The Skincare Sensation Rocketing Up Our Leaderboard (HBBIP #130)

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As I’m sometimes fond of reminding my readers, I have been in the creator game for nearly ten years now.

A full decade! Almost one out of every three days of my life! Sometimes I try not to think about it. Sometimes I think about it a lot.

When I go on this trip down memory lane, and consider how much time I’ve spent analyzing creator content, I’m often amazed by how much has changed. Yet I’m also continually surprised by how much hasn’t changed: how many of the creator marketing principles and practices I learned all the way back then remain true now.

There are also a lot of aspects of my own job that haven’t changed. For example, I still get a thrill when I see a new brand emerge on one of CreatorIQ’s many leaderboards. It’s a rarer thing than it used to be: though the creator economy will always be tumultuous, the industry felt like even more of a Wild West 10 years ago. Meanwhile, for all their innovation, today’s major players can occasionally feel like known commodities.

Where, I lament to myself, are the indie breakthroughs of yesteryear? The brands that analyze market trends, synthesize it all into a creator-friendly package, and reshape the industry in their wake?

Some weeks, those brands can be found in HBBIP. So without further ado, let’s give a warm welcome to…

The Top Brand of All Time (of the Week): Medicube

When I first noticed Medicube sometime around 2024, I figured they were a new brand. Their YoY growth figures were insane, and typically we only see that kind of traction from recent launches.

What Is Medicube?

Turns out Medicube debuted in 2016, the same year that I started writing about the creator economy. All the more reason to wax nostalgic!

But Medicube is far from a throwback. In fact, they’ve been on the cutting edge of the skincare industry since their launch, setting a pace for the rest of the industry to follow.

Ever notice how these days every skincare brand seems to be:

• Science backed
• Clean beauty compliant
• K-beauty certified (or at least K-beauty adjacent)
• TikTok approved

Well, you can thank Medicube for a lot of that.

How Is Medicube Performing?

Let’s see how the brand has grown over the last six years, and trace its impact on the broader skincare industry.

Medicube Creator Count, 2020 - 2025

That’s 384 creators in 2020 and 39.3k creators in 2025—good for a 102x increase during that time period. I don’t think I’ve 102x’d anything in my life over the past six years, at least not intentionally.

Medicube Post Count, 2020 - 2025

As you would expect, more creators means more posts. In this case, 102x more creators means 134x more posts. Think of the exponential difference between 1.7k posts in 2020 and 231.2k in 2025: the exposure, the conversation, the added authority. It’s an entirely different playing field.

Medicube EMV, 2020 - 2025

We see that with Medicube’s Earned Media Value (EMV), which reflects virality and buzz across social media conversations. As a total encapsulation of Medicube’s online presence, the brand’s EMV rose from $2.6M EMV in 2020 to $504.7M EMV, a 193x expansion. And if you think that’s the most dramatic growth Mediacube has experienced, guess again!

Medicube Impressions, 2020 - 2025

This is what a 628x improvement looks like: 16.5M impressions in 2020, 10.4B impressions in 2025. In other words, six years was all it took for Medicube’s reach to go from roughly the population of metropolitan Los Angeles to more than the population of the entire world.

Being mentioned in a newsletter doesn’t feel like enough recognition for such a feat. Somebody please send them a plaque!

Medicube Engagements, 2020 - 2025

Things fell back to earth a little with engagements, which saw only a 478x increase from 2020 to 2025—502k to 239.9M, to be exact. Barely noticeable.

Alright, so it’s safe to say that more people are seeing Medicube than ever, and that this content is resonating with them. But where do they see that content, and what does it look like?

Medicube Share of Impressions by Platform, 2025

As indicated by this chart of Medicube’s 2025 impressions by major social channel, the brand has been buoyed by the perennial popularity of SkinTok. Medicube is a certified creator favorite there, and that advantage is only expanding: the brand increased its TikTok impressions and engagements by a respective 668% and 401%, far greater totals than Medicube saw on any other channel.

Medicube Share of Engagements by Platform, 2025

While the channel split for engagements was a little more even, TikTok still clearly reigns supreme—and, as evidenced by those YoY growth figures, this advantage is only widening.

Who Are Medicube's Creators?

Let’s dig a little deeper and examine the TikTok trends and creators that have resulted in such staggering growth for Medicube.

For starters, these creators are largely new to the brand: of Medicube’s $504.7M EMV in 2025, $308.1M (61%) stemmed from creators who hadn’t posted about the brand in 2024. For TikTok specifically, that ‘newcomer EMV’ rate rose to 65%.

As I analyzed these newcomers, one thing quickly became clear: while most of Medicube’s top creators were (unsurprisingly) skincare-focused TikTok creators who touted multiple products in daily routine videos, the brand also managed to permeate all the way to the top of the creatorverse.

Look no further than Medicube’s latest global ambassador, creator royalty Kylie Jenner. Jenner’s post detailing her current favorite ‘glass skincare’ routine netted $248.6k EMV as one of Medicube’s most impactful posts in 2025.

One of the posts that outpaced Jenner? A GRWM video from French SkinTok sensation Manel, which garnered $258.7k EMV. It’s not exactly an underdog story—with 1.3M followers on TikTok, Manel is a powerhouse creator in her own right—but any time you can get bragging rights on a Jenner, it’s a pretty good day.

So how’s this for bragging rights: in all, Manel authored 114 posts mentioning Medicube throughout 2025, inspiring $11.6M EMV as the brand’s No. 1 EMV-driver by nearly $9M. When is she getting her own reality show?

Like many of Medicube’s biggest fans, including Kylie Jenner, Manel posted about the brand in 2025 after not doing so in 2024. By tapping into trends that stretch across a broad spectrum of skincare creators, Medicube has built a fanbase that’s similarly multifaceted: in addition to the big-timers like Manel and Jenner, 40% of the 2025 EMV driven by new TikTokers came from micro-creators, indicating that Medicube has resonated with small-scale creators and their highly engaged audiences.

To sum it all up, Medicube read the skincare space perfectly, and developed a product vision that’s setting the tone for the rest of the industry. Now, buoyed by everyone from the most famous creators in the world to dedicated skincare experts, the brand looks poised to continue its rise.

If I’m ever looking for inspiration on how to keep things going strong after 10 years, I know where to go.

*All data, unless otherwise specified, stems from CreatorIQ's public-facing brand leaderboards. We will never share performance metrics from a customer's CreatorIQ profile, or any brand's private information.

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