Last week Hailey Bieber sold Rhode to Elf Beauty for $1 Billion USD and her successful sale of a self built beauty empire reminds of all of the celeb beauty brand craze.
Fenty. Rare. REM. Haus Labs. I could keep going, but it would take up an entire document. These iconic celebs have been building their beauty empires over the past few years, making waves in the beauty community. From influencers with makeup artist pasts, to celebs you never knew liked makeup. But with varying levels of success, we want to explore the elements that can make or break these celebrity side hustles.
Since 2021, sales of celeb beauty brands in the US have risen from 570 million to over 1,100 million, according to Statista Research Department, implying that there is a growing market for these celebs to sell us our newest beauty products.
From varying levels of success, involvement and a breadth of different products available, there’s plenty of celebs already in the market, and I’m sure, many more to try and make their mark.
Jennifer Carlsson, founder of Mintoiro, a beauty brand and marketing company, explained the celeb effect for these companies: “Even if it’s not a celebrity, just having a human face to a brand can help a lot, because we trust people a lot more than we trust companies.
“People already have trust and an affinity to that person, and you trust that they’re not going to sell you shit. Like, Selena Gomez wouldn’t sell me shit.
“I think seeing other celebrity brands do well has made others feel like oh I could start a beauty brand. Some are started by the celeb themselves, but there’s a lot of them that are created more by investors or a corporate structure, and they have found a celebrity to attach to it.”
Hailey sold Rhode for 1 billion, and is still the creative director, so whilst still she keeps creative control over her brand, and of course remains with her face as the front of the brand, but it can be expected to have some changes. Jennfier said:
“Brands can do a lot worse after they’ve been acquired. But ELf isn’t Loreal, they’re not a big corporation. I’m pretty sure they’re quite known to have a pretty diverse board of directors, they have a lot of women on board, compared to some other companies, so it’ll be interesting to see how Rhode changes from this.
“These celebs have a good team from the start and how involved the founder is after a company gets bought really depends, I think for a brand where she is still the face of it, she will still probably be pretty involved creatively.”
Having a big name celeb behind the brand can almost work as an ambassador, bringing in money to get the best formulations and investors, and bringing in consumers who want to support their faves. REM Beauty had an instant buyer in me, because why would I not trust Ariana?
Jennifer said: “It can get a bit grumpy, people think ‘why do people only care about celebrity brands, why are they the ones getting all the attention from other brand founders within the industry?’ Yes smaller independent brands are working hard on their brand, and it can feel like the celebrity brand is coming in and taking everything. But I think the part they’re forgetting is it’s not just a celebrity brand.
“It’s also a brand with a lot of money. Generally a big celebrity would have a lot of money to invest into their brand or they are creating it with a bigger company that gives them more money than they could ever use. And that pays, to have the best people working on formulations, having the best people in branding, working on socials and creative and marketing. Just being able to buy the best people you can is going to help these celeb brands.
“It’s a common phrase at the moment on online spaces to tell celebrities that ‘not everyone needs a makeup line’, as yet another celebrity teases their new cosmetic adventure. Jennifer said: “There’s a lot of opportunities within beauty, there’s a lot of investors trying to get in, it’s a category that is definitely growing, and there’s a lot of profit if you do well.”
But as with most things, it’s not all success and billions of profit for every celeb entrepreneur. Blake Lively’s ‘It ends with us’ scandal was overshadowing and affecting the sales of her new haircare line, and Kat Von D had to sell her brand completely after she had an endless amount of scandals, and the brand had to change to KVD. Jennifer stressed the importance of having a good image fit from the brand to the celeb. People like Hailey Bieber, are perfect for a beauty brand, that’s almost what’s she’s known for, for gorgeous looks, but some celebs simply aren’t made for it.
Jennifer said: “Brad Pitt has really negative feedback, I think especially within the industry. When there had also been an avalanche of celebrity beauty brands around that time, especially in 2021 and into 2022, and then Brad Pitt, who has said in interviews that he doesn’t give a sh*t about his skin care routine, launching a skin care brand, like come on. Their own personal branding is really important.
“Fenty catered to having shades for everyone, and that was a big part of the brand, which worked well with having Rihanna as the face of the company.”
Rhode embodies Hailey, with her clean, effortless cool girl vibes reflected in the sleek, nude packaging. Fenty reflected Rihanna’s commitment to inclusivity and Rare’s packaging is designed to be as accessible as possible, in line with Selena’s struggles with lupus.
“The brand needs to be good enough to stand apart. Rare beauty is a good example, because they have really good products, it’s not because Selena Gomez made them. They did really well with the design of it, and the quality of the formulations. I believe if it was completely separate and not a celebrity brand, I think it would still do well, just maybe not blow up as quickly.”
As consumers, this commitment to brands being themselves can make it more obvious who is passionate about their brands and who is in it for a cash grab. When Kylie Jenner came out with her lipkits way back in 2015, the world went crazy, in part because Kylie was synonymous with her lip combos, meaning it was the perfect choice of product for her. Brad Pitt however may have had less success, as I don’t think many men are jumping to him for expert skin advice.
Jennifer said: “I feel like often if you’re just in it to make a cash grab, you’re not going to make products that are bringing anything new or different. I think the lines that are innovative and try to go above and beyond, and create something different are the ones that are going to stick around for a longer time.”
With Hailey now getting herself onto the billionaire rich list, it can only be expected that other celebs will follow suit in hopes to also grow their empires, but let’s hope they have a strong, fitting brand for it, rather than just releasing another lipstick for the sake of it.
You can shop Fenty Beauty and Rare Beauty on Sephora
You can shop Beau Domaine here.
You can shop Rhode here.
