Pulse News

**Have We Reached Peak Influencer Brand?**

By Ann Gehan

Mar 13, 2025, 2:05pm PDT

It seems like more creators than ever are starting their own lines of makeup, skin care, snacks, and more, with at least three new brands this week alone.

On Tuesday, makeup artist Mikayla Nogueira, who has over 16 million followers on TikTok, announced a skincare line, Point of View. The same day, TikTok and Instagram star Alix Earle helped relaunch SipMargs, a line of canned margaritas. Pash, a lotion brand from reality star and influencer Harry Jowsey, started selling Wednesday, as did new iced lattes from actress Millie Bobby Brown's coffee brand.

And last week, longtime creator Brent Rivera announced his new chip brand, Levels, at a food industry conference. Have we officially hit the saturation point for creator brands?

I've been hearing more and more complaints over the last few months from VCs and other investors who are tired of being pitched on a never-ending flood of creator and celebrity brands. Investors are saying that many new launches aren't differentiated enough from existing products, or worse, are low-quality and simply don't look or taste good.

If you look at the celebrity brands announced recently, you'll notice that most don't follow the same path as now well-known brands like Skims or Goodles, where celebrities or creators are closely involved from a brand's beginning and raise money from investors like any other startup.

Sure, Point of View was launched with backing from the consumer-focused VC firm Imaginary Ventures. (Imaginary has invested in other brands with celebrity ties including Skims, Good American, Westman Atelier, Bero, Mila, and Ayoh Foods.) But other recent creator launches are happening through rebrands or partnerships as opposed to stand-alone startup brands.

Sip Margs, for instance, has been around since 2021, and only recently roped in Earle as a new investor ahead of a big marketing and distribution revamp. Earle said she's been helping with the brand's marketing and social media presence, as well as hosting events to promote it. Other recent investors in a $3 million round include Fanatics founder Michael Rubin, DJ Steve Aoki, and Palm Tree Crew, the DJ Kygo's investment firm.

Pash appears to have been developed with C-Care, a contract manufacturer of makeup and skincare products (Pash's mailing address on its website is the same as C-Care's facility in Maryland). Florence By Mills Coffee, Brown's coffee brand, operates through a licensing deal with Collab Coffee, a white-label coffee supplier that has also developed brands for TikTok creator Chris Olsen and the Dungeons & Dragons game franchise. Levels, Rivera's chip brand, was developed by brand incubator Redbud Brands, which has helped create and launch other brands including Cay Skin, a skincare brand fronted by model Winnie Harlow.

It will be interesting to see how the latest crop of creator brands sell with fans. There's plenty to be said for having a built-in social media following to hawk your products to, and there have been some creator success stories like MrBeast's chocolate brand Feastables, which had a reported $250 million in sales and $20 million in profit last year, or influencer-founded skincare brand Summer Fridays, which sold a stake to private equity in one of last year's only deals by a beauty startup.

But the most successful brands have been able to build products whose appeal is bigger than just the famous face attached to them, in part thanks to getting hefty investor checks early on and spending money on developing unique goods. Now, Kim Kardashian no longer fronts every Skims campaign, and not every Sephora shopper knows Selena Gomez cofounded Rare Beauty. It will be hard for newer creator-fronted energy drinks, snacks, or skincare lines to claim the same distinction.