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January marks the start of awards season and the onset of many, many new beauty launches. So, many beauty brands try to combine the glitz and glamour of the red carpet with whatever new product they’re bringing to market. At January 5’s Golden Globes, this included Dermalogica, which debuted its new Multivitamin Power Recovery Cream on Adam Brody through his grooming artist Kim Verbeck’s application, and Anastasia Beverly Hills, which introduced its Impeccable Second Skin Matte Foundation on Sofia Vergara’s face, thanks to her makeup artist Sabrina Bedrani’s partnership with the brand.
A beauty brand may sponsor all or part of a makeup artist’s, hair stylist’s or nail artist’s work making up a celebrity’s look. The artist will tag and mention that brand in their corresponding content. Though the content may feature a very famous face, the brand is not paying for a partnership with the star themselves. According to an industry insider with knowledge of such deals, they can run anywhere from $5,000 to more than $20,000, plus the artist’s agency’s fee. The higher end of that range can only be commanded when the artist is working with a major star at a major moment — think Margot Robbie during the “Barbie” press tour or Ariana Grande while promoting “Wicked,” the source said.
This year, for its first time, the fragrance brand Phlur — relaunched by influencer Chriselle Lim and brand incubator The Center in 2022 — engaged in such a partnership. For the Golden Globes, it enlisted actor Rachel Brosnahan’s longtime makeup artist Lisa Aharon, who has over 22,000 Instagram followers, to finish Brosnahan’s look with Phlur’s newest fragrance, Golden Rule. The fragrance officially launched on January 7. Like skin care, which counts many red-carpet sponsorships, fragrance is undetectable in red-carpet coverage. And this fragrance-red-carpet partnership may have been a beauty first.
“There is no look as meaningful or as well-thought-out as the looks that are done for the award shows,” said Erica Dunivan, CMO at Phlur. “Fragrance is invisible, but at Phlur, we see that [it] is so expressive, and it can really enhance any mood or moment. It’s the completion to any look.”
For much of the past three years, Phlur’s marketing has centered around Lim. But, Dunivan said, while Lim remains the brand’s co-founder and creative director, the brand is looking to “pass the mic” more. “Every one of our fragrances tells a unique story, and those stories are intimately personal — so we’re trying to let other people tell that story, too,” she said, adding, “Going into 2025, we have our eyes on other fashion-type partnerships, too.”
Aharon said that as a long-time lover and collector of fragrance, she was excited to work with Plur, which she tagged in an Instagram post featuring Brosnahan. “We did [Brosnahan’s] makeup — we did full glam — then she got dressed, and then it was time to tend to her body. I did body oil and body makeup, a little touch of fragrance on the wrists to set the tone.” Dunivan called the Golden Rule scent a “bold, magnetic, warm and energetic” new take on floral that complemented Brosnahan’s style.
Phlur did not provide a resulting lift in sales or social engagement.
Celebrity hairstylist Mara Roszak takes a different approach to promoting products tied to her clients’ red-carpet looks because the products are from her own brand, Rōz.
When you see a hairstyle and how it’s holding up throughout an entire night, it shows that the products used to create it are working, lasting and great,” Roszak said. This is important to Roszak because she wants to change the general perception that “clean” products can’t perform like their conventional counterparts. Rōz’s latest product, Evergreen Style Cream, launched Sunday night in tandem with the Golden Globes. For the awards show, she styled the hair of Zoe Saldaña and Emms Stone.
“We try to get good behind-the-scenes moments that show the product in use and the getting-ready process,” Roszak said. A post on her Instagram (100,000 followers) features a look at Saldaña’s updo for the night in motion.
In short, according to Roszak, using an award show to launch a product offers “incredible awareness.” By launching Evergreen Style Cream on Sunday, the brand exceeded its sales benchmark for the first 48 hours by 8x. The product was promoted on Roszak’s Instagram, Rōz’s Instagram (28,000 followers) and the brand’s professionals-focused Instagram {308 followers). Rōz’s post featuring Saldaña (above) was also shared with Saldaña’s 11.2 million followers.
For the U.K.-based hair extensions brand Remi Cachet, working with celebrity hairstylist Danielle Priano for the Golden Globes was the kickoff to its awards season strategy, which is part of its larger strategy for launching in the U.S. Priano (318,000 Instagram followers) happened to also be working with Brosnahan for the awards show.
The Remi Cachet brand has been around in the U.K. and Europe since 2003 and has been planning its U.S. launch for over a year, said Carrie Tyler, marketing director at Remi Cachet parent company Additional Lengths. “We realized that the red carpet and celebrity moments were going to be a massive [opportunity] for us” in the states, Tyler said.
“There are taboos around hair extensions — people don’t talk about hair extension usage as consumers,” Tyler said, likening it to Botox 10 years ago. Her belief is that, by getting more celebrities to wear extensions on the red carpet, the brand can help break this stigma. That said, celebrities wearing extensions is already common. One moment at the Globes proved promising: While doing pre-show interviews, “Queer Eye” host Jonathan Van Ness, said to Brosnahan, “Your hair looks beautiful. Look at all these inches, giving me Incharella back here.” To which Brosnahan replied, “It’s not mine; I’m gonna give it back later. But I’m happy to have it for now.”
The global human hair extension market was valued at $4.88 billion in 2024, and it’s projected to grow to $5.36 billion in 2025 and $10.78 billion by 2032, according to Fortune Business Insights.
Remi Cachet’s partnership with Priano stemmed from the brand’s “hit list” of stylists it wanted to work with. Late last year, it began to samples to these professionals allowing them to familiarize themselves with the product quality. “We always want [our partnerships] to start off as organically as possible. Danielle thought the quality of hair was exceptional, and then she came to us with the Rachel opportunity. … We want to build these relationships into meaningful partnerships for the red carpet season ahead, but also for years to come.”
Brosnahan’s hairstyle and Remi Cachet were mentioned in Harper’s Bazaar’s story on the “23 Best Beauty Looks” of the night and in Glamour’s Golden Globes beauty roundup — where Phlur also got a shoutout. On the night of any awards show, beauty editors receive countless emails from PR representatives breaking down the looks of celebs wearing their partner brands’ products. As a result of the press, Remi Cachet’s site traffic increased 92% week-over-week following the awards show, according to the company.
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