Selena Gomez sells $100 million of blush a year as brand booms

The brand was also founded with a social cause at its core, a hallmark of younger brands but not industry heavyweights. Gomez has been an advocate for mental health, including publicly discussing her own struggles. Rare pledged to dedicate 1 per cent of sales to its in-house fund, having raised at least $US5 million so far, per the company’s 2022 social impact report.

Rare is part of a growing collection of business ventures for Gomez. She also co-founded Wondermind, a start-up focused on improving mental health that was valued last year at $US100 million; has executive produced shows on Netflix and HBO Max; and has formed partnerships with brands such as Puma.

A lot of Rare’s success is credited to Gomez’s fan base, which includes more than 400 million Instagram followers, but the brand also has an executive team made of industry veterans. Joyce Kim, Rare’s chief product officer and a former executive at L’Oreal’s Nyx Professional Makeup, was tasked by Gomez with creating a line that could hold up at one of her red carpet appearances as well as in her customers’ everyday lives.

“It has to feel weightless and be easy to apply,” Kim says. “But it’s gotta hold up for events.”

On the marketing side, Rare has excelled at creating social media buzz. The brand has more than three million followers on TikTok, six million on Instagram, and tailors content across its platforms. Googly-eye stickers appear on a blush tube for the TikTok audience; posts focusing on mental health have particular resonance on Instagram. Not being afraid to experiment has helped, according to Katie Welch, Rare’s chief marketing officer.

Gomez also touts the brand and gives tutorials on her accounts. In the early months following the brand’s launch, she recorded hours and hours of herself doing her make-up for one of her TV shows, the HBO Max cooking series Selena + Chef. The team then cut those sessions down to clips that often last no longer than a minute. Other snippets feature Gomez lip-synching to popular TikTok sounds, with commentary about Rare’s products.

“The reception from influencers and online users has been overwhelmingly positive,” says Artemis Patrick, Sephora’s global chief merchandising officer.

The brand continues to add products, such as a gel eyeliner, and expanding – distribution recently reached Indonesia and India. Other hits include a powder highlighter, which served as a throwback to the gleaming highlighters of the 2010s. When it began selling, Mehdi Mehdi, Rare’s chief digital officer, realised the brand could revive trends, not just create new ones.

“We had been told the era of powder highlighter was over,” Mehdi says. “We have the ability to buck the trends.”