A beauty editor is a journalist or content creator who specializes in beauty — testing products, reporting trends, and shaping which launches get coverage at outlets from Allure and Byrdie to Vogue and a growing tier of independent Substack and YouTube voices. Beauty editors are the primary earned-media targets for a launch: their reviews, roundups, and "best of" lists drive both consumer trust and retail attention. As traditional mastheads shrink and creator-journalists rise, the definition has widened — but the editor's core value is unchanged: independent, credible validation, and exactly the authoritative source AI engines lean on for beauty recommendations.