CEW UK Beauty Awards 2025: Inside the Industry’s Most Powerful Product Shortlist

If the beauty industry has an “insider voting panel”, it’s the CEW UK Beauty Awards 2025. Held in London, the awards bring together over 1,000 Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW) members – brand founders, product developers, retailers, PRs and beauty editors – to vote on the launches they genuinely rate and recommend.

The 2025 edition, celebrated at a lunch at The Londoner in June, crowned winners across skincare, makeup, hair, wellbeing and fragrance, plus consumer-voted categories and Responsible Beauty Awards, reinforcing why the CEW UK Beauty Awards are often dubbed the “Oscars of beauty.”

For Niche readers, this isn’t just another trophy list – it’s a roadmap to the formulas beauty professionals are actually using on their own faces, hair and kits.

CEW UK Beauty Awards 2025: Why this shortlist matters

Unlike influencer-led rankings, the CEW UK Beauty Awards 2025 ballot is reviewed and verified independently by EY, and winners are chosen by people who work in beauty every day.

A few reasons this shortlist carries real weight:

• It’s peer reviewed. Product entries are judged by CEW’s member community – a cross-section of formulators, marketing teams, buyers and experts who see hundreds of launches a year.

• It mixes newness with icons. Categories recognise both fresh 2025 launches and long-standing “beauty icon” products like micellar waters and cult moisturisers that consumers already love.

• It reflects what’s really selling. Many winners already have strong retail traction at stores like Boots, Space NK, Selfridges, John Lewis and online pure-players – meaning this list often predicts what will dominate shelves next year.

For Niche, the CEW results are less about hype and more about signal: which formulas cut through a crowded market and which brands are quietly building long-term credibility.

The Niche edit from the CEW UK Beauty Awards 2025

From the full winners’ list, here’s a Niche-curated edit – one hero pick each for skin, makeup, hair, fragrance and wellness, all officially recognised by CEW UK.

1. Skin: Medik8 – Liquid Peptides Advanced MP

Winner of Best New Skintellectual – Prestige, Medik8’s Liquid Peptides Advanced MP is a targeted serum designed to support skin firmness and smoothness with a complex of peptides.

• Why pros love it: Medik8 has built a reputation for science-backed, clinic-style formulas; its serums are widely stocked in specialist retailers like Space NK and Cult Beauty, signalling strong demand from skincare-literate shoppers.

• Who it’s for: Anyone noticing fine lines, texture changes or wanting a “buffer” product around in-clinic treatments.

For Niche readers, this sits firmly in the “investment serum” category – a bridge between traditional beauty and derm-led results.

2. Makeup: Lisa Eldridge – Rouge Experience Refillable Lipstick

In colour cosmetics, the Best New Lip Product – Prestige went to Lisa Eldridge Rouge Experience Refillable Lipstick.

• Why it stands out: The brand is built by one of the UK’s most respected makeup artists, and the refillable format taps into both luxury and sustainability.

• Niche angle: This is “editor lipstick” energy – rich pigments, considered shade range and packaging that feels like a design object in your bag.

If you’re curating a capsule makeup wardrobe, Rouge Experience is the kind of bullet that earns its place.

3. Hair: Chāmpo – Pitta Growth Serum

In haircare, Chāmpo’s Pitta Growth Serum took Best New Hair & Scalp Product – Prestige, spotlighting a British brand that blends trichology with Ayurvedic-inspired ingredients.

• What it does: A targeted serum for fine or thinning hair, formulated to reduce shedding and support fuller-looking lengths.

• Why the win matters: Its presence on the CEW winners’ list and at retailers like Selfridges and Harrods shows how scalp health has moved from niche concern to mainstream beauty category.

For readers, it’s a good example of “serious haircare” – treatment-led, not just fragranced shampoo.

4. Fragrance: Jo Loves – Amber Lime & Bergamot

Fragrance is increasingly about storytelling, and Jo Loves Amber Lime & Bergamot secured Best New Fragrance at the 2025 awards.

• The scent profile: A citrus–amber composition, blending bergamot and mandarin with warm amber, cedarwood, suede and patchouli – described by stockists as glamorous and celebratory.

• Where it sits: Available through Jo Loves directly and retailers such as Space NK, it’s positioned at that sweet spot between niche perfumery and accessible luxury.

If you’re curating a modern British fragrance wardrobe, this is a very “going out in London” kind of spritz.

5. Wellness: NEOM Wellbeing – Real Luxury Magnesium Bath Milk

For wellbeing, NEOM Wellbeing Real Luxury Magnesium Bath Milk won Best New Wellbeing Product – Mass & Prestige, and also topped the Consumer Choice vote in its category.

• What it is: A milky bath formula combining magnesium with oils and a 100% natural fragrance blend designed to support relaxation.

• Why it’s big: NEOM has spent years framing baths, candles and home fragrance as part of a daily mental wellness ritual, and this win reinforces how “self-care” has matured into a serious, ingredient-driven category.

For Niche readers, this is the product that turns a regular bathroom into a hotel-level soak.

Indie and female-founded brands that punched above their weight

Beyond categories, the CEW UK Beauty Awards 2025 also highlighted the rise of independent and founder-led brands.

Skin Rocks – Best New Independent Beauty Brand

Skin Rocks, founded by British skincare expert Caroline Hirons, won Best New Independent Beauty Brand.

Hirons built her name on no-nonsense, science-led skincare education, and the brand translates that into clinically tested formulas with very clear usage guidance. For the industry to vote Skin Rocks into the top spot says a lot about how education-first brands are reshaping the skincare conversation.

Tropic Skincare – Consumer Choice, Independent Brand

On the consumer side, Tropic Skincare – founded and led by Susie Ma – won Best Independent Brand in the 2025 CEW Consumer Choice Awards, and its Hydrating Cleanser was recognised as Best New Skin Product.

Ma, who started Tropic as a teenager and has since grown it into a major British beauty business, recently regained full ownership of the company, returning it to a 100% female founder-led brand.

Together, Skin Rocks and Tropic demonstrate how indie, founder-led brands now compete directly with conglomerates at the UK’s most serious industry awards.

How to use the CEW UK Beauty Awards 2025 as your shopping guide

For Niche readers building a smarter beauty routine, the CEW UK Beauty Awards 2025 winners list is more than a press release – it’s a filter:

• Use the category winners as a starting point when you’re overwhelmed by choice.

• Look for overlaps: products that appear both in member-voted and consumer-voted categories (like NEOM’s bath milk) are strong all-round bets.

• Pay attention to independent and founder-led brands – they’re often where innovation and storytelling move fastest.

In a year where every launch claims to be “game-changing”, this shortlist quietly answers a sharper question: what do beauty insiders actually go back to and vote for?