Celebrity-founded beauty brands are proving that influence can be more than a marketing tool. It can be a competitive advantage.
According to Traackr’s Creator Advantage 2026 report, celebrity-founded companies accounted for half of the top 10 beauty brands ranked by creator marketing performance in 2025. The list includes Kylie Cosmetics, Rare Beauty, Rhode, R.E.M. Beauty and Huda Beauty, highlighting how celebrities are increasingly turning personal audiences into scalable consumer businesses.
The trend reflects a broader shift in consumer marketing. As shoppers discover products through creators and social media rather than traditional advertising, celebrities have become built-in customer-acquisition engines for their own brands.
Celebrity founders have a built-in advantage
The Creator Advantage 2026 study found that five of the top 10 beauty brands by creator marketing performance were celebrity-founded:
- Kylie Cosmetics (No. 2), founded by Kylie Jenner
- Rare Beauty (No. 3), founded by Selena Gomez
- Rhode (No. 4), founded by Hailey Bieber
- R.E.M. Beauty (No. 5), founded by Ariana Grande
- Huda Beauty (No. 6), founded by Huda Kattan
Unlike traditional startups that must spend heavily to build awareness, celebrity founders often launch with direct access to millions of consumers. That reach can translate into real enterprise value: E.l.f. Beauty agreed to acquire Rhode in a deal worth up to $1 billion in 2025, and Rare Beauty is estimated to be worth about $2.7 billion.
But fame alone isn’t enough.
Several celebrity beauty ventures have struggled despite high-profile founders. Gwen Stefani’s GXVE Beauty shut down in early 2026, while Drew Barrymore’s Flower Beauty ceased operations in September 2025.
The contrast suggests that audience reach may create initial demand, but long-term success still depends on product quality, brand positioning and consumer loyalty.
Why beauty outperforms other industries
Traackr measures creator marketing performance using its VIT framework, which evaluates creator volume, frequency, content performance and average audience size.
Beauty posted the highest VIT score of any industry analyzed, with its top brands averaging 687,000. Creator volume climbed 66% year over year to 22,100 creators, while creator frequency increased 6%.
Yet bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better.
Beauty’s average audience size declined 30% year over year, while content performance slipped 1%, suggesting that effectiveness increasingly depends on creator quality rather than quantity.
Beauty also has characteristics that make it especially well suited to creator marketing. Skincare and cosmetics are highly visual and lend themselves naturally to tutorials, reviews and before-and-after demonstrations. Consumers can quickly assess results through short-form videos, making platforms such as TikTok and Instagram powerful channels for product discovery.
That discovery is increasingly translating into purchases. According to NielsenIQ, TikTok Shop is now the fourth-largest health and beauty e-commerce retailer in the U.S., with health and beauty sales topping $4.4 billion.
Other categories, including fashion, personal care, food and beverage, and spirits, did not generate comparable creator marketing performance, even though celebrity-founded brands appeared among top performers in several sectors.
The platform effect
Platform choice remains a critical factor.
TikTok was the only major platform in Traackr’s analysis to deliver consistent year-over-year growth across all VIT sectors. Because the platform prioritizes content discovery over follower counts, creators and brands can reach large audiences regardless of account size.
Instagram, meanwhile, saw creator participation rise while engagement and views declined. The results suggest that simply increasing content volume is no longer enough to guarantee stronger performance.
For brands, the lesson is that authenticity and relevance often outperform scale. A smaller group of engaged creators can generate stronger results than a larger network of loosely aligned influencers.
Trust remains the differentiator
While marketing can drive awareness, trust ultimately determines whether consumers return.
Celebrity founders begin with an advantage because they have often spent years building relationships with audiences through entertainment, social media and public visibility. That familiarity can make consumers more willing to try products associated with a well-known public figure.
“Not all creators will be able to launch their own brands,” Ashley Villa, founder of talent agency Rare Global, told Forbes. “The ones that move the needle are those who are evolved in their thinking and are involved in every step of the process from sourcing to marketing and not just promotional.”
The distinction helps explain why some celebrity brands thrive while others fail. Consumers may buy initially because of a founder’s influence, but sustained success depends on delivering products that justify the attention.
The industry’s top performers suggest that celebrity influence alone is no longer the differentiator. In an increasingly crowded beauty market, sustained success comes from turning attention into trust, and trust into repeat customers.
The post Kylie Jenner, Selena Gomez, and Hailey Bieber’s brands dominate beauty’s creator economy. Fame is only part of the reason appeared first on Fortune.
