15 Best Luxury Beauty Brands: Hair, Makeup, Skin, Perfume, Nails

For most people, a luxury beauty shopping trip is a treat to celebrate a milestone or to try a product or brand you’ve saved up for. For someone who became beauty-obsessed as young as I did, it felt like I was always meant to walk this inevitable path for quality products.

To me, luxury beauty isn’t just about the product itself but about the experience you have when engaging with a brand. I get that not everyone wants—or is able—to spend serious cash on these items, but the allure and creativity behind them shape the trends, standards, and formulations that trickle down to every price point.

“Luxury beauty brands not only offer customers innovative products with quality craftsmanship, but they also give them a sense of aspiration,” says Nordstrom’s National Beauty Director, Autumne West. “Consumers can buy into the world of a designer brand through their beauty products. We also see a level of trust customers have in established luxury names, making them gravitate towards them both in-store and online.”

Yes, a $160 Louis Vuitton lipstick is simply that—a product for your lips. But there’s a big difference between grabbing a quick tube at your local drugstore and visiting a Louis Vuitton store, exploring the brand’s luxurious brick-and-mortar lineup, and leaving with a new relationship with a sales associate. On top of all of this, many luxury beauty brands have a clear artistic vision, often collaborating with experts who act as intermediaries, translating runway trends for everyday consumers. That’s why I, someone who started with dollar store makeup, find myself justifying $100 foundations a decade later.

That being said, the world of luxury beauty can feel overwhelming, so not only have I chimed in on some of my personal favorite brands below, but I’ve also tapped a few industry friends—celebrity makeup artists, manicurists, and more—to help me curate a list of the best luxury beauty brands on the market.

Ahead of the 2025 holiday season, consider this list your ultimate guide to luxury beauty brands, whether you’re shopping for loved ones or yourself.

Contents

1 Best Luxury Hair Brands
2 Best Luxury Makeup Brands
3 Best Luxury Nail Brands
4 Best Luxury Skincare Brands
5 Best Luxury Fragrance Brands
6 Why Trust Marie Claire
7 Meet the Experts

Best Luxury Hair Brands

When it comes to a good hair product, Rob Peetom’s creative director and L’Oreal Professional hair artist, Drew Schaefering, knows a thing or two. “In the luxury haircare world, I lean towards Davines and L’Oréal Professionnel,” he tells me. “Davines, being a certified B Corp, utilizes natural ingredients from local farmers in Parma. They are a beautiful example of responsible innovation with products that also smell amazing. L’Oréal Professionnel is a market leader in scientific innovation in color, care, and repair, and it’s a brand that I fully trust and stand behind.”

L’Oréal Professionnel

Absolut Repair Molecular Hair Mask for Damaged Hair

I would be remiss not to mention one of my favorite luxury haircare brands of all time: Oribe. From the dedicated curl care line to the texturizing spray, this is one of the first luxury hair brands that “made sense” to me, and it’s still one of my favorites to this day.

Oribe

Hair Priming Lotion Leave-In Conditioning Detangler

Oribe

Dry Texturizing Spray

Best Luxury Makeup Brands

Makeup artist, Theo Turner, has had a few gigs in the beauty industry, but two brands have made a lasting impression on him. “My two favorite luxury brands would have to be Chanel and Tom Ford,” he tells me. “These two maisons have shaped my artistry, my eye for luxury, and my career. Chanel was the first luxury brand I ever worked for, and Tom Ford was the last. They both represent two distinct languages of beauty, one rooted in timeless elegance, the other in bold modern sensuality and outspoken expression.”

Chanel

Le Correcteur De Chanel Longwear Colour Corrector

Tom Ford

Shade and Illuminate Cream Contour Duo

Content creator and professional makeup artist, Jonet Williamson, also has a few staple luxury beauty brands in her kit. “One of my favorite makeup brands right now is YSL,” Williamson tells me. From the variance in shades to the actual color payoff of their formulas, and even the longevity of the brand’s products on the skin, it’s a love affair that she didn’t see coming. “I love their blushes, powder bronzers, mascaras, and their lip products,” she adds. “They’re killing it right now, and they feel like a true luxury brand.”

Williamson is also a big fan of Dior, particularly one product. “I especially love the Backstage Face & Body Flash Perfector Concealer,” she says. “It has caffeine in it, which is extremely helpful for people with puffy undereyes. It also has self-setting properties in it, which is great for helping with flashback since you don’t have to put a ton of powder under the eye.”

YSL

Make Me Blush 24h Buildable Powder Blush

Dior

Backstage Face & Body Flash Perfector Concealer

Best Luxury Nail Brands

Tom Bachik is a celebrity manicurist with a stacked client roster, including Selena Gomez and Jennifer Lopez, so when he talks, I listen. “Chanel and La Mer make some of the most luxurious products on the market,” Bachik tells me. “Two of them that I keep in my kit are Chanel’s Huile De Jasmin facial oil and LaMer’s The Hand Treatment.” Using a combination of the two, Bachik creates what he calls a “cuticle cocktail,” which he says whips his client’s hands into shape. “They are the perfect combo to moisturize cuticles and rehydrate skin after a service,” he says. “It’s the most luxurious, a-list-approved combination that I absolutely swear by.”

La Mer

Deco Print The Hand Treatment

Manicurist Erica De Los Santos is also a big Chanel fan. “The polishes from this brand have the best pigment and apply so smoothly onto the nail, thanks in part to the shape of the brush,” she says. Another luxury nail brand that she swears by is Gel Bottle Inc. “The builder in a bottle from this brand is self-leveling and so, so good,” she gushes. “And the gel colors are incredibly pigmented.”

Chanel

Le Vernis Longwear Nail Colour – 151 Pirate

The Gel Bottle

Clear Biab

Best Luxury Skincare Brands

Board-certified dermatologist, Dendy Engelman, MD, is practically royalty in New York City, so a skincare recommendation from her is worth its weight in gold. “Two of my favorite luxury skincare brands are Elm Biosciences and Lyma,” she says. “The former is inspired by the precision of clinical dermatology; I’m always drawn to brands that use rigorously validated ingredients, and Elm Biosciences fits that criteria beautifully. Their approach feels like skincare designed with the same discipline I bring to my practice: targeted, intelligent, and deeply restorative.”

As for the latter, it was innovation that first drew Dr. Engelman to Lyma. “As a dermatologist who values both innovation and evidence, I appreciate how Lyma pairs high-grade nutraceuticals with truly advanced topical technology,” she says. “It offers a comprehensive, inside-out strategy that aligns with what I often recommend to patients seeking longevity-focused skin health.”

Elm Biosciences

A3o Elemental Serum

As for me, Sofie Pavitt’s acne-focused skincare brand continues to wow me, months after launching earlier this year. The mandelic acid, in particular, has done a fantastic job of reducing the texture of my face, which in turn has allowed me to finally move on to addressing hyperpigmentation and dark marks. It’s pricey, at $54, but I will never be without it again.

Sofie Pavitt Face

Mandelic Acid Exfoliating & Clearing Serum

Sofie Pavitt Face

Clean Clean Gentle Gel Foaming Cleanser

Best Luxury Fragrance Brands

Maison Crivelli is a luxury perfume brand that I will never stop talking about. I know people who have waited months to buy one of the brand’s most popular fragrances, Hibiscus Mahajád—it’s that good. A combination of floral notes like rose and, of course, hibiscus, leather, vanilla, musk, and even spearmint, this perfume is the definition of haute parfumerie and a clear commitment to the quality of perfumerie that this brand practices.

Not only does this extrait have incredible wear time on the skin, but it only uses the finest quality ingredients available on the market. In this fragrance, in particular, you’ll find the word “Orpur” behind many of the notes included. This translates to “pure gold” in French and is a quality designation by the fragrance company Givaudan, signifying that the ingredient has met the highest standards for purity, olfactive quality, and responsible sourcing.

Maison Crivelli

Hibiscus Mahajad Extrait De Parfum

Maison Crivelli

Cuir Infrarouge Extrait De Parfum

Clive Christian is a fragrance house that dates back to 1872 and is said to have been a favorite of Queen Victoria’s. Every perfume from the brand has a fragrance concentration of 20 percent or higher, which means that technically, all of them could be considered Extrait de Parfums. It’s a distinction that immediately becomes apparent when you get a whiff of any fragrance from this house.

All of the scents that I have tried from this line have lasted over eight hours on my skin, and even when I’ve long gone noseblind to the intensity of each perfume, I get compliments like I just freshly applied them. This is one of those beauty brands that epitomizes quiet luxury.

Clive Christian

Crown Collection Matsukita Perfume

Clive Christian

150th Anniversary Timeless Perfume

Why Trust Marie Claire

For more than 30 years, Marie Claire has been an internationally recognized destination for news, fashion and beauty trends, investigative packages, and more. When it comes to the products Marie Claire recommends, we take your faith in us seriously. Every product that we feature comes personally recommended by a Marie Claire writer or editor, or by an expert we’ve spoken to firsthand.