It’s springtime — the season when the beauty industry celebrates itself. This Thursday, the Fragrance Foundation presents its annual FiFi Awards, at which more than 60 scents will vie for top honors in eight different Fragrance of the Year categories. Earlier this month, at the Cosmetic Executive Women’s Beauty Awards, more than 600 beauty products competed for recognition in 33 different categories, including lip treatment, anti-aging, and men’s skincare. And in the June issue of Allure magazine, readers voted on their favorite products in more than 20 categories, from lip gloss to defrizzer to self-tanner.

While the awards may seem light in comparison to, say, Pulitzer Prizes, they mean business: Increasingly, these industry awards — and others like them — are being marketed to consumers. Allure has been presenting its Best of Beauty Awards since 1996. Until this year, that moniker comprised both the Readers’ Choice and Editors’ Choice awards; the two are now separated and published in different issues.

When the FiFis began 35 years ago, “it was the industry recognizing the industry,” the president of the Fragrance Foundation, Rochelle Bloom, said. But the awards have evolved to include consumers. “We’ve really reached out,” she said. “It’s been a priority of our board to take [the FiFis] from being internal — us patting ourselves on the back — to making it more marketable, so the consumer can participate in it and be part of it.” In the past few years the FiFis have reached out to consumers for their votes, and worked to increase both media exposure and retail participation. This year, Sephora did online, e-mail, and in-store promotions featuring all of the finalists, and will also feature the winning fragrances.

CEW — now in its 13th year — has partnered with retail chains CVS/pharmacy, Macy’s, Sephora, and Ulta to make its winning products easily available. “Buy Now” buttons on its Web site, cew.org, link directly to the retailers.

Adding to consumer awareness of these awards is the advent of stickers or labels that amount to seals of approval from CEW and numerous women’s magazines. Manufacturers of winning products tout their victories on everything from product packaging to Web sites. Troll the aisles of your favorite drugstore and you’re sure to see them: A bottle of Neutrogena Body Clear Body Scrub, for example, bearing an Allure Readers’ Choice Award seal. Allure began offering its seal about seven years ago; Redbook magazine, which began its MVP Beauty Awards in 2004, has a seal, too. So does Natural Health, which started its beauty awards in 2005. And CEW started offering its own hot pink-and-gray seal in 2005.

According to Allure, those labels are more than just decorative; they’re influential. The magazine’s research shows that 85% of its readers are more likely to buy a product with an Allure seal on it than one without. The magazine also tracks the number of brands that use its seals. “In 2006, 90% of the brands that won either a Readers’ Choice, Editors’ Choice, or Breakthrough Award used the seal in their advertising, packaging, retail display, or Web site,” the magazine’s associate publisher, marketing, Susan Bornstein, said.

Proponents of the awards say they are a service to consumers. “If you’re in the beauty business, the first thing people want to know is what the best products are,” the president of CEW, Carlotta Jacobson, said. “Last year there were at least 10,000 new beauty products introduced. Obviously, people are looking for [advice on] how to make a decision.”

Adrienne Kramer, a self-employed mother of two in Chappaqua, N.Y., finds beauty awards more helpful than advertising. “I know [the products] were tried by someone who knows the range of things that are in the stores,” she said. “I don’t always agree with the editors’ picks.”

A beauty trends expert and the president of GTK Marketing Group, Rachel Weingarten, said consumers should use the awards labels as guides, not guarantees. “If the product doesn’t work for you, the label means nothing,” she said. Still, as Good Housekeeping has proved, a seal of approval can count for a lot.

Retailers and manufacturers are also taking advantage of the awards. At CVS/pharmacy, beauty is the fastest growing front store category. And company research shows that CVS customers “want to be educated about the top products out there and look to us as a resource,” the divisional merchandising manager for CVS/pharmacy beauty care, Deb Armstrong, said. “CEW has a lot of credibility in the industry, so being a sponsor of the awards is a natural fit.”

For niche cosmetics brands, the awards can be especially helpful. In 2005, a lip balm from Tarte Cosmetics won a CEW Award; once the company started putting the organization’s seal on the product packaging, sales increased about 20%, the company’s vice president, Alexis Mezzina DiResta, said. Tarte has also labeled winning products with Redbook’s MVP Beauty Awards seal. And the company makes note of its beauty award wins on its Web site. “As a small company, you’re aware of the fact that a lot of customers don’t know much about you, and this is a way of capturing their attention,” Ms. Mezzina DiResta said.

With all the beauty awards and seals, is there a danger that consumers will ultimately be confused? “When women are in a store facing a sea of products, anything that narrows down the selection can help,” the beauty director of Allure, Amy Keller, said.

But Ms. Bloom, of the Fragrance Foundation, sees both sides: “They could cancel each other out, but in the end, people love to win awards and love to market them.”