Allure Readers’ Choice Awards: Methodology & How Winners Are Determined

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The Allure Readers’ Choice Awards are determined through an annual reader-voted poll on Allure.com. This page explains how nominees are selected, how votes are collected and verified, and how final winners are determined.

Allure magazine has been bringing reliable product recommendations to readers for 30 years. And for 20 of those years, readers have been telling Allure editors the hair, skin-care, and makeup products they recommend (and can’t live without) in the Readers’ Choice Awards poll. They vote, we listen.

Here’s a closer look at how that process works.

Frequently Asked Questions

• How long does the Allure Readers’ Choice Awards voting period last?
• Who is eligible to vote in the Allure Readers’ Choice Awards?
• How are votes counted in the Allure Readers’ Choice Awards poll?

What Are the Readers’ Choice Awards?

Every February, Allure editors ask our discerning readers to share which hair, skin, nail, and makeup products they’re loving via the Allure Readers’ Choice Awards poll.

The poll features over 500 products for readers to vote on, across all categories: Skin, Hair, Body, and Makeup, along with a few other specialties, like Clean Beauty, Breakthroughs, Steals, and Splurges.

In recent years, several new categories have been added to the poll, like New Brand, Most Viral Product, Favorite Indie Brand, and Favorite Creator. This year, a K-beauty category was added to the list.

How Readers’ Choice Awards Voting Works

How Products Are Nominated for the Poll

In every category of the Allure Readers' Choice Awards, readers are invited to weigh in, selecting their favorites from a short list of 5 to 15 beauty products.

We curate each list from:

• The Readers' Choice and Best of Beauty Award winners in that category for the last three years
• The products nominated by 15 to 20 of Allure's favorite beauty experts (dermatologists, hairstylists, makeup artists, nail artists, and cosmetic chemists)
• The best-selling products at Ulta Beauty, Sephora, and Credo Beauty
• The top-selling products from Allure's commerce stories (across all retailers)
• Allure staff picks: new launches and cult classics
• New products that we have featured in our social series “This Just In”

Beauty products aren’t the only nominees in the Readers’ Choice Award poll; content creators are now also included. Every year, the Allure social team hand-picks top beauty, style, and lifestyle creators to participate in the poll. They are selected based on a handful of metrics, such as follower count, engagement rate, and our editors’ views on the quality of their beauty content, and more.

The Readers’ Choice Awards poll nominee list is crafted between the months of November and January, and typically goes live in early February. This year, the Readers’ Choice Awards poll goes live on Tuesday, February 17, at 8 a.m. ET.

How to Vote in the Readers’ Choice Awards Poll

Head to allure.com/vote, where the Readers’ Choice Awards poll lives. From this page, you can jump between categories or follow the order in which categories are listed on the page: Skin, Splurges, Breakthroughs, Makeup, Survey, Body, Steals, Clean, and Hair.

By clicking on the name of each category, for example, Skin, you’re directed to the Skin poll, which features 10 subcategories, with eight products in each. Once you’ve selected your product picks for all 10 questions (only one product can be chosen per question), the page will automatically direct you to the next category, e.g., Splurges.

You should continue this process until you’ve reached the end of the poll, which is after the Hair category.

Note: While there is no fixed limit on participation, Allure monitors voting activity and reserves the right to review and remove suspicious or automated submissions. However, you must complete the poll in its entirety in order to be counted.

How Live Voting Leaderboards Work

During the voting period, we display a live leaderboard for the Best New Brand category. This leaderboard reflects how nominees are pacing based on votes received to date. It is updated periodically and is intended to provide a snapshot of voting trends—not final results. Official winners are determined only after voting closes and all eligible votes have been fully tallied and reviewed.

How Votes Are Verified & Tallied

Each vote cast in the Readers’ Choice Awards poll is counted and collected via a third-party program called Typeform. On this platform, the Allure staff has full viewing access to results during the voting period; votes are securely recorded through the platform and reviewed before final tallies are confirmed. They are counted at the end of the voting period, which ends on Tuesday, March 24, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

How Allure Readers’ Choice Winners Are Determined

Readers’ Choice Award winners are determined by the number of votes a product has in its category. The product with the highest number of votes is deemed the winner.

Allure Readers’ Choice Awards vs. Best of Beauty Awards Methodology Comparison

Unlike the submission process for the Allure Best of Beauty Awards, brands do not submit products to be considered for the annual Readers’ Choice Awards poll. Instead, Allure editors craft a 500-plus product list—across hair, skin, makeup, body, Clean, and Breakthrough categories—for readers to vote on.

For the Best of Beauty Awards, winners are selected based on editors’ testing experiences; for the Readers’ Choice Awards, winners are determined by readers’ votes.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does the Allure Readers’ Choice Awards voting period last?

The voting period for the Readers’ Choice Awards Poll is five weeks long. This year, it opens on Tuesday, February 17, at 8 a.m. ET and closes on Tuesday, March 24, at 11:59 p.m. ET.

Who is eligible to vote in the Allure Readers’ Choice Awards?

Anyone over the age of 18 can vote in the Readers’ Choice Awards poll.

How are votes counted in the Allure Readers’ Choice Awards poll?

In the poll, you can expect to find a mix of open-ended and multiple-choice questions, where you can select from 5 to 15 nominees or submit a product that’s not listed. Every product selected or submitted is counted as one vote. You must complete each individual category before moving on to the next.