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Jen Atkin
Image Credit: Mike Rosenthal/ Courtesy photo Founder, Ouai and Mane
Since selling her OG hair care business, Ouai, to P&G Beauty, Jen Atkin has done it again with Mane, a hair care and tool brand spun off from her longtime beauty blog Mane Addicts. Today, both brands are flying high, bringing stylist-grade hair care to the masses with an M.O. of efficacy and excitement.
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Bobbi Brown
Image Credit: David Needleman/WWD Makeup artist and founder, Jones Road Beauty
Twenty-five years after launching the namesake makeup line she sold to The Estée Lauder Cos., Bobbi Brown’s instinct for what women want has yet to waver. In 2020, she introduced Jones Road Beauty, which offers no-fuss makeup essentials for a new era, and has since become a nine-figure business. In true fashion, the brand isn’t shying away from new territory, either, most recently entering body care with a five-piece line that beautifies from head to toe.
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Shai Eisenman
Image Credit: Courtesy photo Founder and chief executive officer, Bubble
How does a mass-market, Gen-Z skin care range become one of beauty’s buzziest brands? With Shai Eisenman at the helm, of course. With Bubble, the entrepreneur has captured the loyalty of one of beauty’s most coveted customer cohorts, and continues to keep them — and everyone else — on their toes with innovative products, cutting-edge collaborations and an inimitable sense of fun.
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Laura Geller
Image Credit: Courtesy photo Founder, Laura Geller Beauty
If you want to crack the code of resonating with Gen X, just ask Laura Geller. The makeup artist and founder of her eponymous cosmetics line has mastered the art and (data) science of not just selling makeup to the masses but getting them to come back — making Laura Geller Beauty today the flagship brand of AS Beauty’s $500-million-plus portfolio.
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Kilian Hennessy
Image Credit: Courtesy photo Founder and creative director, Kilian Paris
Boozy perfumes may be a trend today, but Kilian Hennessy has long since made them a lifestyle. The French founder’s eponymous brand is one of the fastest-growing in the Estée Lauder Cos. portfolio, with hits ranging from a new trio of cocktail-inspired scents to the expanding Liquors on the Rocks line. Old Fashioned maybe, but in the best way.
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Carisa Janes
Image Credit: Courtesy photo Founder, Hourglass Cosmetics and Outside In; brand architect, Nature of Things
We’d say third time’s the charm, but Carisa Janes has struck a home run and then some with each of her ventures. (She’s on number four now.) Hourglass Cosmetics, the prestige makeup brand she launched in 2004, has grown more than five times since 2021. Ever the brand-builder, Janes launched another luxury cosmetics line, called Outside In, in 2025, and that same year kicked off a new chapter for plant-based body care brand Nature of Things, which she acquired and reintroduced to the market.
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Marcia Kilgore
Image Credit: Courtesy photo Founder, Beauty Pie
Lightning strikes time and time again for Marcia Kilgore, who launched Bliss, Soap & Glory and Fit Flop before introducing her most recent multicategory beauty business, Beauty Pie, in 2016. Turns out quality and quantity can go hand in hand — at least, when you’re Kilgore.
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Danessa Myricks
Image Credit: Courtesy photo Founder and CEO, Danessa Myricks Beauty
It’s only fitting that one of beauty’s most dynamic creatives is steering one of its most dynamic brands, too. Channeling her experience as a makeup artist to the stars, Danessa Myricks has developed some of the most unique and beloved products in the cosmetics game today, making her eponymous line a top-10 brand by EMV growth globally, per CreatorIQ.
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Charlotte Palermino
Image Credit: Courtesy photo Cofounder and chief brand officer, Dieux
Charlotte Palermino is on a mission to democratize skin care education — through Dieux, the clinical skin care brand she cofounded and sells at Sephora — and beyond it. From retinol to SPF to antiaging to dupes, Palermino has become a go-to source of beauty information and myth-busting for her more than 850,000 social media followers, a fair share of whom are also loud-and-proud Dieux devotees.
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Nancy Twine
Image Credit: Courtesy photo Founder, Briogeo and Soulstice
A maven of the hair care business, Nancy Twine launched Briogeo in 2013 and sold it to The Wella Company less than a decade later. Since then, the founder has launched numerous grants to support other women entrepreneurs, introducing a $1 million Dream Makers Founder Grant in 2024, and partnering with Anna Sweeting last year for a $50,000 the Makers Mindset x The Equity Studio Grant. Now her next act, called Soulstice, is on its way.
