You’re sensitive … and that’s okay! Maybe you’re from that sliver of the population with a chronic skin condition like eczema or rosacea. Or perhaps you just feel a little sensitive because of an unfortunate reaction to an active ingredient. Regardless of the reason you’re feeling uncomfortable in your own skin, you’ve come to the right place. These 10 products are our sensitive-skin-friendly Best of Beauty Award winners for 2025, all catering to the most delicate of complexions.
These easy-does-it formulas might not be the sexiest offers on the market (although, we’d argue that soothed, happy skin is very sexy), but they work hard to deliver maximum results with the mildest approach for every step of your routine. There’s the supremely gentle shampoo, conditioner, and body wash to stock in your shower, the hand soap to leave on your bathroom sink, and detergent for your laundry room, the creams and lotions for every inch of your skin, and the mist to stash in your bag for on-the-go relief.
While it’s always important to determine the cause of your sensitivity (some dermatologists suggest keeping track of active ingredients to weed out the offenders), knowing that the formulas here tread lightly means you can spritz, slather, and suds up with abandon—and feel all the better for it. So start scrolling to discover the products our touchiest of testers trust with their prickly complexions.
Sensitive skin demands and deserves special treatment. These 2025 Best of Beauty Award winners offer all the overprotective pros without any aggravating cons.
Best of Beauty Awards 2025: Sensitive
Shop your favorite category or keep scrolling for the year’s very best face creams, serums, and body lotions for sensitive skin.
See our winners:
Best Cleanser for Sensitive Skin: Aveeno Daily Face Cleanser Foaming Gel
Best Cleanser for Sensitive Skin
Aveeno Daily Face Cleanser Foaming Gel
Why It Won: Aveeno knows a thing or two about coddling the skin, so it’s no surprise that the Daily Face Cleanser Foaming Gel is exceptionally gentle, no mean feat for a jelly formula. The fragrance- and soap-free face wash lifts away buildup from the day—dirt, oil, heat-wave sweat, even the stubbornest eye makeup—with oat flour and niacinamide, all while keeping your skin barrier feeling calm and collected.
“This formula has the same satisfying lather as your typical foam cleanser, but unlike the vast majority of the others, it doesn’t leave your skin feeling stripped or parched,” —Dianna Singh, features director
Best Face and Body Mist for Sensitive Skin: Aestura Atobarrier 365 Cream Mist
Best Face Mist for Sensitive Skin
Aestura Atobarrier 365 Cream Mist
Commerce producer Sarah Hoffmann spritzes herself with the Aestura Atobarrier 365 Cream Mist.
Sarah Hoffmann
Why It Won: Whether your skin is naturally dry or becomes dehydrated throughout the day, Aestura Atobarrier 365 Cream Mist is a quick moisturizing fix that’s safe for the touchiest of complexions. More viscous than your average face mist, the milky formula is laced with ceramides and lipids to relieve tight, thirsty skin and refresh dull, dry-looking makeup without so much as a flush or a tingle.
“I put this mist through the ringer during a summer of overwhelming, I-just-stepped-outside-and-I’m-already-sweating heat. It instantly cools me down and helps fend off the dehydration that comes with constant exposure to notoriously moisture-wicking office building AC. She doesn’t leave my bag!” —Sarah Hoffmann, commerce producer
Best Moisturizer for Sensitive Skin: Peach Slices Redness Relief Calming Cream
Best Moisturizer for Sensitive Skin
Peach Slices Redness Relief Calming Cream
Why It Won: Think of the softest, coziest thing you own. Maybe it’s your favorite cashmere socks or a supremely plushy blanket. Perhaps it’s a brand-new pair of UGG slippers before the shearling gets smooshed. Whatever it is, that’s what it feels like every time you slather the Peach Slices Redness Relief Calming Cream onto your face. Shockingly lightweight for such an effective moisturizer, the formula immediately soothes and coddles skin, thanks to a combination of hydrating ingredients (panthenol, glycerin, and green algae extract), nourishing plant oils (jojoba and sunflower seed), and botanical extracts with anti-inflammatory properties (rhodomyrtus extract, which comes from a type of myrtle native to southern and southeast Asia).
“If there were an award for Most Easily Irritated Skin, my sister’s face would win it. Nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever tamed her chronically inflamed skin. But then one day, I gave her this Peach Slices cream to try, and hot damn! It worked! And it worked well! So well that she’s asked me for refills a few times now.” —Sarah Kinonen, associate beauty director
Best Body Cream for Sensitive Skin: Kiehl’s Ultra Body Mega Moisture Squalane Cream
Best Body Cream for Sensitive Skin
Kiehl’s Ultra Body Mega Moisture Squalane Cream
Why It Won: Inspired by the brand’s classic, sensitive-skin-friendly face cream, Kiehl’s Ultra Body Mega Moisture Squalane Cream serves up heavy-duty, fragrance-free hydration for even the most delicate flowers among us. The fast-absorbing formula includes all the moisture-boosting elements dermatologists love for dry skin: humectants, emollients, and occlusives, that together help nip dry, tight skin in the bud.
“This is my skin-care equivalent of a tangy hot sauce—I put it on everything as often as I can. The lightweight formula massages effortlessly into the dry, cracked skin on my legs, my sensitive, itchy arms, and my newish hand tattoo, so my skin feels soft and silky, but never oily.” —Jesa Marie Calaor, senior beauty editor
Best Hand Soap for Sensitive Skin: Dial Antibacterial & Sensitive Liquid Hand Soap with Aloe
Best Hand Soap for Sensitive Skin
Dial Antibacterial & Sensitive Liquid Hand Soap with Aloe
Why It Won: Dial Antibacterial & Sensitive Liquid Hand Soap with Aloe leaves out things that might irritate an easily triggered epidermis—dyes, essential oils, sodium lauryl sulfates—and replaces them with gentle cleansers, like lauramine oxide and soothing aloe, for a formula that received a round of applause from our most sensitive testers.
“I’m a (very) frequent hand washer and a chronic hand cream user—I can’t do one without the other. But from the minute I put this soap next to my bathroom sink, I noticed an obvious difference in how my hands felt after every wash. I was no longer desperately searching for a tube of hand cream to soothe the post-wash dryness. In fact, I don’t think I touched the stuff the entire time I tested the formula.” —Sophia Panych, contributing writer
Best Face and Body Lotion for Sensitive Skin: Gold Bond Healing Sensitive Daily Body & Face Lotion
Best Face and Body Lotion for Sensitive Skin
Gold Bond Healing Sensitive Daily Body & Face Lotion
Why It Won: Typically known for its anti-chafing powers, Gold Bond is now leaning into other forms of skin-soothers—and nailing it. With a focus on restoring and strengthening the skin barrier, the Healing Sensitive Daily Body & Face Lotion uses anti-inflammatory oat extract to offer long-lasting comfort along with a laundry list of other skin-coddling ingredients, including aloe, hydroxyethyl urea, shea butter extract, and three types of vitamins (B, C, and E).
Tester feedback from senior director of audience development Lexi Herrick
“This lotion is a dream for sensitive, dry skin. It goes on thick, but locks in moisture instantly and lasts for hours. I also asked my friend who works in a hospital to test it (she’s a nurse and washes her hands approximately 80 times a day), and she loved this product, in particular because of how it brings her dry skin back to life.” —Lexi Herrick, senior director of audience development
Best Shampoo & Conditioner for Sensitive Skin: CeraVe Gentle Hydrating Shampoo and Conditioner
Best Shampoo & Conditioner for Sensitive Skin
CeraVe Gentle Hydrating Shampoo and Conditioner
Senior director of audience development Lexi Herrick holding the CeraVe Gentle Hydrating Shampoo & Conditioner.
Why It Won: The ceramides that make CeraVe’s skin-care products so good at hydrating dry, sensitive skin are just as effective on dry, sensitive scalps. Free of sulfates, fragrances, and dyes, the Gentle Hydrating Shampoo & Conditioner won’t disrupt your scalp’s barrier. In fact, they help care for it with hyaluronic acid, niacinamide, and three kinds of ceramides. But this delicate duo isn’t just good for your scalp. Our testers loved that the pair made their hair as soft and shiny as formulas triple the price and with triple the ingredients.
“With psoriasis, I have meticulously combed the aisles of every drugstore to find a sensitive shampoo and conditioner that doesn’t bother my scalp but leaves my hair looking commercial-worthy. This CeraVe duo leaves my waves squeaky clean with TV-like shine.” —Kassidy Silva, social director
Best Body Wash for Sensitive Skin: Seen Body Wash, Fragrance Free
Best Body Wash for Sensitive Skin
Seen Body Wash, Fragrance Free
Why It Won: The Seen Body Wash, Fragrance Free may not smell like a tropical island paradise, but that doesn’t mean it makes your shower experience any less luxurious. The mild body cleanser suds up so nicely and leaves limbs feeling so silky, you won’t even notice that it doesn’t smell like anything. What you will notice? Your skin isn’t the least bit stripped, itchy, or angry, thanks to hard-to-pronounce yet gentle cleansers (sodium lauroyl methyl isethionate, cocamidopropylamine oxide) and calming bisabolol, a soothing ingredient that’s okay to use even if you have a skin condition like eczema.
“Between the two of us, my eczema-prone son and I have been emptying a bottle of this fragrance-free body wash every month or so. It lathers just enough to feel effective, which it definitely is. The formula may be no-frills or irritants, but it leaves skin completely clean (even after a day at the beach spent reapplying sunscreen).” —Jenny Bailly, executive beauty director
Best Detergent for Sensitive Skin: Tide Free & Gentle Liquid Laundry Detergent
Best Detergent for Sensitive Skin
Tide Free & Gentle Liquid Laundry Detergent
Why It Won: Those who have sensitive skin (or live with someone who does) often have to choose between maximum cleansing results or hive-free skin. Tide Free & Gentle Liquid Laundry Detergent makes it so you don’t have to. The gentle, fragrance-free formula leaves even the dirtiest of clothes spotless.
“All these fancy new laundry detergents have nothing on Tide Free & Gentle. I have sensitive skin, and this never irritates it. It just gets everything clean and fresh without any perfumes.” —Angela Trakoshis, shopping market editor
Written by Sophia Panych
How does Allure select products for the Sensitive Skin category in Best of Beauty?
Allure editors and contributors test thousands of skin-care products over several months to find the formulas that deliver real results. Of those products, we determine which formulas contain the mildest ingredients to consider for the Sensitive Skin category. We then have our testers with the prickliest complexions try them to assess how well they stand up to the brand’s claims; if they soothe dry, irritated skin; and whether they trigger stinging, redness, or irritation. After we select our favorite gentle formulas, we ask dermatologists to vet their ingredient lists to ensure, without a doubt, that these products are completely safe for sensitive skin types and those with certain skin conditions.
Are the Sensitive Skin winners fragrance-free and nonirritating?
Yes. Best of Beauty Sensitive Skin winners are formulated without known irritants like essential oils, synthetic fragrance, artificial dyes, or strong exfoliating acids like glycolic or salicylic. Our testers scrutinize each product’s claims while dermatologists weigh in on ingredient lists, giving them the okay for those who have sensitive skin or are managing skin conditions.
Can these products help with conditions like eczema, rosacea, or redness?
All of the Best of Beauty Sensitive Skin winners are formulated for all skin types, including those with sensitized skin (easily irritated and/or inflamed), which means those with skin conditions should be safe to use them. Of course, consult your dermatologist before using a new product, as they know what’s best for you and your skin. While these products are not medical treatments, they often reinforce the skin’s moisture barrier, which can become damaged or weakened as a result of certain skin conditions. Often these winners also include soothing ingredients like colloidal oatmeal, ceramides, aloe vera, and Centella asiatica to ease discomfort, reduce redness, and support skin recovery.
What kinds of products are in the Sensitive Skin category?
This list of winners includes gentle cleansers for the face, body, hands, and hair, as well as a redness-reducing face cream, barrier-strengthening body lotion, soothing face mist, and fragrance-free laundry detergent.
How can I tell which Best of Beauty winners are safe for sensitive skin?
Every Best of Beauty Sensitive Skin winner is selected because it has been deemed safe for this type of skin, but there are winners in other categories—like Skin, Steals, and Clean—that may also be gentle enough for sensitive complexions. Look for words like “soothing,” “fragrance-free,” or “formulated for sensitive skin” in product names and the descriptions written by our editors.
Like what you see from Allure‘s Best of Beauty Awards?
Discover more 2025 Best of Beauty winners:
Watch us test our 2025 Allure Best of Beauty Skin winners:
Firework content
This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.
