For the third year running, Hooley Brown is counting down some of the fastest-growing and most exciting companies in the cosmetics and personal care industry.
Here are 15 beauty brands to watch out for in 2024:
1. Bread Beauty Supply
‘Hair care basics for not so basic hair’ is Bread’s mantra. Australian Maeva Heim founded the company after working for big box beauty brands that she felt didn’t cater to her hair type. She wanted natural-ingredient hair products that worked for people with bangs, Bantu knots, braids, curls, frizz and fuzz.
Bread customers can choose a wash day bundle kit containing hair-wash, hair-oil, hair-mask and a bread-puff scrunchie. Or they can treat themselves to products to use in between washes, such as leave-in conditioning hair-cream and hair-gel wet set curls.
Bread Beauty Supply has just completed a multi-million dollar seeding round led by Fearless Fund, so expect an even bigger industry impact from Maeva and team in 2024.
2. Ellure
Sustainable beauty is a major growth area, and Ellure is using personalisation to cut back on cosmetics waste.
The Swedish biotech company has developed a mass customisation platform that guides beauty brands through the process of creating and selling personalised products. It also has a network of cosmetics printers that can create liquid products on-demand such as lipsticks, foundation and perfume.
To demonstrate the power of personalised beauty, Ellure has launched its own range of customised lipsticks. Shoppers can upload their photos to the Ellure website and play around with tones and brightness until they’ve found their perfect shade.
Ellure products are currently only shipped within the EU, but we can see global potential in the brand’s approach to personalised makeup.
3. Half Magic
What happens when the worlds of cosmetics and entertainment collide? Half Magic!
This U.S. beauty brand is a collaboration between makeup artist Donni Davy and independent film company A24, which is behind the HBO hit show Euphoria. Half Magic allows consumers in over 30 countries worldwide to recreate the bold-coloured looks they’ve seen on screen using vegan, cruelty-free products.
Half Magic is also the first beauty brand to use PaperFoam® as its primary packaging.
4. Krave Beauty
NYC-based YouTuber Liah Yoo started Krave Beauty after becoming overwhelmed with the volume of skincare advice online. She wanted to ‘press reset’ and create simple products for an intentional skincare routine.
Sustainability is central to Krave Beauty’s brand values after Liah realised the impact of excess skincare products on the planet. Krave is part of the 1% For The Planet scheme, and its packaging is sourced from post-consumer recycled materials.
The brand recently released two limited-edition products (Jumbo Great Barrier Relief and 100% Cold-Pressed Tamanu Oil) in partnership with the Women’s Earth Alliance to support female farmers that are cultivating key beauty ingredients.
5. LIHA
Organic skincare company LIHA mixes natural West African plant-based wisdom with English aromatherapy. Founded by British-Nigerian friends Liha Okunniwa and Abi Oyepitan, their mission is to create luxurious natural beauty products that encourage people to buy less but buy well.
Most of the items in LIHA’s range are multipurpose (for example, the Oju Omi Mud Cleanser is a 3-in-1 facial cleansing mud, mask and spot treatment), and everything is responsibly sourced and water-free.
In 2023, LIHA raised £1 million in funding from a private equity investor to increase its brand profile. Liha and Abi plan to develop new products in 2024 using innovative ingredients that consumers may not have seen before.
6. Luna Daily
Feminine care marketing has come a long way in recent years; it’s hard to believe that a sanitary pad wasn’t shown in a television advert until 2016!
UK brand Luna Daily is tapping into this growing category with a range of washes, oils and cleansing sprays that are kind to intimate skin areas. The brand was borne out of founder Katie Cottam’s teenage battle with thrush, caused by using harsh personal care products.
U.S. expansion is Luna Daily’s top priority for the year ahead, and the company has just completed a £3 million investment round to finance its next venture.
7. My Expert Midwife
56% of the women in the world have children – but until recently there had been relatively few personal care products for pregnancy and birth.
My Expert Midwife addressed this issue in 2016 by launching a range of supplements and skincare items to support women through conception, childbirth and recovery. Its products include Ginger Melts for morning sickness relief and Spritz for Labour calming spray.
More recently, My Expert Midwife has launched paediatrician-approved skincare products for babies, which are suitable for sensitive and eczema-prone skin. The brand’s Totally Immense Dribble Defence was also crowned personal care champion at The Grocer’s New Product & Packaging Awards 2023.
Although a UK-only brand currently, we think My Expert Midwife has great potential for international expansion.
8. Odele
One of the challenges with launching a beauty brand internationally is the discrepancy in which chemicals are permitted in different countries worldwide.
For example, while EU rules on cosmetic ingredients are incredibly stringent, many chemicals banned in Europe can still be used in the USA.
The co-founders of U.S. brand Odele vowed never to use any of the 1,300 ingredients outlawed in the EU in products they manufacture for American consumers. Odele’s range is also free from formaldehyde, parabens, phthalates, synthetic fragrances and SLS/SLES sulphates.
Odele is targeting new marketing, recruitment and product development programmes in 2024 and recently received a minority investment from growth-equity investment firm Stride Consumer Partners.
9. OPULUS Beauty Labs
Waterless cosmetics are an emerging beauty trend, as brands play their part in the battle against global water scarcity.
U.S. company OPULUS Beauty Labs has created a range of Vitamin C+, Vitamin B+ and Azelaic Acid Concentrates that turn into lightweight daily moisturisers when mixed with half a teaspoon of water in a special activator.
In addition to reaping the benefits of premium skincare ingredients, the products use much less water than traditional moisturisers. They also look beautiful - the concentrated squares resemble a chocolate bar!
10. PAX
We’re always interested to see beauty brands incorporating natural ingredients into their products, and PAX Polish has developed something we’ve never seen before: broccoli-infused nail polish remover!
The Australian brand, which won Nail Polish Remover Product of the Year at the 2023 Beauty Innovation Awards, uses broccoli seed extract to provide a source of essential fatty acids to hydrate and moisturise nails. Other natural ingredients include bergamot, geranium, horsetail oil, lemon, pink grapefruit, rosemary and rosehip seed oil.
With the clean beauty movement showing no signs of slowing, expect further brand growth from PAX in 2024.
11. Pilgrim
India is the fourth largest beauty market in the world, and Pilgrim has already amassed more than five million customers in its home region.
Co-founded by Anurag Kedia and Gagandeep Makker in 2019, Pilgrim focuses on products that are free from sulphates, parabens and the ‘toxic 20’ – a group of cosmetic ingredients and chemicals identified by the Environmental Working Group as potentially harmful to humans.
Pilgrim raised $20 million in Series B funding in 2023, led by Vertex Ventures Southeast Asia and India. The brand wants to use these resources to build its reputation, increase R&D and expand offline within India.
12. Rudolph Care
When Danish TV anchor Andrea Elisabeth Rudolph participated in an on-air blood test in 2006, she was shocked to discover chemicals in her body that could be traced back to her cosmetics.
This experience led to her founding Rudolph Care, a B-Corp luxury beauty brand that rigorously vets its raw materials. Açai berry is the brand’s flagship ingredient.
Rudolph Care products are Organic COSMOS, Nordic Swan Ecolabel, Vegan Trademark, Allergy Certified and Asthma Allergy Nordic certified, and its product packaging is biodegradable. Although based in Denmark, Rudolph Care offers international shipping.
13. Sahajan
Ayurvedic medicine is one of the world's oldest medical systems, based on ancient writings that apply a natural and holistic approach to physical and mental health.
Fast forward to the 21st century and natural beauty brands like Canada’s Sahajan are incorporating the principles of Ayurveda into high-performance skincare. Founder Lisa Mattam hails from Kerala, India, and she remembers a childhood where family members created treatments from kitchen ingredients whenever someone had a skin complaint.
Sahajan has just closed its first round of funding to facilitate growth in North America. The brand’s 2024 plans also include clinical trials, new product launches, increased marketing spending and retail expansion.
14. Sophim
French family-owned manufacturer, Sophim, is the world’s leading producer of olive squalane – a saturated oil that has gained popularity for its hydration and antioxidant properties.
Its flagship product, Phytosqualan, is upcycled from olive oil distillates to ensure sustainable production, and the by-products are sold as biodiesel.
Sophim recently completed a €20 million funding round to double its production capabilities in France and Spain and accelerate international expansion.
15. UpCircle
Last but not least, we’ll be keeping an eye on UpCircle in 2024. The British natural, sustainable skincare brand just crowdfunded €480,000 to finance the expansion of its production capabilities into the USA.
As the name suggests, UpCircle is a circular beauty brand, upcycling by-products including coffee grounds, fruit stones and flower petals into personal care products.
All its products are vegan and cruelty-free and are sold in glass bottles and jars or aluminium tubes. UpCircle runs a postal return-and-refill service.
UpCircle products are already stocked by Holland & Barrett, Ocado and Space NK in Europe and Whole Foods in the USA. We look forward to seeing further global expansion over the next 12 months!
Congratulations to everyone who made this year’s hot list!
If you’re a fast-growing beauty or personal care brand with big plans for 2024, Hooley Brown can help you scale your products globally.
From export planning and strategy support to localising your products and packaging, our international team of experts will get you market-ready. Drop us a line to find out more.
