5 personal care innovations that lived up to the hype in 2024

Plenty of personal care products—the treatments and gadgets that fill our medicine cabinets, home gyms, and vanities—promise innovation. Yet few actually deliver. Companies that craft cosmetics, supplements, fitness tools, and other wellness aids tend to go hard on buzzwords without putting in the research to make something truly new. That doesn’t mean there aren’t worthwhile, forward-thinking personal care products available, though, and this year brought some notable offerings. From high-tech sleep and activity trackers that make peak performance possible to cutting-edge hair dryers that give your scalp a break from burns, these five beauty and wellness products actually back up their big promises. 

(Editor’s Note: This is a section from Popular Science’s 37th annual Best of What’s New awards. Be sure to read the full list of the 50 greatest innovations of 2024.)

Grand Award Winner

Oura Ring 4 by Oura: A wellness tracker with a slimmer profile and beefier features 

It takes a lot for an activity tracker to win a Best of What’s New Award and even more for the same brand to win twice. In 2021, we gave the Oura 3 fitness tracker a nod for its forward-thinking approach to incorporating period tracking into its smart ring app. The Oura Ring 4, which launched on October 3, is more than just a refresh. This model is notably more comfortable thanks to flatter sensors within the band. But Oura’s new Smart Sensing algorithm ensures the slimmer band is more capable than ever. 

The ring’s sensors—red and infrared LEDs for measuring blood oxygen levels, green and infrared LEDs to track heart rate and respiration, a digital thermometer, and an accelerometer—turn on and off based on your activity and your unique physiology. The result is a ring that can run for up to eight days on a single charge while improving accuracy over Oura 3. The Oura App redesign is nothing to sneeze at, either. It offers a uniquely customizable platform for turning the Oura Ring 4’s ample data into useful insights on sleep quality, recovery, stress, fitness, and fertility. With a full range of ring sizes and luxe-looking finishes, the Oura 4 ring might be the most wearable wearable we’ve ever tried. 

Custom-Jet Oral Health System by Proclaim: Finally, a true alternative to flossing

It is a truth universally acknowledged that flossing is a pain in the butt. But while using a water flosser might be better than simply brushing and calling it a night, some dentists won’t take kindly to you replacing your floss with a gadget. The Proclaim Custom-Jet Oral Health System might be the one exception. After all, Proclaim might look like another water flosser at first glance, but it’s in a league of its own. The device features a custom-molded mouthpiece—3D scanned at a dentist’s office and then manufactured by Proclaim—that places up to 60 water jets at just the right spots to clean between your teeth and beneath your gum line. The 360-degree power wash takes just seconds. You can even swap out multiple mouthpieces on a single device, so one unit can clean a whole household’s teeth. 

Bond Shaper Curl Rebuilding Treatment by Olaplex: A quick fix for damaged curls 

In the last few years, Olaplex has become synonymous with bond repair treatments—products that promise to reform the broken links between keratin proteins that make hair frizzy, dry, and brittle. The brand’s new Bond Shaper Curl Rebuilding Treatment uses a proprietary peptide to give curls a targeted boost. The same damage that can make straight hair look rough can actually change the shape of a curl and even make it less curly. The Bond Shaper penetrates hair to rebuild curl-shaping disulfide bonds. This quick and painless salon treatment leaves curls looking bouncier and healthier, making it the first salon-strength bond repair treatment we’ve seen that doesn’t focus on making hair as smooth and sleek as possible. 

Pod 4 by Eight Sleep: Personalized bed temperatures that feel just right 

The sleep aid market is booming, but this smart mattress topper stands out. With a form factor not much thicker than a fitted sheet, the Pod 4 silently circulates water as you sleep to cool or heat you by as much as 10 degrees. It’s more efficient than blasting the heat or the AC, but that’s not all it has going for it. The topper is split into two independent zones, allowing co-sleepers to set precise microclimates for each side. The Autopilot algorithm uses data from the topper’s 36 biometric sensors to recalibrate the temperature throughout the night to maximize sleep quality. Users can also tap inconspicuous buttons on either side of the topper to adjust the temperature without opening the Eight Sleep app. 

Supersonic Nural by Dyson: An incredibly smart dryer that protects your scalp

These days, Dyson is arguably even better known for its game-changing haircare tools than its vacuums. Now, the company has turned its attention to an oft-neglected aspect of hair styling: the scalp. The Dyson Supersonic Nural offers all the power people have come to expect from the brand’s flagship hair dryer but with one high-tech upgrade. The device is packed with sensors to keep you from overheating your hair and scalp. It measures the distance between the dryer and your head with a Time of Flight (ToF) sensor—a piece of tech more often found in autonomous cars and robots that bounces light off objects and clocks how quickly the wave returns. As the dryer moves closer to hair and skin, it automatically lowers its temperature to optimize hair and scalp health without compromising drying speed. 

 

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