovator is known for setting trends and selling the coolest finds. A Service Maven delivers a variety of can’t-live-without beauty services.

“We’ve been so honored by how enthusiastically entrepreneurs, retailers, executives and more have received our Beacon Awards program,” says Rachel Brown, editor in chief of Beauty Independent. “It keeps getting better every year, and this year is no exception. We look forward to learning about the businesses and people who will be up for nominations. Your ingenuity, perseverance and passion continually inspire us.”

Nader Naeymi-Rad, co-founder of Beauty Independent parent company Indie Beauty Media Group, says, “The Beacon Awards has become a highlight of the year both for our team and for those in the industry who participate either by being a part of the esteemed evaluation committee or as nominees. We’ve been fortunate to be able to expand our community with events like our Dealmaker Summit and our ongoing In Conversation webinar series. It’s exciting to bring new and longstanding relationships into the fold and curate a really outstanding Beacon Awards community.”

Beauty Independent’s editors and contributors are tasked with narrowing down Beacon Awards submissions to five nominees in each category excluding the retail categories. The publication will contact the nominees about the Beacon Awards program over the next three months, and nominations will be announced in September, a month prior to the announcement of the winners during a special live digital event on Oct. 18. Nominees will be eligible to pay an application fee to participate in the program.

Beacon Awards winners will be chosen by a panel of 25 esteemed evaluators who weigh testimonials provided by Beauty Independent subscribers. The evaluators are assigned to committees concentrating on specific award categories based on their backgrounds and expertise.

Among the beauty industry heavyweights serving as 2023 Beacon Awards expert evaluators are Zomnir, Marcia Kilgore, founder of Beauty Pie, Carol Hamilton, group president, acquisitions at L’Oréal, Lisa Price, founder of Carol’s Daughter, Reuben Caranza, group CEO of Amika, EvaNYC and Ethique, Lorne Lucree, chief innovation officer of Atelier by Voyant Beauty, Divya Gugnani, co-founder of Wander Beauty, and Ju Rhyu, co-founder of Hero Cosmetics.

The complete list of Beacon Awards 2023 categories: