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The Manual’s Grooming Awards Are Open for Submissions

For the first time in eight years, brands can enter. Here is what that means, and what it doesn't.

By
Head, Person, Face
The Manual

For eight years, The Manual’s Grooming Awards have done one thing: told readers which products actually work. Not which ones arrived in the nicest box, not which brand bought the most media. Which ones survived months of daily use on our own faces, in our own showers, and were still worth reaching for at the end.

This year, we’re opening the awards to submissions.

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Submissions open Monday, August 31, 2026. Winners publish Friday, November 13, 2026.

What’s New

man with full hair
Nitin Khajotia / Pexels

The 2026 awards run to 96 awards across seven categories — Beard & Shave, Body, Face, Hair, Fragrance, Tools & Accessories, and Oral care.

Fragrance and Tools & Accessories are now standalone categories. Cologne is broken out by scent family rather than lumped into a single catch-all. Trimmers, dryers, razors and devices have their own slate instead of competing against face cream. And we’ve added a full run of deodorant and antiperspirant awards, including clinical strength and refillable formats.

If your product had nowhere to go in previous years, it probably does now.

Key Dates

Submissions openMonday, August 31, 2026
Standard deadline — $250 per productFriday, October 2, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET
Final deadline — $350 per productFriday, October 9, 2026, 11:59 p.m. ET
Samples must arrive byFriday, October 9, 2026
Winners announcedFriday, November 13, 2026

What the fee does and doesn’t buy

We’d rather be blunt about this than let anyone assume.

The entry fee covers the cost of testing. Every product submitted is evaluated hands-on by our grooming editors. That takes weeks of their time, and the fee covers it.

The fee does not buy an award. It doesn’t buy coverage, a mention, or a placement. Our editors select winners independently, on their own testing and their own judgment. No one on our commercial team has a vote.

And entering isn’t the only way to win. Our editors have always found and tested products on their own, and they still do. If the best beard oil of 2026 never enters, it still wins. That is the whole reason the award is worth anything — to readers first, and to the brands that win it second.

Who can enter

  • Products that launched, or were materially reformulated or relaunched, between May 1, 2025 and November 30, 2026
  • Products commercially available to US consumers on or before November 30, 2026 — including products not yet on sale, if you can confirm a launch date and send a pre-production sample
  • One entry per product. Bundles, shade variants and size variants each need their own entry
  • No limit on how many products a brand can enter

How to enter

a man in robe doing skincare routine
Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels

1. Complete the submission form. About ten minutes per product. You’ll pick a category and a specific award, describe the product, and upload images.

2. Pay the entry fee. Payment is part of the form. Your entry isn’t complete until it’s paid.

3. Send your sample. You’ll get a confirmation email with a packing slip and our shipping address. Samples must arrive by October 9 — not be postmarked by it.

Submit a product

See last year’s winners

Questions about entry, eligibility, categories, or samples: awards@digitaltrends.com

Mark D McKee
Mark D McKee
Editor
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