Is the celebrity skincare-brand bubble going to burst?

By now, you’ve probably heard about Hollywood actor Brad Pitt’s skincare range. What about Harry Styles, who recently added make-up to his beauty line? No? Okay. Let’s try singer Ciara. She’s got foaming cleansers, brightening pads, Vitamin C serums, and all under her OAM line. Heard about that?

If you haven’t, I honestly can’t blame you. We’re well within a celebrity beauty and skincare brand boom that isn’t even confined to Hollywood. Right here at home, media personality Minnie Dlamini has her MD skincare range, and Pearl Thusi has her MAC-sponsored beauty line.

Back in Hollywood, the list of famous people who have gone into skincare is so long that The Cut created ‘An Encyclopedia of Celebrity Beauty Brands’, calling it “The Ultimate Guide to everything famous people have made for your face, hair, and body.” This phenomenon marks a shift from celebrities simply being “faces of brands to becoming their founders,” as the publication put it.

The exhaustive list includes the likes of Alicia Keys, Ariana Grande, Gabrielle Union, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kim Kardashian, Jennifer Lopez, and even DJ Khaled (I bet you didn’t see that last one coming). We can’t leave out the likes of Rihanna and Kylie Jenner, who are probably in the top tier of successful beauty and skin lines, having made hundreds of millions from their endeavours in this sector. But why is the boom happening now?

Well, it’s an industry valued at $511-billion, for starters. Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty alone was valued at $2.8-billion just last year. Still, more than others, her range of beauty and skin products is revered as revolutionary because of its inclusivity, taking into account all kinds of skin tones—something the industry hadn’t done very well before, especially where darker skin tones are concerned. Rihanna has also been smart enough not to put herself front and centre in marketing her products, calling on not only her fellow celebrities but also using ordinary people in her campaigns.

Celebrities have substantial fan bases that established brands have always tapped into, getting famous people to endorse their products. Still, at a time when social media has bridged the gap between celebrities and their fan base, it only makes sense that many will eschew the endorsement path and go straight to the people with their own products.

It seems like a minor change, but it’s literally putting companies out of business. With the staggering amount of new products founded by celebrities popping up like pimples on an adolescent’s face, BH Cosmetics, which had tried to get in on the boom by collaborating with the likes of Iggy Azalea and Doja Cat, filed for bankruptcy, citing an oversaturated market.

Sure, part of the company’s failure at maintaining profitability can be blamed on the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw beauty lines across the board struggling as consumers stayed home, wearing less make-up, but it’s pretty plausible that the collaboration-style strategy that worked so well as recently at the early 2000s is no longer viable. Whether or not celebrity-founded brands can stand the test of time is also something that remains to be seen.

I’m willing to bet there will be a few successful ones—like the Fenty and Kylie Cosmetics empires. However, by and large, we’ll have to wait and see if Brad Pitt’s Le Domaine line—for one—said to contain new active ingredients and others inspired by wine, will age like any fine varieties.