Experts reveal their best beauty buys of 2024. Now YOU can vote for your favourites too
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A gorgeously groom–ed welcome to this, Inspire’s seventh annual beauty awards. Since I had the joy of taking over your cosmetics column in 2021, the industry – like the country at large – has been on a wild ride: Covid, lockdowns, cost-of-living crises, and more leaders than you can shake a (cuticle) stick at. And it’s not as if the rest of the globe has been a bastion of calm.
![[Millie Kendall (pictured) chose a flannel by Skin Rocks as her favourite beauty tool]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/08/19/92933279-14171271-image-a-15_1733687106303.jpg)
Still, beautification rituals have always steadied, thrilled and diverted us, lifting humanity’s spirits when the world feels like a vast and confusing place. Caring for our hair, nourishing our bodies, and decorating our faces provide simple, but profound pleasures.
![[Ruby Hammer (pictured) chose Natrium's body wash for her top shower pick]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/08/19/92933281-14171271-image-a-13_1733687036340.jpg)
As a result, the beauty industry is booming, worth an annual £27.2 billion, according to the British Beauty Council. The trade’s employment rates expanded by 10 per cent in 2023, supporting a workforce of more than 603,000, many of them hard-grafting women. It’s an achievement all Brits should be proud of.
![[According to Inspire's beauty columnist Hannah Betts (pictured), Glossier’s Boy Brow Arch gives the natural-look dream]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/08/19/92933275-14171271-image-a-12_1733687011552.jpg)
Our creatives, our business moguls, our products lead the globe, whether it’s Charlotte Tilbury’s foundations, Pat McGrath’s palettes, Lisa Eldridge’s lipsticks, Victoria Beckham’s eye pencils, or the wonderful wares so lavishly available at Superdrug and Boots; the former turning 60 this year, the latter 175 years young.
![[Inspire editor Katherine Spenley (pictured) can't live without Batiste dry shampoo]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/08/19/92933283-14171271-image-a-11_1733686985155.jpg)
