ELLE’s Beauty Shortlist

Back in October we launched our Beauty Breakthrough competition, a hunt to find the next big star of the hard-to-crack industry. Winners of the coveted prize will start work next February 2012 in a paid 12-month job split between PZ Cussons Beauty (owners of St Tropez, Charles Worthington and Sanctuary Spa), House PR agency and ELLE magazine – so it’s no surprise that we were swamped with entries.

The first stage saw hopefuls submit a 500-word essay on a brand they admire. The judges had such a difficult time whittling down the 475 entrants that they ended up choosing 24 shortlisted candidates instead of the intended 20.

And we can now reveal who the lucky 24 are – only the shortlisted candidates and their essays are still live on the site at beautyintern.elleuk.com, so if you entered click on the link to see if you are in with a chance of bagging the job.

The next stage of the competition will be a task for the shortlist held at the offices of PZ Cussons in central London on the 15 December, followed by the final stage (again held in London) in the first week of January. Exciting stuff!