10 Celebrity Owned Beauty Brands Dominating Social Right Now

It seems like every year, we see more celebrities launch a new makeup line — but being a celebrity doesn't guarantee overnight success. Despite being well-known, it requires a whole lot of time and effort in social media marketing to keep up with the ever-changing standard of the beauty industry.

According to Dash Hudson's Beauty Industry Benchmarks, this industry's average monthly growth is consistent at 1.3%, and the Engagement Rate on Instagram is averaged at 1.0%. Celebrity brands often look to these numbers as a baseline for where they are positioned within the community. 

So, how do the most successful celebrity beauty brands break through the noise and stand out on social media? 

The Rise of Celebrity Owned Beauty Brands

Social media has become increasingly popular in the last 10 years, and the beauty industry was quick to make its way to YouTube, Instagram, and more. Users not only flock to their favorite brands’ social accounts, but beauty influencers, makeup artists, and even cosmetic chemists to absorb their thoughts on haircare, skincare, makeup, and more. 

Since beauty brands know their user base is active online, they’re quick to adopt new social features and mediums — for example, Metaverse marketing has taken off with brands like Estée Lauder, Charlotte Tilbury, and more testing new digital payment options, art, and innovative social commerce experiences. 

From video beauty tutorials and reviews to modern AI-powered shopping, social is a great way to attract and retain audiences. 

In turn, celebrities have used social media as an essential avenue to market their brands. Over the past few years, celebrity makeup, skincare and beauty brands have skyrocketed. In 2022, 13 celebrity-owned beauty brands were launched compared to 2 in 2007.

Before the popularity of social media, celebrities relied on traditional marketing tactics to build brand awareness, but with modern social media, consumers have the information at their fingertips. What users do with this information is more important than ever — which is why you need to create the ultimate social media strategy as a celebrity owned beauty brand. 

In this article, you’ll learn more about some of the best celebrity beauty brands on social media and examples of how to execute strategies to drive engagement.

Best Celebrity Beauty Brands on Social Media 

What makes celebrity Beauty Industry marketing strategies successful is directly related to how they show up on social media. Below, you’ll read about the celebrities you know and may or may not love — regardless, they’ve paved their way in the beauty industry with products that stand firm, even separate from their owner’s previous claims to fame.

Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez

• Instagram: @rarebeauty
• Instagram Engagement Rate: 2.5% 
• Instagram Followers: 5.7M 

The most followed woman on Instagram, Selena Gomez, sets the tone for how a successful beauty brand presents social media. Selena designed Rare Beauty to redefine mental health, with her mission statement to ‘break down unrealistic standards of perfection.’ She’s created an iconic beauty brand that radiates positivity.

Rare Beauty has a well-rounded social media strategy on all channels — especially TikTok, where it drives 98% of its TikTok campaign conversion using Dash Hudson’s link in bio solution, LikeShop.

For Rare Beauty, a higher share of voice at 13.24% also saw a higher return on average engagement at 30.84%. While some brands might only look at follower count, share of voice is a great KPI to track to see how prominent your brand is, and to increase engagement in turn.

Rare Beauty also maximizes creator partnerships on TikTok to drive traffic to their products — this ranges from makeup tutorials, wellness hacks and of course, self-love reminders!

Haus Labs by Lady Gaga

• Instagram: @hauslabs
• Instagram Engagement Rate: 0.6%
• Instagram Followers: 1M 

Lady Gaga brings an edge to the beauty industry with her cosmetics brand, Haus Labs, and its signature tagline, ‘Welcome to the Future of Clean Makeup.’ Gaga has repeatedly worn her makeup line on and off-stage, bringing the advantage of free publicity alongside her fame.

While Haus Labs has a higher share of voice at 14.82%, their average share of engagement sits at 1.74% — brands like Rare Beauty benefit from including their celebrity founder with an ultra-engaged social following in their content. It's interesting to note that Lady Gaga appears in Haus Labs' most recent TikTok post at time of writing, which is seemingly a great tactic to see a higher return on engagement that brands typically see from Share of Voice.

Using her hit song ‘Born This Way,’ Gaga has created an entire foundation around that iconic message. Haus Labs uses captivating images and videos on social media to demonstrate the best ways to use and create stunning makeup looks that are infused with skincare products — she meant what she said about clean makeup!

r.e.m. beauty by Ariana Grande 

• Instagram: r.e.m. beauty 
• Instagram Engagement Rate: 2.6%
• Instagram Followers: 1.7M 

Ariana Grande quickly claimed her space in the beauty industry when she launched r.e.m beauty, now having a 9.12% share of voice among celebrity-owned beauty brands. How did r.e.m. beauty achieve this? By using short-form video to reach millions. 

Grande's beauty brand is another that prominently features their celebrity founder on social, and also benefits from a higher average share of voice at 9.12%, and an 11.22% average share of engagement rate.

Ariana herself is featured in r.e.m’s Instagram Reels frequently, often seen casually chatting in GRWM-style videos. Much of the brand’s appeal comes from giving fans a peek into her personal life as she styles each launch of her makeup and skincare into a different ‘chapter.’ r.e.m beauty makes it easy to shop their product with Dash Hudson’s LikeShop feature, which creates a seamless shopping experience directly from their social feeds. Finally, Ariana Grande has also created an extremely successful fragrance line, making her a successful entrepreneur who can generate buzz quickly.

Kylie Cosmetics by Kylie Jenner

• Instagram: @kyliecosmetics
• Instagram Engagement Rate: 0.3%
• Instagram Followers: 25.6M

Kylie Jenner is one of the biggest influencers in America, best known for her TV role on Keeping Up With The Kardashians. Kylie Cosmetics, founded in 2014, has the highest number of Instagram followers as of writing this.

While the brand features their founder prominently on social and often cross-promoting products on Jenner's personal profiles, Kylie Cosmetics does have a higher share of voice at 10.30%, and a 12.52% average share of engagement rate — this could indicate that while they have a large following, there's a percentage of the audience that is less engaged, which can happen for brands with massive followings.

Best known for their lip products, Kylie Cosmetics became big on socials from the jump. The makeup line was created to allow Kylie’s fans access to the products she uses daily, allowing them to resonate with a vibe similar to the pop culture icon. 

Kylie has styled her brand around feeling confident and beautiful in her own skin, which is portrayed across their social media channels. You can find Kylie trying out her favorite products on Instagram and TikTok. 

florence by mills by Millie Bobby Brown

• Instagram: @florencebymills
• Instagram Engagement Rate: 2.9%
• Instagram Followers: 3.4M

You may know her as the lead actress from Stranger Things, but Millie Bobby Brown is no stranger to the beauty industry. Millie has put her whole heart into her brand, florence by mills, named after her grandmother. 

Florence by Mills has an ultra-engaged following — despite having a 7.29% share of voice, they garner an average 14.96% share of engagement rate. This could speak to the brand's Gen Z demographic and how 'plugged in' they are to social media.

The brand uses aesthetically pleasing and colorful visuals on its Instagram and TikTok to attract the attention of the masses. Millie pulls in her Gen-Z audience, also known as the “Flo-Fam,” with a quirky, fun-loving energy unique to her brand. Florence by mills also boasts one of the highest average Entertainment Scores on both Instagram (4.2) and TikTok (3.6), a metric by Dash Hudson that measures how entertaining your content is on a scale of 1-10 based on total engagements and reach — a robust metric for marketers looking for data beyond their follower list.

Despite the youthful allure of the brand image, Millie has created timeless makeup looks and uses a magazine branding style, including some great tips and tricks for sophisticated makeup applications. 

Fenty Beauty by Rihanna

• Instagram: @fentybeauty and @fentyskin
• Instagram Engagement Rate: 0.4%
• Followers: 13M

Fenty Beauty is the leading celebrity-owned beauty brand based on revenue and for a good reason. Thanks to its stellar reputation, it is often depicted as the best celebrity beauty brand available worldwide.

The rise of Fenty has created a conversation about inclusivity in the beauty industry that hadn’t existed previously. Women can find themselves represented in the brand and feel a sense of belonging. With up to 50 shades of foundation, Rihanna has challenged the status quo of what cosmetic brands typically offer in their shade ranges and has influenced other brands in the industry to move in this direction. 

Fenty Beauty benefits from their brand ambassador and influencer partnerships — while they do feature founder Rihanna on their accounts, they show a diverse range of beauty influencers. By showcasing product tutorials and having a great Community Management strategy, Fenty sees the highest share of voice from brands featured in this article at 22.53%, and the second-highest return on share of engagement with an average 23.58% rate.

The creative team is focused on having the Fenty community at the forefront of its marketing. Fenty’s social media is seen featuring the everyday user using hashtags like #fentyface in its posts. 

Rihanna is also hilariously clever with her personal marketing, making sure to exclude no audiences from Fenty — we’ll never forget her iconic 2023 Super Bowl performance where she was seen doing a touch-up with a Fenty compact on stage.

KORA Organics by Miranda Kerr 

• Instagram: @koraorganics
• Instagram Engagement Rate: 0.2%
• Instagram Followers: 460K

Miranda Kerr is a trailblazer for clean and cruelty-free beauty, which is the entire essence of KORA Organics. The celebrity skincare line, which launched in 2009, has a 7.53% share of voice among competitors in the beauty space.

Kora Organics has a lower average share of engagement rate at 0.16%, and a decent share of voice at 7.53% — however, it's important to consider what a brands' goals are when you analyze KPIs. A brand looking to increase their visibility might hone their strategy around this KPI, and focus on increasing share of engagement further along in their strategy.

@KORAOrganics on Instagram and TikTok is filled with educational videos on achieving healthy skin while using beauty products. The brand’s TikTok features playlists like ‘Plant Stem Cells’ and ‘Tumeric Trio’ to show off products that teach its audiences how to maintain a lasting skin regimen — KORA is another brand that uses Dash Hudson’s Likeshop to maximize ROI on social media.

Rhode by Hailey Bieber

• Instagram: @rhode
• Instagram Engagement Rate: 3.1%
• Followers: 619K 

One of the newcomers to the celebrity beauty scene is Hailey Bieber. Everyone knows her as a style inspiration, so it would only make sense that her brand Rhode follows suit with a sprinkle of her personal aesthetic and stunning visuals on social media.

Hailey is always intentional with her branding, as seen in her latest launch, the Passionfruit Jelly Lip treatment, which was beautifully captured on the beaches of Anguilla. Known for the freshest manicures (we all remember the glazed donut nails, right?) and minimal glowy makeup, Hailey accomplishes the ultimate ‘clean girl aesthetic’ from each campaign she posts on social media. 

While Rhode doesn't post as much content as other brands on this list, they do have significant share of engagement when you consider that they don't post as frequently as other brands — Rhode has a 7.59% share of voice, and a 3.15% average share of engagement rate.

Hailey is always on top of influencer marketing, which significantly contributes to her high engagement on Instagram. Recently, @rhode featured a whole campaign of UGC from one of the influencer-favorite events of the year, Coachella. One of Canada’s leaders in the influencer industry, Allegra Shaw, is showcased doing a GRWM in the desert using all Rhode products.

Jeffree Star Cosmetics by Jeffree Star

• Instagram: @jeffreestarcosmetics
• Instagram Engagement Rate: 0.11%
• Instagram Followers: 6.2M

If you grew up watching YouTube, you know Jeffree Star as the ultimate makeup guru. Despite starting on YouTube, Jeffree grew his platform to billions and eventually turned this success into a celebrity makeup line, currently the 5th highest leader in revenue for celebrity beauty brands.

Jeffree Star Cosmetics also posts less frequently as other brands, but still sees a great average share of voice at 4.65%.

Jeffree hones in on his Instagram community with his charm, and honesty — as an influencer himself, he knows exactly what his audience wants to see and how to become a viral success. Like his bold personality, the beauty brand’s social accounts feature bright, flashy colors and dream-like aesthetics that will grab your attention, unlike any other beauty brand we’ve seen.

Flower Beauty by Drew Barrymore

• Instagram: @flowerbeauty
• Instagram Engagement Rate: 0.3%
• Instagram Followers: 602K

Household name Drew Barrymore launched Flower in 2013, now the 9th highest leader in revenue for celebrity beauty brands. Drew is known for her humor and relatability on television, and these traits are found throughout her brand and in social media campaigns. Fans of Drew will likely resonate with Flower Beauty’s brand identity, which is focused on enhancing your natural beauty and having fun with makeup at an accessible price point for everyone.

Flower Beauty has a 2.94% average share of voice, with a 0.3% share of engagement — however, this brand also posts less frequently than all other brands on this list.

Methodology 

Internal data pulled for this article is based on Instagram content from Jan 1, 2023-Mar 31, 2023. Due to API restrictions, we are unable to pull TikTok data.

Social Media Mistakes Celebrity Beauty Brands Should Avoid

Celebrity beauty brands don’t always succeed, despite their popularity. Read these common mistakes brands can use to avoid in their own strategies on social media.

Relying on Celebrity To Sell 

While celebrity status certainly impacts sales, celebrity beauty brands shouldn’t rely on this alone — develop a comprehensive social media strategy that includes celebrity founders and other meaningful tactics. 

Not Developing a Robust Social Media Strategy 

Brands should understand the importance of developing a strong social media strategy and how this can impact sales. Just because there’s a celebrity makeup and skincare boom doesn’t mean the product is guaranteed to sell on this premise alone. Brands should focus on a solid brand identity and tactics that support this. 

Not Studying Target Demographic

Who are you trying to reach? Your brand might have an iron-clad TikTok marketing strategy, but this might not make a difference if your target demographic isn’t on TikTok. Determine where your audience will most likely be and incorporate that into your strategy. 

Why Dash Hudson Is The Best Social Software for Beauty Brands

If you want to create a seamless shopping experience from social to site, Dash Hudson can help with its link in bio solution, LikeShop. Rare Beauty and r.e.m beauty both use this to maximize their social shopping experience. 

To understand which content to post on your beauty brand’s feed, you need to use Dash Hudson's Predictive Vision AI. Dash Hudson uses AI technology to predict which content will and will not perform on social media and which content from your competitors will work best for your strategy. 

If you want to get a bird’s eye view of which channels, media types, content and which influencers drive the most ROI for your beauty brand, you need to use Dash Hudson’s Campaign Feature. Campaign insights provide a holistic way to report on a multi-channel scale and understand the impact of your latest launch. 

FAQs

Which celebrity makeup brand is most successful? 

Fenty Beauty is the leading celebrity beauty brand based on revenue in 2023.

What is the most famous celebrity makeup brand? 

If we are looking at Instagram followers, @kyliecosmetics is the most famous celebrity make-up brand with 26M followers. 

Which celebrities own makeup brands?

Many celebrities like Kylie Jenner, Rihanna and Selena Gomez own makeup brands. Other public figures who aren’t mentioned in this article include (but are not limited to) Tracee Ellis Ross (Pattern Beauty), Jessica Alba (Honest Beauty), Halsey (About Face), Kesha (Kesha Rose Beauty), Kristen Bell (Happy Dance), Kim Kardashian (SKKN and formerly KKW Beauty), Jonathon Van Ness (JVN), Jennifer Anniston (LolaVie), JLo (JLo Beauty), Gwen Stefani (GXVE), Gwyneth Paltrow (Goop), and Alicia Keys (Keys Soulcare).