Tilt Beauty wins Pentawards 2025 Diamond with makeup packaging built for arthritic hands

Tilt Beauty began with a founder who could not use the products she loved. Aerin Glazer was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis at 13, and conventional mascara wands, twist caps and tight cartons were physically painful to operate. Instead of adapting existing products, she spent five years building a beauty brand whose packaging was designed from the first sketch for arthritis, chronic pain, tremors and low vision.

The early prototypes were clay models Glazer made in her high-school ceramics class; those evolved through five years of testing with real users. Working with the New York packaging studio Established, the final system uses a shorter mascara wand for steadier application, silicone-coated surfaces for grip, magnetic closures calibrated so they close securely yet open without twisting strain, oversized easy-open tear strips, braille on the boxes and the Braille Institute's Atkinson Hyperlegible typeface on labels. The products are refillable, vegan and dermatologist-tested for sensitive skin.

The bet paid off across three audiences at once: advocacy organisations, judges and the market. Tilt was the first beauty brand to receive the Arthritis Foundation's Ease of Use Certification, the Grip Stick made TIME's 100 Best Inventions of 2025, and at Pentawards 2025 the packaging won the Diamond — Best of Show while its studio, Established, was named Design Agency of the Year. The brand was also stocked in The Met Store for the 2026 Costume Art exhibition, a signal that inclusive design could sit on the most prestigious cultural shelf in fashion.