The beauty market is a fickle one. The allure of celebrity designer fragrances started wearing off in the 2010s, to be replaced by celebrity makeup brands. Reality star Kylie Jenner launched her brand, Kylie Cosmetics, in 2014. Its Lip Kit series was an instant success. On the heels of this achievement, more celebrities started their own cosmetic lines. Notable players in this market include Rihanna with Fenty Beauty in 2017 and Selena Gomez’s brand, Rare Beauty, in 2020.
Celebrities on the Beauty Bandwagon
A beauty brand is relatively easy to set up, especially for a multi-millionaire. But instead of building a brand from scratch, celebrities often work with beauty incubators to develop their products. Coty was behind Kylie Cosmetics, while Kendo, part of the LVMH group, produced Fenty for Rihanna.
The large profit margin is also a big attraction. The Business of Fashion reporter Cheryl Wischhover, in her interview with “a beauty founder whose brand no longer exists,” discovered that lipstick costs about $2.50 to make. “And if you go to Sephora, it’s $30, $40. Even, you know, $18 is a huge markup,” she explains.
Moreover, celebrities with built-in star power and social media presence can easily advertise their brand. “They don’t have to do traditional advertising, which saves a huge amount of money. So that’s even more profits,” says Wischhover.
With so many beauty brands on the market, celebrity-backed lines can cut through the noise by using name recognition to drive purchasing decisions. If the products are affordable, celebrities can rely on loyal followers to buy their products and spread the news to even more people.
Success Stories
The trend brought in a lot of cash. In 2020, Jenner sold 51% of her stake in Kylie Cosmetics to Coty in a deal worth $600 million. In 2021, Forbes reported that Fenty contributed $1.4 billion to Rihanna’s net worth, making her the richest and only billionaire pop singer on the list. Just a year after launch, Gomez pocketed $60 million in revenue from Rare Beauty.
Fallen Brands
Not all that glitters is gold, as the saying goes. After much-hyped initial fanfare, many celebrity brands struggled to keep up. According to Beauty Packaging, Sephora halted the sales of social media stars Addison Rae’s Item Beauty and Hyram Yarbro’s Selfless this year.
Even A-list backing matters little. Ariana Grande’s r.e.m. Beauty was beset with poor reviews and the bankruptcy of its parent company, Forma Brands, earlier this year. Despite its partnership with Sephora, Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs failed to gain traction. Kim Kardashian’s KKW Beauty was unable to follow in her sister Kylie’s footsteps and shuttered in 2021. Jenner also couldn’t replicate her makeup brand’s success with Kylie Skin, the skincare range she launched in 2021.
What Really Works
While it might have helped in the early days, celebrity status is no longer enough to sustain a brand. Many beauty brands falter despite a gala launch. Customers are getting more sophisticated. With information available 24/7 and the prevalence of online social media reviews, it’s easier to determine if a celebrity brand is not living up to the hype.
What makes a successful celebrity brand? It’s more than just splashing their name on packaging. Celebrities need to bring authenticity to the table.
Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty is all about “breaking down unrealistic standards of perfection,” which its founder has been championing for years. At one point, she regularly live-streamed to hundreds of millions of followers while applying her products.
With its 50-shade ProFiltr foundations, Rhianna’s Fenty boldly proclaims inclusive beauty for all. The move was inspired by Rihanna’s own life experience: the diva had difficulty finding a suitable makeup shade for her skin tone due to the industry’s focus on cosmetics for lighter complexions.
Singer Harry Styles’ Pleasing cosmetic line aims to make makeup gender-neutral.
Consumers value authenticity, even when it’s really off the beaten path. Actress Gwnyeth Paltrow’s Goop beauty and wellness brand, founded in 2008, has withstood a barrage of controversies and reached new heights of success every time. Paltrow appears to be hands-on with Goop, and her products target niche audiences belonging to a specific demographic: thirtysomething white women with large disposable incomes. She’s also marketed pseudoscience-based items like vampire repellent mist and healing stickers, which are no longer on her website. These items may not be for everyone, but their market responds strongly to them.
“The more invested and more hands-on the celebrity is, the better the outcome,” says SOS Beauty Group CEO Dustin Cash. “The thing that everybody is looking for these days is authenticity.”
“Sooner rather than later, brands will be called out when the proclaimed claims don’t align with the customer’s experiences,” says Dirt & Glory Media consultant Nigel Brown. “When that happens, it will be difficult for a product to recover its reputation. Beauty brands need to better police themselves and focus on authenticity.”
With such fierce competition, even celebrities must work a double shift to keep their brands afloat. Consumers are getting savvier, so it’s safe to say that brands need to be vigilant and improve the quality and direction of their products.
