Maybelline leveraged 'Love Island' to supercharge lip gloss sales

After two successful seasons in partnership with “Love Island,” L’Oréal-owned Maybelline has expanded its footprint this year to stunning results.

“We’ve scaled our involvement over the years by making sure it’s more than just a product integration,” Yasmin Dastmalchi, president of Maybelline New York, told Glossy. “For example, this year, we created a challenge around our newest innovation called Lifter Gel, and what we found is that a lot of people were talking about the product [online] like it was a ‘Love Island lip gloss,’ … [which allows us to] really embed our products in those conversations in unique ways.”

According to commerce intelligence platform Daash Intelligence, weekly sales for Maybelline’s new Lifter Gel Lip Oil-in-Gel gloss grew 10x between the June 2 premiere and July 12 finale episodes of “Love Island” this summer. The gloss grew from under 5% of Maybelline’s lip business by unit in May to more than 30% in July, according to the firm.

Maybelline’s Lifter Gel Lip Oil-in-Gel is a franchise expansion of its 6-year-old Lifter Gloss. The new Lifter Gel launched with eight shades in May priced under $10 at Target, CVS, Walmart and Amazon.

“[Maybelline] launched the product four weeks before the premiere [of the show], which speaks to a bigger cultural shift around [successful] marketing,” Melissa Munnerlyn, co-founder and CMO of Daash Intelligence, told Glossy. “There used to be more of a playbook around building anticipation before a product becomes available, but now, because people move so quickly, the window between discovery and purchase really has compressed.”

That is, “if someone sees something on ‘Love Island,’ they search for it, and it’s not available yet, then you really risk losing that demand,” Munnerlyn said. Instead, Maybelline ensured the gloss was fully distributed across e-commerce and retail channels, including TikTok Shop and, new for this year, the “Love Island” app.

“The app was created by the ‘Love Island’ team for a place for fans to really be present, to be part of the winning outcomes of some of the couples,” Dastmalchi said. “[We were part of the app] by recreating the glam room [and] helping [viewers] with shade-matching — just really finding different ways to engage with not only our consumers, but also the fans of the show.”

For Dastmalchi, it was important to create the right internal team at Maybelline to identify the right viral moments and respond in timely, unique ways. “I want to make sure that the team leading this initiative is also as connected to the show, and, truly, we have real fans on the team,” she said.

For example, her team saw an opportunity to hire season 8 winners Trinity Tatum and Bryce Alakai for an exclusive TikTok content and Shop product bundle, inspired by an organic moment when Bryce was challenged to do Trinity’s makeup. “They saw this opportunity to bring to life the ultimate makeup challenge,” Dastmalchi said. “So what you see us doing is recreating some of Trinity’s signature looks, but making Bryce the makeup coach. … You never know if, in a couple of days, the content may be flipped the other way.”

Maybelline is also planning to activate around the “Love Island” reunion this Monday, August 31. “It’s really about being present where the conversations are happening and just making sure that our values are connected to any of the types of partnerships we’re doing,” Dastmalchi said.

Week in Review

Move over, Olipop and Pepsi, the summer of food x beauty partnerships continues. Mane hair tools has partnered with Cinnabon to release a lip gloss, hair brush and mirror. Then there is Londontown nail polish, which launched a collab with Magnolia Bakery this week. It includes colors inspired by the bakery’s top sellers like banana pudding and red velvet cupcakes.

Kenvue-owned Neutrogena is experiencing an avalanche of backlash on social media after a May podcast interview with Hayden Panettiere resurfaced, chronicling the end of her longtime partnership with the mass skin-care brand. Speaking on Jay Shetty’s “On Purpose” podcast in May, Panettiere said she believed Neutrogena failed to renew her 10-year contract because she spoke about her battle with postpartum depression during a television interview. Panettiere passed away on August 16 at age 36. In a move that outraged many followers, Neutrogena responded to both the passing of Panettiere and the backlash in one Instagram post on August 20, stating that the company is “making a significant investment to a long-standing community health partner to help give more women access to the support they need, including care for postpartum depression.” The post didn’t allow comments, so the comment sections of Neutrogena’s recent posts have been flooded with additional backlash.

It isn’t easy making earplugs cool, but Loops — a category disruptor that makes stylish, reusable earplugs that protect the user’s long-term hearing — has partnered with Paris Hilton to do just that. The company released a pair of limited-edition, hot pink earplugs with a holographic pink finish. The company has partnered with SoulCycle, Harry Styles’ Pleasing and Coachella in the past.

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Glossy Pop Newsletter: How Maybelline leveraged ‘Love Island’ to supercharge lip gloss sales