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It’s not enough anymore to be good at just one thing. If you’re a good singer, you have to learn how to dance (unless you’re Taylor Swift—yeah, I said it). If you’re a decent singer and dancer, maybe you should try acting. Now that you’re an established actor, maybe it’s time to start thinking about launching a superfluous makeup line. And once you do launch that superfluous makeup line, have you thought about incorporating skincare?
Some of the hottest Beauty brands in the world today—brands that have gone a long way toward defining the contemporary beauty ecosystem—have fully embraced doing several things well, rather than putting all their cosmetics eggs in a single basket. These brands recognize that contemporary Beauty consumers are looking for unity and cohesion: a cosmetics rotation that’s kind to their skin, a skincare routine that complements their makeup, and a haircare regimen that amplifies their aesthetic.
All this might sound like a lot to ask, but these brands are making it happen, and enjoying corresponding momentum.
Let’s peek behind the curtain and see how these winners multitask so successfully.
The Rise and Fall and Rise of Drunk Elephant
Everybody loves a comeback story, and Drunk Elephant’s is one of the most dramatic and impressive that I’ve seen across any vertical. For the doubters out there, take a gander at this graph, and doubt no more:
Drunk Elephant EMV Performance 2018 - 2023
Like I said—rise and fall and rise.
Back in 2019 and 2020, Drunk Elephant was at the top of Skincare Mountain—it was easily the highest elevation achieved by an elephant since Hannibal. But then, much like Hannibal’s elephants, things went south, with 2021 and 2022 representing a comedown for the brand. (How many other newsletters are making jokes about Ancient Roman military history, I ask you? Hope you don’t mind—the Roman Empire is sort of my Roman Empire.)
Part of what propelled Drunk Elephant to such lofty heights in 2020, and what sustained the brand during its rebound in 2023, was its haircare line. Launched to much buzz in February 2020—and boy, what a great time to debut a business—these haircare products foresaw where the space was heading, and exemplified the ethos that has cemented Drunk Elephant’s status as an industry leader.
Related: Kitsch Founder & CEO Cassandra Thurswell Talks Delivering Value to Consumers From Morning to Night
Before other brands followed suit and began taking an interdisciplinary approach to Beauty, Drunk Elephant had already read the room. It’s this same all-in-one approach, and savvy adaptability, that’s helped Drunk Elephant make incredible inroads amongst Gen Z consumers, becoming the TikTok-favorite that skincare fans know and love.
And that’s not just an assertion without data behind it (I would never): in 2023, Drunk Elephant collected $130.9M EMV, a 93% YoY growth. Instagram accounted for $82.0M EMV of that total, or a 63% share. This is relatively low for a Beauty brand—usually we see Instagram accounting for roughly 70-80% of a brand’s EMV. In comparison, TikTok powered $37.9M EMV, or 29% of the brand’s total. As you might expect, this is higher than usual; TikTok is usually in the 15-25% range.
If that didn’t confirm it for you, consider this: Drunk Elephant grew its Instagram EMV by 60% YoY, which is a huge accomplishment in itself. The brand’s TikTok EMV, on the other hand, surged by 228%. In other words, you don’t have to write a weekly newsletter to see where Drunk Elephant’s momentum is coming from.
Saie Hello to the New It-Brand in Beauty
Shifting gears from skincare but also haircare to beauty but also skincare, Saie hi to Saie. (This is probably the most confusing sentence I’ve ever written in this newsletter, but also, it sort of makes sense.)
We’ve covered Saie before—check out our recent episode of Earned featuring Saie’s president Lucia Ruehlemann—and given how fast the brand is surging, we’ll probably be covering it again. If there’s one thing to understand about Saie, then it’s a devotion to wellness. With everything stemming from that mission, and with products categorized according to different parts of the body rather than traditional verticals, the distinction between cosmetics and skincare drifts away.
This ethos is apparent on Saie’s website, where there’s no distinction between cosmetics and skincare, or at least no distinction that I could find via a cursory forty-five seconds of scanning. Instead, products are organized via…
Category:
Concern:
Ingredients:
Admit it: if you didn’t know any better, you’d say that this brand—from its skin-focused list of concerns to its focus on wellness-sparking ingredients—is a skincare brand. And in many senses, Saie is. Gone are the days of sorting by blush, eyeshadow, and mascara. Today, skin-focused minimalism is all the rage.
Know how I know? Because the graph of Saie’s EMV from its launch-year of 2019 to 2023 looks like this:
Saie EMV Performance 2019 - 2023
To be clear, that’s $272.4k EMV in 2019, and $135.4M EMV in 2023—a casual 50,000% increase.
Because we know that I only make data-backed assertions, let me make it abundantly clear: a 50,000% increase in four years is a pretty good indication that Saie exemplifies the current state of Beauty, and will go a long way toward determining the space’s future.
Gisou Benefits From Bee-Powered Buzz
In 2016, when I started writing about the world of Beauty, it would have been considered a little strange for a haircare brand to release one of the industry’s most popular lip products. But then again, Gisou had only just been founded.
Launched in 2015, the honey-based haircare brand draws from the various threads of founder Negin Mirsalehi’s life: beekeeper, beauty influencer, and now entrepreneur. Thanks to Mirsalehi’s extensive experience with both her product and her market, which confirmed Gisou as a labor of love, the brand rose steadily through the haircare ranks, emerging near the top of the vertical in 2023:
Gisou EMV Performance 2018 - 2023
Part of the reason behind that wild acceleration from 2022 to 2023 was the January 2022 debut of the Honey Infused Lip Oil, a product that officially introduced Gisou to any makeup and skincare enthusiasts who hadn’t yet heard about it. In 2022 and 2023, the Lip Oil was responsible for $21.8M EMV—not quite on par with the Honey Infused Hair Oil’s $42.7M EMV, but still a substantial total that confirmed the Lip Oil’s status as one of Gisou’s top offerings.
As Gisou continues to grow—and as brands continue to emulate its success—look for more beloved haircare products to be repurposed in skincare- or makeup-focused editions. And across the board, expect greater permeability between these categories. After all, permeability is what the people demand.
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