How TikTok Broke the Beauty Industry

In May 2025, e.l.f. Beauty paid one billion dollars for a skincare brand that did not exist three years earlier. Rhode had ten products at the time of sale, one founder famous for moisturising before bed, and a billion-dollar exit driven entirely by a single app. This is the story of how TikTok rewired beauty in five years — who got rich, who got destroyed, and what the algorithm broke on its way to deciding what your face should look like. Walk into any Sephora today and the inheritance is everywhere. The skin is dewy. The lips are glossy and lined just slightly darker than the gloss. The blush sits high on the cheekbones in a colour that splits the difference between a sunburn and a fever. The hair is slicked back. There is a small yellow bottle of body mist on the wrist that smells like pistachio and salted caramel, and the wearer can tell you the exact number — sixty-two — without thinking about it. None of this reads as a trend anymore. It reads as how women look in 2026.