17 Best Beauty Startup Ideas

Like beauty and fashion itself, there is a lot of room for creativity in the beauty industry. Here are 17 innovative and creative beauty startup ideas to help you kickstart your own brainstorming process: 

More and more people are now choosing to purchase makeup online rather than in-store. The one key drawback of this, though, is that trying makeup on to make sure it's the right product for you isn’t possible when you’re buying it off a digital shelf. 

Enter virtual makeup try-on apps, which utilize augmented reality in order to let customers try on makeup products using their PC or smartphone. Some of these apps generate revenue via ads or paid features, while others partner with makeup brands to promote their products within the app. Either way, a successful virtual makeup try-on app can result in a highly profitable business if you manage to attract enough users.

Clean beauty products are products that do not contain any ingredients that are harmful to human health, and customers are starting to prioritize beauty products that are as healthy as they are attractive increasingly more often. If you have an idea for a line of beauty products that are made using safe, all-natural ingredients, you shouldn’t have a difficult time finding a market for your products. 

Different skin has different needs. Many times, though, it isn’t always easy for people to figure out the optimum skincare routine for their own unique skin. 

AI-powered skincare tools are able to automatically analyze images of the user’s skin in order to provide personalized skincare recommendations. Like virtual makeup try-on apps, these AI-powered skincare apps can generate revenue via ads, partnerships with skincare brands, paid features, or a combination of all three.

Human hair is made primarily of keratin proteins, and keratin-based hair care products have been found to be highly effective at helping smooth and repair frizzy or damaged hair. These products are rapidly growing in popularity, making now a great time to start your own line of keratin-based hair care products. 

Men have long been a largely neglected market in the beauty industry, and this is especially true when it comes to men’s skincare. It goes without stating, though, that men have skin too, and that is just as important for them to care for their skin as it is for women. 

As more and more men come to value the importance of proper skincare, skincare products that are marketed toward men have begun to sell increasingly well. If you can create a line of quality skincare products that feature packaging and scents designed to appeal to men, you may be able to carve out a share of this growing market. 

Need more inspiration? Check out our list of the top beauty startups to watch.

The hair dyes that customers are able to purchase at professional salons tend to be much higher quality than those you will find available at most retail stores. For customers that would like to dye their own hair using the same high-quality products that salons use, a salon hair color delivery service is a great solution. 

Whether you create your own line of salon-quality hair dyes or simply distribute dyes from other high-quality brands, starting your own salon hair color delivery service can potentially land you a lot of customers who want to dye their hair without having to see and pay a stylist.

Starting a direct-to-consumer (DTC) skincare company will allow you to sell high-quality skincare products directly to customers so that they are able to purchase great products at discounted rates. You can choose to create your own line of skincare products, or you can sell products from other brands that are typically only available at salons or retail stores. 

Starting a DTC skincare brand will typically entail selling products online, which means you’ll need to brush up on your ecommerce strategy. With an appealing brand, quality products, and great digital marketing, though, a DTC skincare company can be a profitable business.

People love customizable products, and customizable beauty products are no exception. With your own customizable hair/body wash startup, you can allow customers to create their own hair and body wash products, choosing the ingredients they want the product to include, the benefits that they want it to offer, and other factors such as the product’s color and scent. 

If you can make the process fun for your customers via things such as quizzes that help them determine the right product for their needs, then your company will be even more likely to be a success.

Ecommerce has become a pillar of the beauty industry, with more and more customers choosing to shop for beauty products online. If you have an idea for an appealing online beauty brand, starting your ecommerce website selling beauty products is a great option to consider. 

You can create an ecommerce website selling your own line of beauty products, or you can purchase products wholesale from other brands to sell on your website. In either case, the right combination of brand development, digital marketing, and customer service can make for a highly successful beauty ecommerce website.

There are plenty of people who love decorating their nails but don’t love having to go to the nail salon to do it. For these customers, stick-on gel nails are a fun, convenient, and affordable option. 

Stick-on gel nails are commonly sold online and in retail stores. Offering your customers the ability to customize the stick-on gel nails that they purchase, though, is a powerful way to set your business apart from the competition. If you can create a brand and website that makes the process of designing custom stick-on gel nails fun and memorable for your customers, then your company will be even better positioned for success.

We’ve already mentioned how customers are becoming increasingly particular about what they put on their bodies, prioritizing beauty products that are made using healthy, all-natural ingredients. Sometimes, though, it isn’t always so easy to tell the exact ingredients that a cosmetic product contains since, unlike food and beverage manufacturers, cosmetic companies are not legally required to list the ingredients in their products. 

This is where the value of an app that is capable of detecting chemicals in cosmetics comes into play. Of course, building such an app requires quite a bit of experience with both software programming and chemistry. However, if you have the right expertise (or are willing to hire someone who does), creating an app for detecting chemicals in cosmetics can allow you to earn revenue via ads, partnerships with cosmetic brands, and/or paid features.

When hemp was legalized at the federal level by the 2018 Farm Bill, it opened the door for a wide variety of hemp products. Since hemp seed oil is high in antioxidants — including vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E, and fatty acids - that strengthen and moisturize skin, one type of hemp product that is now hitting the market is hemp-based skincare products. 

Having only been legal for just a few years, hemp-based skincare is still an emerging market. This makes right now an excellent time to capitalize on all of the buzz surrounding hemp and get into the hemp-based skincare market while the competition is still limited.

Oral healthcare apps can come in a variety of different forms - from apps designed to connect patients with dentists to apps that offer oral healthcare tips to virtual dentist apps that let you see what your teeth would look like whitened or straightened. 

If you can manage to create an oral healthcare app that attracts a lot of users, your options for revenue generation are the same as other types of beauty apps that we have covered so far: ads, partnerships with oral healthcare brands, and paid features.

Proper nutrition is obviously an important part of physical health and well-being, but it is an important part of beauty as well; if you aren’t giving your body the nutrients that it needs to flourish, you are going to have a difficult time maintaining the way that it looks. 

Creating a company offering customizable vitamin packages means that you will be able to offer customers exactly the vitamins they need for their own unique needs and bodies. Any beauty company selling customizable vitamin packages should also prioritize educating customers about the importance and benefits of various vitamins as it relates to both health and beauty so that customers are able to understand what vitamins they need and why.

Adopting a new hairstyle is a big decision. Once you start cutting or dying your hair, there often isn’t any way to take it back. Virtual try-on hairstyle apps have become popular for this exact reason: they allow people to test out what a hairstyle will look like without having to make any kind of commitment to it. 

If you can design a fun and user-friendly virtual try-on hairstyles app, you are likely to find a lot of enthusiastic users. From there, you’ll be able to generate revenue by populating your app with ads, partnering with hair product brands for paid sponsorships, or offering paid features on the app.

Being relaxed and tension-free is an important part of feeling and looking beautiful. If you have earned your license as a professional masseuse, offering a mobile massage service can be a great way to help people shed their stress and tension. 

The best part about this business idea is that it has a very low startup cost. All you will need is a few supplies and a vehicle for traveling to customers to begin offering customers the ability to enjoy relaxing massages from the comfort of their own homes.

Wigs aren’t just for people who don’t have attractive, healthy hair of their own; today, many people choose to purchase wigs as a fun way to mix up their looks and style. 

Starting your own online wig store selling high-quality wigs, weaves, and hair extensions will allow you to capitalize on this growing market while also helping customers feel good about the way that they look. If you can incorporate some sort of virtual try-on app into your website, then your customers are bound to be even more enthused about purchasing wigs from your business.