Beauty editors dedicate their days (and skin) to trialing the industry’s latest innovations, but all that swatching and swiping often culminates in an overflowing mountain of products permeating every nook and cranny of their shoebox apartments. Call it champagne problems, but Lindsay Colameo Peragallo, a former Allure beauty editor, found a solution to her overwhelming excess: an annual gifting event (read: beauty product purge) for her inner circle, called Beauty Holiday.

“There’s so much surplus specifically in the beauty and retail space that it’s just amazing to see how that surplus, instead of collecting dust in our own spaces, is actually able to make a real impact in making the world a kinder, more beautiful place,” Peragallo tells Fashionista.

The end-of-the-year celebrations began in 2010 and quickly became a coveted yearly invite, and even evolved into a competitive game night of gifting. However, everything changed in 2022: Peragallo had moved to Naples, Florida, and her community was soon devastated by Hurricane Ian. It was the deadliest storm to hit Florida since 1935, leaving 129 dead and damaging more than 52,000 homes and buildings. Beauty Holiday then began spreading Peragallo’s beauty stash to those in need.

Peragallo enlisted her family and friends to help curate self-care gifts from her beauty collection and hand-deliver baskets to families who lost their homes in the storm. To fill those baskets, Peragallo also sent out an ask to the beauty industry, inquiring if any brands were looking to offload products for a good cause. That was the spark that turned Beauty Holiday into a movement.

“It was like [opening the] floodgates,” Peragallo says. “All of a sudden my annual purge became a storage unit and I had so many products that came in.”

From then on, Beauty Holiday zeroed in on spreading the love (i.e. beauty products) to underserved communities. In 2023, Peragallo partnered with The Shelter, a local Naples refuge for abuse survivors, and delivered 88 “overflowing” bags of products after once again rallying beauty industry players. “Every inch of my house was covered [with donations],” Peragallo recalls. “It looked like a Sephora.”

With Beauty Holiday quickly gaining momentum, Peragallo officially registered the initiative as a 501(c)(3) non-profit in July 2024. The next step? Transitioning Beauty Holiday from a once-a-year gifting extravaganza into a year-round beauty-centric coalition. With a newborn baby at home and extra time on her hands leading up to Christmas (“Most moms wouldn’t say that gives you time, but by baby number three you’re like, ‘oh my God, newborns are so easy,'” she jokes), Peragallo expanded Beauty Holiday even further. She compiled 7,000 product donations worth $125,000 and held more than 400 giftings to benefit grief homes, palliative care units, abuse shelters and women battling breast cancer.

Then, in January 2025, wildfires swept through Los Angeles, burning more than 40,000 acres and destroying thousands of homes. Peragallo compiled surplus from her annual December party and shipped more than 1,100 pounds of personalized care packages to families impacted by the fires. But just as Beauty Holiday was scaling to become a nationwide resource, Peragallo was laid off from her job in February.

“When I lost my job, it was, to me, fate and God’s way of saying, ‘This is what you’re meant to do. This should be your job, this is your life mission,'” she reflects. Now, Peragallo is all in on Beauty Holiday.

While the organization partners with major self-care brands to bring joy to those in need, it also serves as a philanthropic hub for independent beauty brands looking to make an impact in whatever way they can. Many smaller beauty brands don’t have the infrastructure to match a conglomerate’s major monetary or product donation, but they’re still dedicated to giving back to the community. As the old adage goes, it’s the thought (not the giant check) that counts.

“I feel like I’m giving [indie and emerging beauty brands] an opportunity to be philanthropic and do it intentionally and do it still in a way that makes an impact and isn’t forgotten because they didn’t do it at the scale that, say, a Procter & Gamble or Unilever brand is able to do it,” Peragallo notes. Given Beauty Holiday’s personalized approach, Peragallo is able to work with indie brands who can only provide 25 to 50 units and ensure that they “aren’t going to get lost in the clutter because they didn’t send 700.”

Beauty Holiday’s indie beauty partners to date include Rare Beauty, Tower28, Beachwaver, Winky Lux, Dossier, Caliray, Davines, Youth to the People, IGK, R+Co, EM Cosmetics, Rael, Mela & Kira, Florence by Mills, Iris & Romeo and Seen. Beyond helping indie brands offload overstock or outdated packaging, Beauty Holiday also offers a unique opportunity to thoughtfully boost visibility among consumers.

“There is true value in getting these products into the hands of people and not in a crowded gift bag that is stuffed with memorabilia and information,” Peragallo says. “It’s not that. It’s very much a gift.”

Beauty Holidayn can even target a brand’s core consumers: For example, if an indie brand is focused on catering to new moms, Beauty Holiday can tailor its gifting to organizations supporting expectant mothers for the products to reach the demographic where they are most helpful. This also functions as an opportunity to foster continued brand loyalty among giftees.

With its inaugural year as a 501(c)(3) non-profit now under its belt, Beauty Holiday has set its sights on scaling. In September, Peragallo won TJ Maxx’s You Sponsorship, a “sponsorship created for women who are authentically true to themselves” that awarded $20,000 each to 10 winners. As an entirely self-funded operation, Beauty Holiday will use this to cover operational and logistical costs. Peragallo was also paired with Jen Atkin, a celebrity hairstylist and founder of hair-care brands Ouai and Mane, who will serve as a co-sponsor.

Beauty brands interested in donating to Beauty Holiday can email the non-profit any time at hello@beautyholidayinc.org, as it regularly plans different initiatives every week. Editors, influencers and PRs can also get involved through Beauty Holiday’s Purge With Purpose initiative; the non-profit provides a pre-paid shipping label for editors to fill any box with unused beauty products to contribute.

Beauty Holiday’s upcoming gifting initiatives include cancer centers for women battling breast cancer, NICU mothers, palliative care units and shelters for abuse survivors, among others. As Peragallo looks toward the future, one of her goals is to create a Beauty Holiday tour bus, complete with an interior boutique, that can roll up to hospitals or shelters for recipients to “shop.” Essentially a pop-up on wheels, the tour bus would also offer hairstyling, nail-care and wellness services.

As for Beauty Holiday’s big-picture goal? “Scaling our impact across the country to touch the lives of more women and families facing hardship, and do it in a more personalized, intentional way all over the country.”

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