It’s Official—These Are the Best-Selling Beauty Products of 2020

December 10, 2020 at 11:30AM

If you didn’t have your beauty routine nailed down before this year, chances are you have it down to a fine art now. Along with the likes of coffee machines and ultrasoft loungewear, beauty products have proven to be some of the most popular purchases in 2020, with more and more of us shifting our focus from our wardrobes to what lies within our vanity bags and lines our bathroom cabinets.

With our social lives largely put on hold, many of us, the Who What Wear UK team included, utilised our time spent indoors to experiment with new makeup, skincare, and haircare. But which products were we buying the most? With our interest piqued, we set about finding out. 

From John Lewis & Partners and ASOS to Net-a-Porter and Cult Beauty, we asked some of beauty’s top retailers to tell us which five beauty products are most in demand. Keep scrolling to discover the most popular beauty products of 2020, and see how many you can tick off your bucket list. 

At Net-a-Porter, skincare is, undoubtedly, the order of the day, with incredibly rich creams and moisturising serums proving to be the most popular beauty products on the platform. A special mention goes to Dr. Barbara Sturm, a brand that cinched two of the five top spots. 

Harvey Nichols has seen its customers move away from full-coverage foundations, instead opting for Chantecaille’s industry-adored Just Skin Tinted Moisturiser. Augustinus Bader’s cult The Rich Cream graces its bestsellers, too, as do essentials from Fenty Beauty and Marc Jacobs’s Instagram-famous At Lash’d Mascara. 

ASOS’s best-selling beauty products reflect the retailer’s potent blend of skincare, haircare, and makeup. Olaplex’s No.3 Hair Perfector (£26), which appears in the most-popular lists of other beauty brands, is up there—as is base-blurring makeup, MAC’s best-selling lipstick in Velvet Teddy, and a complexion saviour from The Ordinary.

Much like ASOS, Cult Beauty also reports products from Olaplex and The Ordinary in its 2020 best sellers alongside Huda Beauty’s iconic #FauxFilter Foundation (£33), a powder setting veil from Laura Mercier, and Paula’s Choice’s industry-loved liquid exfoliant. 

John Lewis & Partners’ beauty offering is as bountiful as they come, so we were particularly interested to see which products its customers buy in bulk. From nourishing lip balms and skincare essentials to innovative beauty tech, it’s clear that glowy, flawless skin is a top priority. 

Those in need of some lockdown escapism have likely found it by way of Beauty Bay’s bold and beautiful eye shadow palettes, two of which top its best-selling roster. The NikkieTutorials x Beauty Bay palette proved so popular it sold out within minutes of going live. Now it’s back, but customers are limited to two per sale. Other products of note include brow soap, blemish cover-ups, and vegan skincare courtesy of Mario Badescu Skin Care. 

Even though masks are negating the need for intricate lip looks, at Feelunique, Charlotte Tilbury’s Pillow Talk lipstick is still proving incredibly popular—as are other beauty must-haves, including Urban Decay’s award-winning setting spray, Hourglass’s incredible Caution mascara, and, yet again, Olaplex’s Hair Perfector. 

Over at Space NK, the focus is undoubtedly on lashes, as two of its top-five sellers are recently launched mascaras. Additionally, its iconic beauty advert calendar also makes an appearance, alongside a skincare bumper box and a radiance inducing palette. 

At Lookfantastic, customers have made it their mission to plump, tone, and hydrate their skin, with each of the five best sellers falling under the skincare category. Ingredients like vitamin C have also proved integral to our 2020 beauty routines, so the inclusion of Pixi’s fan-favourite Tonic comes as no surprise. 

Next Up: The One Ingredient That Skin Experts and Cool Girls Are Obsessed With Right Now

Author Maxine Eggenberger | Whowhatwear
Selected by CWC