It is not uncommon for celebrities to move beyond brand collaborations to start their own, particularly in the beauty industry. Some of these brands are more strongly connected to the celebrities behind them like Billie Eilish, Kylie Cosmetics and Florence by Mills. Even some without the owners named directly in them are highly associated, such as Rare Beauty, Rhode Beauty and Harry Styles’ Pleasing. Opposingly, there are brands like About Face that I had no idea belonged to Halsey. Did anyone else have no idea that Jessica Alba owned The Honest Company? Then, there are those like Ariana Grande who has her perfume line and r.e.m. beauty.
The move for celebrities to create their own brand is an incredibly wise one. With the followings that these people have, it’s almost impossible for their brand to fail because consumers will buy for just their name. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t some that are more successful than others and the quality of the brands certainly differs.
Fenty Beauty by Rihanna is one of the best celebrity-owned makeup brands out there. The company stunned the makeup world when it launched in 2017 because of its unprecedentedly wide and inclusive shade range. With the release of her brand, Rihanna put pressure on the rest of the cosmetics industry to step it up by showing the inclusivity that could be achieved.
Because of this, Fenty was one of the first celebrity brands I ever tried. It stood for amazing progress in the beauty community, and Rihanna is stunning, so I trusted her products to be beautiful, and I was not disappointed. The product quality was high and the price point was comparable to other similar brands, which was a respectable move, as you do see some celebrities seem to charge for their names.
Other than Fenty, I never specifically sought to buy a brand because it was celebrity-owned. I actually felt self-conscious about buying celebrity brands because people tend to show a bit of judgment towards buying things for the name attached or the publicity they have, and I thought any celebrity product I bought I would instantly be seen as obsessed with that person. Despite this, many have won me over with the products themselves throughout the years.
Eilish by Eilish was the first notable purchase for me. The perfume is a vanilla lover’s dream. It is a warm, sweet with a little spice, gourmand that from the first spray I knew would be very popular among fragrance fans. Since then, Eilish has released two more scents that broadened the audience of her perfumes with the second release being a little less overtly feminine than the first. Whichever fragrance profile appeals to someone most, the Eilish fragrances are worth the buy, regardless of whether you are a fan of her music or not.
Grande has had particular success in fragrance launches. The most talked about scents would have to be Sweet Like Candy, Cloud and Mod Vanilla. What is particularly appealing about Grande’s launches is that they fall on the more affordable side of high-end perfume prices. However, Sabrina Carpenter’s release Sweet Tooth is probably one of the most accessible celebrity fragrances, costing only $30 for an ounce. With the adorable chocolate bar-like packaging, Walmart availability and sugary marshmallow scent, it is clear Carpenter took the younger age of her demographic into consideration. Despite this, the scent is beautiful and suitable for a large audience.
Opposingly, Styles has made his brand Pleasing quite inaccessible. The brand is solely online and a single nail polish retails for almost $20. I can’t speak to the quality of the brand, as I have never tried it, but there is a clear markup just for the association with Styles and the knowledge that his dedicated fanbase will pay the steeper prices. I’d be lying to say the products don’t look intriguing, but the purchase is just so much harder to justify.
The prevalence of celebrity brands is rapidly increasing, and it is overwhelming to keep up with as a consumer. Selena Gomez’s brand Rare Beauty is likely one of the most popular celebrity brands at the moment, having blown up particularly because of her extremely pigmented liquid blushes. Also likely contributing to the company’s relevance is the pop culture debate and fan war regarding Gomez and Hailey Bieber, who has her own brand, Rhode Beauty. The media attention that these celebrities already get makes it easy to keep their brands talked about.
However, I think it would be interesting as consumers to turn our attention to celebrity owned brands that aren’t as intertwined and dependent on the celebrity’s name. It’d be interesting to see reviews of brands like About Face by Halsey, Golf le Fleur from Tyler, the Creator and even Haus Labs by Lady Gaga be reviewed by people who are unaware of the celebrity connections and get the opinions of those with no bias going in. Of course, this may be hard as many beauty product connoisseurs would be more aware of who owns what brand. However, celebrity products, for better or for worse, will be evaluated with bias as soon as they are known to be celebrity-owned.
