2025 was the year beauty embraced entertainment and digital-first storytelling. Social media campaigns rivaled Hollywood blockbusters with star-studded casts. Content stopped revolving around product drops, focusing more on cultural moments. Brands leaned into music, film and notably sport to drive engagement. With those that performed above average using these social levers to deepen their relationships with customers.
We crunched the data to find out which beauty brands and influencers won on social media this year. Here’s what stood out.
L’Oréal Paris continues its reign as the top beauty brand on social media, according to Launchmetrics, after coming out on top in last year’s report. (Launchmetrics calculates a brand’s media impact value, or MIV, by assigning monetary value to engagement with social content, taking followers, comments, likes and shares all into account.)
The brand generated $1.6 billion in MIV this year to date, up 22% from 2024. L’Oréal’s Spring/Summer 2026 runway show during Paris Fashion Week drew big numbers with ambassadors such as Kendall Jenner, Jane Fonda, Anitta and Cara Delevingne.
Dior Beauty followed with $1.2 billion in MIV, up 2% from last year, as it named Jenna Ortega its international ambassador for makeup. She joins the likes of Rihanna and Anya Taylor-Joy within the Dior Beauty universe. This year, the brand doubled down on IRL moments such as store openings in Miami and Toronto, a pop-up for Dior Sauvage with Johnny Depp, and a Miss Dior exhibition in Shanghai.
A newcomer on the list — coming in at number 10 — is Selena Gomez’s Rare Beauty. The brand generated $671.5 million in MIV, with 18% year-on-year growth.
“Outpacing the industry by growing 27 times faster than the average, Rare Beauty’s first appearance on this year’s ranking is driven by strategic expansion and high-impact partnerships,” says Launchmetrics CMO Alison Bringé. “By leaning into non-traditional, culture-first collaborations, Rare Beauty unlocked outsized impact — its partnership with [Mexican seasoning brand] Tajín alone drove more than double the social engagement of the brand’s standard makeup placements.”
In the makeup category, Huda Beauty rose the ranks from fourth place in 2024 to the top spot this year. The brand accumulated an MIV of $945.8 million, compared with $616.4 million last year. This year, founder Huda Kattan took operations back into her own hands through repurchasing her stake from TSG Consumers, which took a share in 2017. Kattan also reassumed the position of CEO in 2024.
Huda Beauty had consistent launches throughout the year, with the Ube Collection in January, a makeup range inspired by the color lilac, the Easy Blur Primer and Foundation in August, and the Powder Blush Filter Palettes in October.
Mac Cosmetics, with an MIV of $928.5 million, ranked second. The brand has been on a winning streak with its appointments, from naming Nicola Formichetti as global creative director in May to signing ambassadors including Ella, the South Korean American singer and member of girl band Meovv, alongside Doja Cat and Chappell Roan. Mac also launched a lip product, the Lipglass Air, with a campaign featuring Lisa Rinna and her daughter, Amelia Gray Hamlin.
“Huda Beauty and Mac Cosmetics drive scale by moving beyond product-led calendars to content shaped by creators, culture and real-time community signals,” says Maggie Hickey, executive VP of marketing at Dash Social. “Together, these rankings point to a broader shift in beauty: success is rooted in entertaining, shareworthy content that invites participation and deepens relationships, allowing brand growth to compound over time instead of peaking around a single campaign or launch moment.”
Brands have been leaning into this with new cultural partnerships. Beauty’s growing intersection with sport, in particular, has been underscored this year with tie-ups including Clinique’s partnership with the Red Roses — making it England Rugby’s first-ever official beauty partner — and in June, Charlotte Tilbury became the official beauty partner for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.
Taking up space in sports has become an important focus for L’Oréal Group and its skincare brands. L’Oréal Paris recently named soccer player Declan Rice an ambassador for its L’Oréal Men Expert and L’Oréal Paris Elvive lines. In May, La Roche-Posay tapped tennis stars Madison Keys, Frances Tiafoe and Taylor Fritz for its Anthelios UV Pro Sport SPF 50 campaign. The brand scored second place in Launchmetrics’s skincare ranking, with an MIV of $286.6 million (L’Oréal Paris came top in this category with an MIV of $351.3 million).
“If America is the entertainment capital of the world and beauty is becoming more entertaining, then the beauty industry is becoming even more embedded in American culture,” says Natasha Hulme, chief creative strategy officer at global communications agency Seen Group. “I believe the next phase will see beauty overlapping more directly with entertainment and cultural expression, and the US will be a driving force of this shift. We’re already watching some of the most visible public figures in the US choose beauty as their business focus, which tells you exactly where the cultural energy is going.”
Many of the top beauty influencers hail from the US, a market that’s grown in importance this year during China’s downturn.
According to Launchmetrics, California-based Shima Katouzian, otherwise known as @HeroSheemaz on Instagram, was the top beauty influencer on social media in 2025, with an MIV of $620.8 million. She has 3.1 million followers on Instagram, and in 2025, her posts generated 47.5 million likes across 283 posts. Katouzian’s posts often switch between English and Farsi, Katouzian’s native language, consequently appealing to followers and consumers in global markets. The content creator is a regular collaborator with brands including Anastasia Beverly Hills, L’Oréal Paris and Medicube.
Lindsey Rowley, otherwise known as @LinsMakeupLooks on Instagram, came in second with an MIV of $268.2 million. The US-based influencer is synonymous with bold makeup looks. Meanwhile, Aditya Madiraju or @AdityaMadiraju made their runway debut at L’Oréal’s Paris SS26 show.
Fragrance continues to generate a low MIV compared with other categories; it’s hard to show a fragrance and the majority of the identity revolves around the design of a bottle, or its celebrity ambassadors. But social-first storytelling is starting to bear fruit.
Dior Beauty topped the fragrance ranking with an MIV of $201.1 million, compared to last year’s $83.7 million. The brand celebrated 10 years of its Sauvage fragrance. Depp starred in a new commercial for the fragrance filmed in the desert that was directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino, who has shot music videos for Madonna, David Bowie, Sting and Björk. A bottle of Dior Sauvage is snapped up every 30 seconds, which accounts to sales of more than 12 million a year, according to the company.
Dior Beauty has been embracing storytelling to great effect. See, for example, the clips of Natalie Portman in a Miss Dior fragrance franchise, or Robert Pattinson being driven around in a cab for Dior Homme, which proliferated on YouTube. “What stands out on the fragrance leaderboard is how effectively luxury houses are translating heritage into social-first storytelling, using short and long-form video to keep aspiration intact while scaling attention through high-profile partnerships,” says Hickey. “Dior Beauty leads with cinematic content anchored by globally recognizable talent, from Natalie Portman and Rihanna, to Robert Pattinson and Jisoo.”
YSL Beauty has been turning to its ambassador Rosé from Blackpink, who helped the brand achieve the second spot in fragrance with an MIV of $146.5 million. Meanwhile, Chanel Beauty, which ranked third, has an MIV of $139 million. The brand has honed its Instagram and TikTok presence, as well as having Timothée Chalamet as the face of its menswear fragrance Bleu de Chanel.
It could be a big year for fragrance in 2026, according to Caroline Weintraub, VP at venture capital firm True Beauty Ventures. “Fragrance continues to outperform across price points and unlock new entry points for acquisition,” she says. “Whether it is refillable formats, elevated body layering, or a functional product with a strong scent identity, these brands prove that fragrance gives consumers a reason to come back.”
