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When Rare Beauty launched toward the end of 2020, it did so with 150 SKUs. At the time, there was no way of knowing that its $25 Soft Pinch Liquid Blush would become iconic and one of TikTok’s first truly viral beauty products, according to multiple reps for the brand. Fast forward to 2025, and the brand launched its fourth blush, the $27 Soft Pinch Matte Bouncy Blush, on Thursday.
Five years ago, the buzzy blush landscape was quite different. There was Nars Cosmetics’ iconic Orgasm blush, which first launched in 1999. Glossier launched Cloud Paint in 2017, which it calls a “blendable cream blush with a gel-cream texture,” though it is, in fact, a liquid. Westman Atelier launched its blush stick in 2018. Though Circana no longer has data tracking back to 2020, it shared that, in 2022, the prestige blush market was valued at $266.6 million. By 2024, that number had jumped to $481.8 million.
“We came to life at the same time TikTok did in the U.S., and TikTok is this fascinating storytelling vehicle,” said Katie Welch, Rare Beauty’s CMO. “It’s fueled by demonstration and dramatization, and this product is both highly demonstrable and lends itself to a dramatic story arc. As people played with [our first blush], they were able to [take their look from] highly pigmented to blended out to create a beautiful color on their cheeks that lasted all day. The product lent itself to the TikTok algorithm in a way that maybe other products didn’t, simply because of its unique features and benefits. … So, more and more people saw it organically.”
In a 2023 story, Glossy Pop reported on Rare Beauty being one of a select few brands to surpass 1 million TikTok followers. At the time, it had 1.2 million. Today, it has 4.5 million.
In July 2022, Bloomberg reported that Rare Beauty had sold $70 million worth of its original blush SKU, the Soft Pinch Liquid Blush. The product is currently Sephora’s No. 1 bestselling blush, according to Yipit Data. Plus, Glossy can exclusively share that, in 2024, across all of its sales channels, including TikTok Shop, the brand sold one Soft Pinch Liquid Blush every three seconds.
Now, as Rare releases its fourth blush into the world, the Selena Gomez-helmed brand is focused on how Matte Bouncy Blush can succeed, without cannibalizing its other blushes. Along with its hero liquid, they include the $24 Stay Vulnerable Melting Cream Blush and the $27 Soft Pinch Luminous Powder Blush.
According to Joyce Kim, the brand’s chief product officer, the new addition is not just trend-driven — Saie, Urban Decay, Kosas and Tower28 have all recently debuted powder blush formulas — but driven by data.
“We found through customer data that some first-time Rare purchasers were not buying the blush, which blew my mind,” Kim said. Theorizing that the high pigment that made the product a hit on TikTok may be holding others back from trying it, Kim saw the need to introduce another kind of blush to the brand’s lineup.
Still, Kim didn’t want the blush to feel too run-of-the-mill. She noted that Gomez is a fan of products that are sensorially delightful. So, the brand created the blush through a manufacturing process called extrusion. The texture is “bouncy, like putty,” Kim said.
Just as lip combos have become a thing, Welch believes “blush wardrobes” are also catching on. She expects consumers will apply Rare’s powder blush atop its liquid version, for example.
“The finishes [of the four blushes] are so different that we hope they complement each other,” Welch said. “The [new blush] is a very easy-to-use blush, so it’s a great option for anyone intimidated to use liquid blush,” Welch said.
To promote the launch, this month, Rare is popping up in a series of cities, some for the first time. They include Miami, Mexico City and Milan. In Miami, it will hold a pop-up with a VIP preview for media and influencers. In Mexico City, it will host a cocktail party for media and influencers, and a consumer event at Sephora with a coffee and concha cart. In Milan, it will hold an influencer dinner. In April, it will host a Paris pop-up that’s exclusive to media and influencers, and a London pop-up with a VIP preview for media and influencers.
“[We have to] get people to play with it, touch it, feel it, try it — really experience it, because it is a first of its kind: blendable, buildable and with this putty-like texture,” Welch said. “We need to make sure that all of our activations not only drive awareness, but also drive trial. We want to make sure we touch as many cheeks as possible.”
To double down on that goal, Rare is launching a partnership with at-home beauty service Glamsquad on Thursday. Dubbed the “Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Cheek + Lip service,” it incorporates the brand’s new blush and will also allow customers to try the $22 Soft Pinch Tinted Lip Oil Stain. The partnership is planned to run for a month.
Unlike many of the brand’s other launches, which it tries to keep under wraps, this one is no surprise.
Gomez teased it alongside her friend Jennifer Aniston at a Galentine’s Day event in February, co-hosted by Rare Beauty and Aniston’s hair-care brand, Lolavie. “[Lolavie] had [a new product] coming out. We had something coming out, [though] not until the end of March. It was truly an experiment,” Welch said. Following that event, Rare pushed the new blush live on Sephora.com, but only for 48 hours. As a result of the pre-sale and a “massive seeding,” there is already a fair amount of user-generated content about the new launch.
“[With this new launch, it truly feels like] we’re ‘the’ blush brand,” said Lauren Peterson, Rare Beauty’s North America PR and influencer director.
