20 Favorite Makeup Brands and The Products You Need

As it stands, there are an impossible number of beauty brands out there. And it seems like every time you blink, a new one is popping up. The good thing about this is that brands have to be more competitive and deliver products that not only meet the customer’s needs but also adhere to their ethical values. As a result, cosmetic companies are creating more inclusive lines, with cleaner ingredients. Many even opt to go vegan and cruelty-free.

With so many brands out there and even more products to try, it’s hard to know where to even start. So today I’ve rounded up a list of some of my favorite brands and the products I love.

20 Favorite Makeup Brands and The Products You Need

Pat McGrath Labs

The Brand: It would be accurate to say that Pat McGrath is the most renowned and sought-after makeup artist in the world. She’s been developing and launching makeup brands. As well as conceptualizing runway shows, and editorial spreads for the last two decades.

Favorite Product: Any eyeshadow palette from Pat McGrath falls on this list. The makeup products from this brand all offer rich colorful pigments. You can fully cover the eye with a single swipe. Or build layers for a more intense look.

Urban Decay

The Brand: Urban Decay is a cruelty-free cosmetics brand. It’s well-known for its stunning high-quality eyeshadow palettes, eyeliners, and primers.

Favorite Product: Eyeshadow Primer Potion. Priming your eyelids with the smallest amount of this nude primer will help fill in any surface imperfections. Colors will appear more vibrant. And eyeshadows stay put, and crease-free all day.

Bobbi Brown

The Brand: Founded in 1991 by Bobbi Brown and was acquired only four years later by Estee Lauder. Bobbi Brown Cosmetics is probably one of the most trusted names in the makeup industry. Particularly when it comes to her creamy textures, silky smooth foundations, and sheer cheek and lip colors.

Favorite Product: The Full Coverage Face Brush is the one Bobbi Brown product that I use every day. Whether I’m applying foundation or a tinted moisturizer, this ultrasoft face brush creates the perfect matte, flawless finish.

Benefit Cosmetics

The Brand: Benefit Cosmetics was founded by twin sisters that held the belief we’re most beautiful when laughing. So they created a brand of playful quick-fix products that embodied that philosophy.

Favorite Product: The Hoola Glow powder bronzer will give you a natural-looking, lit from within, sunkissed glow all year long. In the summer months, I use the Glow Powder which has superfine pearlescent pigments for a shimmery glow. The rest of the year I use the Hoola Matte Bronzer.

Kosas

The Brand: Kosas is a fairly new clean beauty brand. Launched in 2015 the brand focuses on creating clean beauty products packed with skincare ingredients.

Favorite Product: Revealer Super Creamy + Brightening Concealer is both a concealer and skincare. It’s a super creamy, medium coverage, crease-proof concealer, eye cream, and spot treatment all in one.

Nars

The Brand: Nars began in 1994 with just 12 lipstick shades. They quickly expanded to become what’s probably considered to be the ultimate authority in Blush. Even though they have so many amazing beauty products, they create the industry’s best-selling, most iconic shades for cheeks.

Favorite Product: the Nars Blush is an award-winning pressed powder blush. With super fine powder pigments in both matte and shimmering shades. Their award-winning iconic shade ‘Orgasm’ is a mainstay in my makeup bag. Its soft blendable application provides a healthy-looking blush that will. flatter any skin tone.

Merit

The Brand: Merit’s mission is to reinvent luxury beauty by creating clean everyday essentials. They focus on creating minimalist beauty products that are safe for the body, skin, and planet.

Favorite Product: Flush Balm Cream Blush is a balm that deposits creamy, transparent color that still allows your skin to show through. You can use this multi-use balm on both your lips and cheeks. Just swipe on and blend in with the tips of your fingers.

Milk Makeup

The Brand: Milk Makeup products are designed for an on-the-go lifestyle. And with clean high-tech ingredients. Milk Makeup draws inspiration for its multi-use products from its home, Milk Studios. A cultural hub of creators in New York City and Los Angeles.

Favorite Product: Hydro Grip Hydrating Makeup Primer is an award-winning invisible makeup primer. Its 94% natural gel formula smooths skin. Also grips makeup for up to 12 hours, and locks in hydration. The formula is vegan, gluten-free and cruelty-free.

Charlotte Tilbury

The Brand: Charlotte Tilbury was a world-renowned celebrity makeup artist. She took all the tips, tricks, and secrets she learned during her career and started her own cosmetics line.

Favorite Product: Matte Revolution Lipstick. With so many of this beauty brand’s products in my daily makeup routine, it was hard to pick one product. But the award-winning collection of Matte Revolution lipsticks, with its smoothing, and hydrating formula, is one of the world’s best-selling lipsticks. And for a good reason.

Hourglass

The Brand: Many know Hourglass for creating innovative beauty products that combine science, beauty, and luxury with a flawless finish. It’s also worth noting that the brand is fully vegan and cruelty-free.

Favorite Product: The Seamless Finish Foundation Stick is a weightless, waterproof full coverage foundation. It provides a fast and easy application on the go. And has 32 long-wearing easy-to-use shades.

Chanel

The Brand: Chanel, is a name that is synonymous with luxury. And that also applies to the brand’s luxe makeup line.

Favorite Product: Vitalumiere Aqua Ultra-Light Skin Perfecting Makeup SPF 15. Most people would probably reach for Chanel lipstick as the number one choice from the brand. But this hybrid fluid creates a fresh, natural complexion with the tiniest amount of product. The water-light formula will leave skin hydrated. And looking refined and refreshed.

Tower 28 Beauty

The Brand: Tower 28 is another brand that has California as its home base. In fact, the beauty brand was named after a local Santa Monica lifeguard tower. All of the products that the brand creates are made with clean, non-toxic ingredients. And won’t harm or irritate sensitive skin.

Favorite Product: BeachPlease Lip + Cheek Cream Blush is a creamy, multitasking, lip tint and cheek stain. This clean beauty product will help you create a soft dewy look. That’s never dry and cakey and won’t settle into lines.

Ilia Beauty

The Brand: Ilia Beauty is a leading pioneer in the clean beauty movement. It’s well known for its exceptional sustainability practices. From 100% recyclable packaging to all of their products being clean and consciously sourced.

Favorite Product: The Super Serum Skin tint is the perfect combination of active skincare ingredients. With mineral SPF, and light tinted coverage. This liquid formula comes in 30 shades of radiant dewy coverage. Its formula won’t clog pores and has been known to even help acne-prone skin.

Glossier

The Brand: In just a few short years beauty startup Glossier became the darling of every “cool girl” out there. With modern, minimalist packaging, beauty products with endearing names like Cloud Paint. And its “skin first, makeup second” mantra earned this brand a cult following.

Favorite Product: With a waitlist that was once over 10,000 people long waiting to get their hands on this product, you know it has to be amazing! Bow Brow has a pigmented pomade-like, waxy formula. Which will shape your brows into flawless arches. It’s available in clear, and 4 shades. So you can create the perfect natural-looking brow.

Anastasia Beverly Hills

The Brand: Anastasia Beverly Hills is known as the definitive brow and eye expert. Her products help to create and maintain the ideal brow shape.

Favorite Product: The Dip Brow Pomade is the holy grail product when it comes to sculpting and defining brows. This creamy formula is waterproof, smudge-proof, and comes in 11 shades.

It Cosmetics

The Brand: It Cosmetics was created in partnership with plastic surgeons to make high-tech formulas. And with good for your skin ingredients.

Favorite Product: CC+ CREAM WITH SPF 50+ is a color-correcting, full coverage foundation. With physical mineral sunscreen. It was the best-selling CC Cream in the US from 2016-to 2019. The creamy anti-aging formula comes in 12 different shades.

KVD Beauty

The Brand: KVD creates high-performance makeup inspired by tattoo artistry. The brand believes in being vegan and cruelty-free. But without compromising performance.

Favorite Product: The Tattoo Waterproof Liquid Eyeliner from KVD is an award-winning, waterproof eyeliner. Its bold pigments and precise tip allow you to easily create perfectly sharp lines.

Laura Mercier

The Brand: Laura Mercier’s eponymous line was said to be created when the French-born makeup artist wasn’t able to find natural-looking complexion products. Mercier’s collection includes makeup, skincare, and fragrance products. Focusing on enhancing one’s natural beauty.

Favorite Product: Tinted Moisturizer Natural Skin Perfector Broad Spectrum SPF 30. The formula originally was released in 1996. But recently got a revamp. It maintains its creamy texture and buildable coverage. But now has a high SPF and 20 shades in the line,

Maison Margiela Perfume

The Brand: Maison Margiela the French fashion house is well known for its haute couture. As well as ready-to-wear for women and men. Small leather goods, footwear, fine jewelry, and fragrances.

Favorite Product: By The Fireplace immediately became a personal favorite the first time I smelt it. This warm spicy scent has notes of pink pepper and orange flower petals. Clove oil, chestnut, and vanilla. You can even find the matching scented candles in several rooms of my house.

Jo Malone London

The Brand: Jo Malone London is a British brand. It’s best known for its unique but elegant fragrance portfolio of perfumes and scented candles.

Favorite Product: The Velvet Rose & Oud Cologne is a must-try if you like rose-scented perfume. I think of this as the sultry, grown-up, and mysterious version of their everyday red roses cologne.

Xx Monti