Despite an ever-increasing “influencer-as-holy grail” climate, celebrities still sell. They cover magazines monthly and weekly; they are the faces of many makeup, skin care and fragrance campaigns. And, when they join forces with cosmetics chemists, they can produce a range that totally hits it out of the park. Here, some of the famous faces touting their own beauty ranges that are resonating the most with consumers.

 

Flower Beauty by Drew Barrymore

Actress Drew Barrymore learned a lot from her tour of duty as a face of CoverGirl, working with mega makeup maestro Pat McGrath and serving as creative director of her campaign. Her Flower brand, developed after her CoverGirl stint, is exclusive to Walmart, and includes everything from lip glosses to makeup brushes to fragrance. The quality of this brand belies its mass price tag — in fact, the formulas were developed in the same labs as many prestige lines. One if its biggest winners is the Transforming Touch Powder to Creme Blush in Tickled Pink, which is designed to last all day without the cakey-ness of a creme-to-powder blush.

To engage consumers, Barrymore has hosted multiple media and influencer events, one of which included a bowling birthday party, leading to a bevy of Instagram posts from beauty experts, editors, bloggers, and influencers. She also promotes Flower Beauty on her personal Instagram handle, which boasts 7.8 million followers. She features other products from beauty brands she uses regularly, such as Colgate’s teeth whitening pen and Dickenson’s Witch Hazel Towelettes, which gives her Flower Beauty posts an authentic feel. She also partnered with Vogue.com on a series of how-to videos on topics including on-the-go tutorials involving her products. In a nutshell, its her unpretentious attitude and genuine obsession with beauty that resonates with consumers.

Wander Beauty by Lindsay Ellingson

Co-created with entrepreneur Divya Gugnani, Wander Beauty is already selling out in Sephora and QVC. Former Victoria’s Secret angel Lindsay Ellingson and Divya created the travel-focused cosmetics company just a few years ago. It distinguishes itself from its competitors in that it features high-quality double-duty gems such as dual-ended lipsticks, elegant liners with glide, and a much buzzed about mascara.

Lindsay and Divya go on QVC frequently for the company’s Beauty IQ segments, which are also streamed via Facebook Live. These help them reach their millennial demographic. While they’re on QVC’s campus in between shows, they film how-to videos on their Facebook pages via Facebook Live, usually with a guest beauty influencer they bring to QVC with them, whose audience they leverage, as well. Ellingson uses her personal Instagram with 879K followers to promote the brand and posts behind-the-scenes Instagram Stories about life as a beauty entrepreneur and model to engage with loyal users. Lastly, the brand also posts strategic video ads on Facebook after testing out photo ads.

Fenty Beauty by Rihanna

Though it was announced a few years ago, the line launched this September, and is already selling out and garnering much buzz. While Rihanna generates interest simply by stepping out of a restaurant, the appeal here may actually be the products themselves. One major differentiation is the brand’s utterly complexion-focused collection. Committed to offering foundation shades for every skin tone — not just simply a close match — Fenty Beauty’s variety in color is rivaled by only a few other beauty brands. It’s a common complaint that even when beauty brands offer a wide range of hues, they often miss the mark when it comes to medium skin tones or providing enough shades at the darkest end of the spectrum. Many of these darker hues have sold out on both Sephora and Fenty’s sites. Fenty Beauty’s sheer breadth of colors for its Pro Filt’R Soft Matte Longwear Foundation makes choosing a shade a breeze for everyone. The recently launched holiday collection, called the Galaxy Collection, is already the subject of many a vlogger review.

Nuance by Salma Hayek

Salma’s CVS-exclusive range of hair, makeup and skin care is highly impressive for a mass line. The botanical beauty offerings are comprised of exotic active ingredients like blue agave. The brand resonates with consumers because of its inclusion of natural ingredients, a rare inclusion in mass cosmetics. Another way the brand appeals to a multicultural audience is the brand’s back story: Salma said her beauty secrets come from her maternal grandmother, Maria Luisa Lopez, who made masks, scrubs and conditioners using indigenous ingredients to her home in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico. The New York Times reported that according to Judy Sansone, Senior Vice President for Merchandising at CVS, sales of Nuance Salma Hayek have been the highest of any CVS proprietary brand. The brand features high-quality items, each under $15, and connects mostly with a generation X and older audience, thanks to initial print-focused advertising and less social media.

Circa by Eva Mendes

The actress’ Walgreens-specific range features makeup offerings that boast a high-end feel for their price, which are mainly under $10. Some standouts include lip stains that last forever — they last as long as any prestige brand’s offering — and come in on-trend, bright hues, while the shadow palette’s silky feel totally wows. Prior to being the face of Circa, Eva graced major brand campaigns like that of Cartier, Revlon and Calvin Klein. The Cuban-American has said that finding the right foundation shade for her was difficult, even within prestige makeup lines, and that developing a 10-shade range for foundation for was the impetus for Circa. The brand launched in 2015 and was one of the first to focus on an extensive foundation range at the mass level before diversity in skin-tone offerings became a priority for brands.

Kora Organics by Miranda Kerr
Kora Organics launched in 2009 in Australia and has since expanded to more than 200 retailers across Australia, including Sephora, in addition to selling worldwide through KORAOrganics.com, and luxury global e-retailer, Net-A-Porter.com. As of 2017, KORA Organics is sold in the U.S. at Sephora stores and on Sephora.com. The brand is organic (of course), and blends key ingredients based on their natural healing and protective powers, such as noni extract, rosehip oil, sea buckthorn oil and green tea. Created at the height of the former Victoria’s Secret angel/current model’s success, this brand was one of the first natural skin care brands, pre-dating the recent rush of celebrity-fronted organic, botanical ranges. Miranda became a qualified holistic health practitioner in order to launch the brand and uses certified organic ingredients. All of the brand’s products are vegan, cruelty-free and non-toxic. Her fresh-faced, natural beauty bent feels authentic as the model is a noted long-time fan and client of Rosemarie Swift, makeup artist and founder of RMS Beauty.