The news of Rhode’s billion-dollar partnership ricocheted across the internet: E.l.f. Cosmetics has announced it will acquire Hailey Bieber’s viral beauty brand in a $1 billion deal. This follows news that Rhode will launch in all Sephora stores in the US, Canada and UK by the end of 2025.
An unprecedentedly speedy acquisition – the brand only launched in 2022, and CORQ founder Sara McCorquodale reported, “E.l.f.’s Rhode acquisition proves beauty conglomerates’ future is bolstering heritage with talent-led brands.” The secret to Rhode’s sauce? Laser consumer-focus conversation energised by the relentless creation of viral content and activations on social media. Here are five times the brand went viral.
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1. The Strawberry girl movement
On 2 August 2023, Bieber seeded the arrival of a new product by filming a casual summer beauty tutorial, showcasing a pink, freckled and sun-kissed makeup look and calling it “strawberry makeup”. The video, which has had 46 million views to date, launched a million Strawberry Girl looks (see our report here).
At the time, before the TikTok hashtag update, #strawberrygirlmakeup gained 8.8 million views in three weeks. The internet was obsessed: Following Bieber’s post, Google searches for “strawberry girl” in the UK surged on 6 August. Bieber’s Instagram post amassed millions of likes. The strawberry makeup video heralded the arrival of a new lip treat flavour: the Strawberry Glaze Peptide Lip Treat. The launch in September 2023 was accompanied by a collaboration with Krispy Kreme, with the doughnut brand reintroducing its Strawberry Glaze doughnuts for a limited period in tandem with the launch.
Bieber’s brand is predicated on the idea of “glaze” so the collaboration with Krispy Kreme meant that Bieber owned the glaze like never before. She also created a Strawberry Glaze Skin smoothie for cult health food haven Erewhon.
@haileybieber Everday Strawberry Makeup 🍓💋
2. The bread and butter moment
In fact the brand has always associated itself with food. In October 2024, Bieber posted a film of herself eating Rhode-branded bread and butter (she has a skin balm called Barrier Butter), with a Nara Smith parody audio. The video has had more than 26 million views, here.
The collaboration ticked all the trend themes of the time: fun, food and a little light trolling – of Nara Smith and also of Bieber’s detractors. The audio featured the line, “I decided to make some b*****s mad from scratch.” Trolling her detractors is a classic page in the Bieber playbook. Her recent US Vogue cover was accompanied with a “What’s In My Bag?” film which was a self-deprecating parody as well the perfect promotion for her products, here. The TikToks around her cover shoot and the “bag” bit have had over 40 million views, with only the entire Met Gala content series generating as many views for the magazine’s platform.
The news of Rhode’s sale was posted on Instagram, featuring glossy corporate shots and on TikTok? Bieber posted herself, face covered in hydrating masks, eating sushi, with the caption: “and I’m just in my room like this”, here. The video has had 7.2 million views in less than 24 hours.
@haileybieber breakfast a la @rhode skin 😘
3. The phone case that broke the internet
On 4 February 2024, Bieber low-key posted a selfie of herself modelling a Rhode phone case with a built-in lip glaze mould, instantly sending the gloss girlies into a spiral (here); the video has more than 60.4 million views to date. A few days later, she modelled it again, swiftly followed by the news that the phone case would be available to buy from the 27 February, and the waitlist began to fill.
On 14 February, British Vogue’s creative director, Julia Hobbs, was the first journalist to receive the case – her unboxing video on British Vogue’s TikTok page drew 2.6 million views in less than 24 hours (here). According to TikTok lore, a million units of the phone case were sold in February 2024.
Rhode co-founder Lauren Ratner told Vogue Business at the time: “We are building Rhode not following a traditional playbook. We are making decisions that are steeped in data and consumer insights, but they are also intuitive without any preconceived notion of what a launch or product should be, so I think that has allowed us to stand apart”. By April 2024, 400,000 people were on the wait lists for the Lip Case.
@haileybieber 🦄💗🍒🌸✨
4. The blush controversy and resolution
It’s one thing to look at the successes but also how a brand deals with criticism. When beauty creator Golloria George called out Hailey Bieber’s brand for its lack of inclusive shades in 2024, the reaction was swift. Bieber immediately contacted the influencer and apologised as well as asking for the creator’s help in reformulating and relaunching the products. George revealed in a follow-up video that Bieber had not only personally reached out to her but also compensated her for her consultation.
Six months later, in March 2025, George posted about the newly-launched blushes, saying she had been in the lab with Bieber, and that the cosmetic chemist involved in the relaunch had been Black. The video was seen 3.2 million times in less than 24 hours, and has since had more than 7.1 million views and 661,000 likes, here.
@golloria South Sudan to the world. Alhamdulillah for it all. We did it. Thank you @rhode skin🤍
5. The pop-up hype
Rhode has been quick to borrow from streetwear hype culture. Summer 2024 was a historic one for IRL experiences in London, as brands jostled to pop up all over the capital. Activations drew record queues and none more so than Rhode’s balm and booth, which appeared in Marylebone in July and caused a standstill in W1 as Rhode fans queued for five hours for their free lip balm and photo booth moment.
@haileybieber bestied so hard our brands collabed at Coachella @Kendall Jenner
The social team were forced to issue urgent social messages by 11am to tell people not to come as the queue had maxxed out. The Rhode pop-up roll out was global – with similar activations in Miami, Toronto and Los Angeles to name a few. In October 2024, Rhode opened its first bricks-and-mortar pop-up space on Motcomb Street for four days only. Rhode girlies queued from 6.15am to get in, here.
The Rhode booth was also spotted at Coachella earlier this year in collaboration with Kendall Jenner’s tequila brand 818, here. News that Rhode was going to be available in Sephora from the autumn only just preceded the news of the sale.
By Emilie McMeekan, insights director for CORQ.
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