How One Allure Editor Tests Up to 20 Lipsticks During Best of Beauty Award Season

Allure‘s Best of Beauty Award testing period is wonderfully exciting, if not even a tad hectic. In 26 years of BoB, a lot has changed in regards to product innovation. But the testing process is still just as rigorous as it was back in 1996. To understand what a typical day in an editor’s BoB testing phase looks like, we asked Allure‘s commerce editor Sarah Han. She’s a self-described lipstick devotee, classifying her love for it as “consistent and unwavering.” If she could only swipe on one product before heading out the door, it would be a lip product. Given her passion for the genre, it’s only natural Han was one of the Best of Beauty testers within the Lips category.

For the last two-plus months of testing, she has deep-dived into all things lips – from matte lipsticks to long-wearing liquid formulas — testing upwards of 15 to 20 products to find the perfect winners. Han has been at Allure for over two years, participating thus far in two Best of Beauty testing phases. Here’s what she’s learned over the past few years about what makes a BoB winner, red flags, and the pressure of testing for the covetable red seal of approval.

Maintaining a Baseline

“I try to keep my prep the same for each lipstick. I put on some lip balm while I’m doing my other makeup, then wipe off the excess balm, and then put on whatever lip product I’m trying. Because my lips can be dry and I want to keep that consistent so the lipstick has a chance.”