e.l.f. Beauty: mass-market beauty reborn through tiktok

The founding and history

e.l.f. Beauty (originally 'eyes lips face') was founded in 2004 by Joseph Shamah and Scott Vincent Borba as a budget cosmetics brand sold initially through dollar stores and discount retailers. The brand languished through the 2000s and 2010s until Tarang Amin became CEO in 2014 and refocused the business strategically.^[1]

Under Amin's tenure e.l.f. Evolved from clean-label budget beauty to a TikTok-savvy mass-market beauty brand competing with both prestige brands (for product quality at fraction of price) and budget brands (with significantly better marketing). The defining transformation came through TikTok presence starting around 2019-2020.

The playbook executed

e.l.f.'s TikTok playbook combined: creator partnerships at scale (broad seeding to beauty TikTokers rather than concentrating on macro-influencers), branded hashtag challenges (#eyeslipsface generated 6B+ views), music partnerships (e.l.f. Commissioned the song 'Eyes Lips Face' as a brand jingle that creators used in their content), and responsive content (engaging with creator content as the brand voice).^[2]

The product strategy reinforced the marketing. E.l.f. Continued producing high-quality dupes of prestige beauty products at $5-$15 price points, making the products accessible to the young TikTok audience the marketing was reaching. The marketing-product-pricing alignment was structural.

The results

e.l.f. Revenue grew from approximately $231M (FY2017) to $1.02B (FY2024) — over 4x growth in 7 years. The stock has been one of the best-performing beauty stocks of the period.^[3] The company's success demonstrates that legacy mass-market brands can thrive in the social era when leadership, marketing strategy, and product strategy align around the platform realities.

What this case study teaches

• Legacy brands can be reborn through platform-native marketing — e.l.f. Demonstrates this in beauty.
• Branded hashtag challenges work for brands with cultural permission — #eyeslipsface played to e.l.f.'s identity.
• Creator seeding at scale beats macro-influencer concentration — broad reach across micro-creators outperformed celebrity deals.
• Music-as-marketing extends TikTok strategy — commissioned songs become creator-content templates.
• Marketing-product-pricing alignment is structural — e.l.f.'s low prices fit the audience the TikTok marketing reached.

Related concepts and channels

For TikTok strategy, see TikTok Ads overview. For Fenty Beauty's adjacent beauty playbook, see Fenty Beauty case study. For Glossier and beauty community-led growth, see Glossier case study.