The Glossy 50 honors the year’s biggest changemakers across fashion and beauty. More from the series →
You already know the main headline of Hailey (Rhode) Bieber’s year. It was also, perhaps, the single biggest headline for the beauty industry in 2025: The model-turned-mogul sold Rhode, her instantly iconic skin-care and makeup (and phone case) brand to E.l.f. Beauty for $1 billion in May.
It’s rare that the general public knows about beauty acquisitions, but this one was mainstream news, reported by Allure, Glamour and InStyle, to name a few. It was also the largest and fastest acquisition in the category, with Rhode just three years old.
Such a blockbuster deal was the only kind Bieber would have settled for. “I always had this fixed number in my head — if we were going to sell, that would be the number,” Bieber said, “I never knew if we would get acquired. There are so many routes you can take with your brand, and I didn’t know which one we were going to take until the E.l.f. opportunity was presented to us.”
Upon its launch in 2022, Rhode became a cool-girl must-have. Its peptide lip treatments sparked an era heavy in lip launches featuring peptides, and the brand’s 2023 introduction of Glazing Milk kicked off another frenzy (itself K-Beauty inspired), setting off an onslaught of milky toners launching left and right.
Then, the 2024 Rhode Lip Case launch broke the internet, spawning endless memes and cementing the brand as not just a maker of beauty products, but also of cultural moments.
In mid-May, shortly before the E.l.f. acquisition was announced, Rhode revealed it would be debuting at Sephora, which finally happened in September. “You go into [retail] not knowing at all how it’s going to go, how people are going to respond to it,” Bieber said. But Rhode became Sephora North America’s biggest-ever brand launch. Industry sources reported that three Rhode products were sold per second during launch weekend. It was also reported that the brand exceeded $10 million in sales at Sephora in its first two days.
Bieber, perhaps, was being humble.
In the year before Rhode launched at Sephora, Sephora saw over 2 million unique searches for the brand across its site, according to industry sources. “Obviously, we went into Sephora knowing that we had such a loyal, amazing fan base. But when you go into Sephora, you’re entering into such new territory. So to see how people have responded to it, and getting to watch them play with the brand in real life, has been really, really cool,” she said.
In an interview with Glossy in early December, Bieber said she’s feeling “really good” about Rhode’s positioning five months post-acquisition. And she’s especially proud of the brand’s current launch cadence. “[The time between our launches] has been a lot longer than [many] other brands,” Bieber said. But this year, the brand grew its stake in the lip category with the January launch of its Peptide Lip Shape, plus it launched a Glazing Mist in June and Peptide Eye Prep under-eye patches in October. Throughout the year, new flavors of the Peptide Lip Treatment, new hues of the Peptide Lip Tint and new shades of the brand’s Pocket Blush were introduced.
Launches will remain spaced out, but, Bieber said, “We have a much better-planned-out timeline than before. I’m a lot clearer on the next X amount of launches that I want to put out, whereas, before, I wasn’t 100% sure what I wanted to come next. I had all these ideas, but the things that were ready first were the things that would come out. Now, I feel a lot more organized with my thoughts and sure of myself and what I want to put out into the world. We have more of a plan for longevity, and that feels really nice,” she said.
For Rhode’s biggest 2025 launches, Bieber implemented a strategy she has always felt is paramount to Rhode’s success: tapping influential faces beyond her own to help launch new products. “That’s how you expand the world beyond me, and that was always a really big goal of mine — that Rhode would stand on its own, that maybe somebody would walk into Sephora and not even know that Rhode is my brand,” Bieber said, adding that “I also want people to see themselves represented in the brand. And I don’t think I represent every single person.”
Pop star Tate McRae modeled for the launch of Peptide Lip Shape, a decision guided by the product’s name. “I wanted all the names of the colors to be different movements, and it organically became a conversation, given how amazing Tate is with movement; she’s such an incredible dancer,” Bieber said. The color names include Spin, Stretch and Lunge.
“A lot of these conversations happen really organically, when we’re thinking about the concept and talking about what it looks like, what it means, how I want it to come across to the world, and who I think could represent and articulate that in the best way,” Bieber said.
Actor Harris Dickinson served as the face of the Glazing Mist campaign. “It’s really rewarding for me to be able to watch the brand expand in this way — [to have these people] who are so cool and talented in everything that they do want to be part of our world,” she said.
Now, though she already has an exit under her belt, Bieber’s involvement with Rhode will not wane, she said. In fact, that was a key condition of the deal. “I would have never, ever done that if it meant me being less involved with the brand,” she said. “I actually wanted to be more involved with the brand moving forward — my DNA is so intricately a part of the brand, and I could never picture giving that up.”
At E.l.f., her title is Chief Creative Officer, and she also serves as an adviser to E.l.f. Beauty at large — its brands include E.l.f. Cosmetics, E.l.f. Skin, Naturium, Well People and Keys Soulcare.
As for what’s next, fans can expect to see Rhode-branded pimple patches, which Bieber has already begun teasing. “I can safely and happily say that they are the best pimple patches I’ve ever used, and it took us a long time to get there,” she said. “But I’m so glad it went the way that it did, because I think they’re the best possible version of what we could have made. And if we had launched them any sooner, I don’t know that they would have been.”
When asked whether she feels pressure to deliver the next “glazed skin” or meme-inspiring, status-signifying phone case, Bieber was measured.
“Everything I’ve put out with the brand has been an expression of things I organically, really love myself and that I saw a need for myself — and that will continue to be the case. I just want to keep putting out really amazing product, I want to continue to push the boundaries, and I want to continue to innovate and elevate and put out better and better product, in terms of formulations and innovations,” she said. “[I always say] I want us to outdo ourselves. I feel like there is a healthy pressure that comes with that, but I don’t feel a nervous, weighty pressure. A big brand ethos is that things just feel really seamless and natural and organic. I want to continue to have that flow to everything we do.”
