The RHODE to Success (HBBIP #80)

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Folks, I come to you this week with an interesting question. This originally came from a friend of CreatorIQ who shall remain nameless. It’s really got me thinking, and now, this being my newsletter and all, I’ll share these thoughts with you.

First, some background. We all know and love RHODE Skin, Hailey Bieber’s smash-hit skincare brand. I wrote about them way back in one of the first issues of this very newsletter, and they’re a fixture of our coverage for both the skincare industry and celebrity-founded brands at large. But the question is this: how much of RHODE Skin’s success is due to Hailey Bieber’s unique status as a social media megastar, and how much of it is due to the brand’s community-building practices?

In other words, which came first—the Hailey, or the RHODE?

(There was a whole bit I wanted to do with chicken or egg and chickens crossing the RHODE, but I couldn’t quite make it work as a joke, much less fit within the character limit for the title of this email, so alas, we’ll make do with what we can.)

It was an intriguing, perhaps impossible conundrum. So naturally, I set out to answer it.

The top brand of all time (of the week): RHODE Skin

I should note at the top that I’m not just running this story because Hailey Bieber recently shared some CreatorIQ data on her Instagram, though that doesn’t hurt:

Hailey Bieber's Instagram story

If anything, this chart underscores why this story is so vital: because RHODE Skin is clearly a key player—arguably the key player—in the skincare and broader beauty space right now, at least on social. Plus, if I keep talking about RHODE Skin, maybe Hailey will post about me again. Or even send some product?

Thank you to Beyza Ipecki for helping to assemble this data, Liz Flora as Business of Fashion, and the rest of CIQ’s agency and press team! We’ll have more Coachella coverage coming soon. Coming even sooner? More coverage of RHODE Skin!

First, a caveat: like many savvy skincare brands in the current market, RHODE Skin also makes cosmetics products. That’s life as a beauty brand in 2025: you have to offer skin-friendly makeup or makeup-minded skincare, and if it’s not glowy and all-natural, then forget about it! 

All this is to say that when I refer to ‘RHODE Skin,’ unless otherwise specified, I’m referring to its metrics as a beauty brand at large—both its skincare line and its cosmetics line, rolled up into a single number. If I’m just referring to the skincare line, I’ll say so.

(Which is more confusing as a designation for just the skincare line: RHODE Skin (Skin), or RHODE SKIN? You’re not making this easy, Hailey. But thank you again for your post.)

Let’s begin by proving out that thing I said before about RHODE Skin—the whole dang brand!—dominating our rankings in the beauty space. When we look at the last 12 months (April 2024 to March 2025) across both cosmetics and skincare, what do we see? A whole lot of glaze.

Top 15 Beauty Brands by EMV: April 2024 - March 2025

RHODE Skin—the whole brand—ranked No. 12 by EMV across all of beauty. So it might not be at the very top, but let’s consider these Top 15 brands when it comes to year-over-year growth:

EMV YoY Change: Top 15 Beauty Brands 4/24 - 3/25 

Now RHODE Skin stands alone at the top with a 172% YoY EMV growth—just over 100% higher than Huda Beauty’s 71% growth. I’m not a mathematician, but I think beating the No. 2 finisher by 100% is generally considered pretty good.

We saw a similar pattern play out across other metrics, including impressions:

Impressions YoY Change: Top 15 Beauty Brands 4/24 - 3/25 

Engagements…

Engagements YoY Change: Top 15 Beauty Brands 4/24 - 3/25 

Creator count…

Creator Count YoY Change: Top 15 Beauty Brands 4/24 - 3/25 

And post co—wait a second, what’s this?

Top 10 NCAAW Tournament Teams and Players by Impressions

SIKE! ColourPop edged ahead of RHODE Skin, proving that you can’t have it all in life. Regardless, several things are clear:

• Top beauty brands are doing pretty well for themselves.
• Among those top beauty brands, RHODE Skin is a clear standout, growth-wise.

So that was the WHOLE brand. What about just Skincare, aka RHODE Skin Skin?

Top 10 Skincare Brands by EMV

Now RHODE (just) Skin is No. 1 not just in growth, but total EMV. It was also No. 1 in total engagements and post count, though it fell all the way to No. 4 for impressions (behind CeraVe, Neutrogena, and La Roche-Posay), and ranked No. 2 behind Summer Fridays for creator count.

When it comes to YoY growth in these metrics, we get a similar, but more complex, picture compared to beauty as a whole:

EMV YoY Change: Top 10 Skincare Brands 4/24 - 3/25

RHODE Skin is No. 1 for YoY EMV growth, and for engagements growth…

Engagements YoY Change: Top 10 Skincare Brands 4/24 - 3/25

However, it ranks No. 3 for impressions growth, behind L’Occitane en Provence and Laneige:

Impressions YoY Change: Top 10 Skincare Brands 4/24 - 3/25

Meanwhile, RHODE Skin (and only skin) ranks No. 2 for creator count and post count growth behind L’Occitane en Provence. I’m not going to show you those graphs. I think by this point you can imagine more or less how they would go.

SO, to recap:

• RHODE Skin: one of the fastest growing brands in Beauty.
• RHODE Skin Skin: one of the fastest growing brands in skincare, plus arguably the top brand by most metrics.

Pretty good! Hence our friend’s question: is it Hailey, or is it something else?

Obviously, Hailey Bieber informs so much of what RHODE Skin does (from here on out, we’ll just be referring to whole-brand totals). How do you measure her impact when the whole brand exists because of her?

Well, measuring the posts about RHODE Skin that mention her is a pretty good start. An even better finish? Treating 'Hailey Bieber' as a brand—i.e., examining the EMV generated by all posts from creators mentioning her in any context, whether in conjunction with RHODE Skin or not.

I looked at both global and U.S. data from April 2024 to March 2025. Here’s what I found:

Global Stats

• RHODE Skin EMV: $725.4M EMV
  • EMV from posts that mention Hailey Bieber by name: $107.1M EMV 
    • 15% of total

• Hailey Bieber EMV: $323.9M EMV
  • Posts that mention RHODE Skin by name: $99.9M EMV
    • 31% of total

U.S. Stats

• RHODE Skin EMV: $502.3M EMV
  • EMV from posts that mention Hailey Bieber by name: $72.8M EMV
    • 14% of total

• Hailey Bieber EMV: $191.5M EMV
  • Posts that mention RHODE Skin by name: $66.5M EMV 
    • 35% of total

Conclusions:

• Roughly 15% of all EMV for RHODE Skin mentioned Hailey by name. While the remaining 85% might not have been entirely absent of references to her, this balance shows that RHODE Skin has generated enthusiasm that extends well beyond its celebrity founder.
• When Hailey herself was treated as a brand, RHODE Skin still drives >2x more EMV than she does.
  • In other words, when Hailey was treated as a brand, posts about RHODE Skin generated a greater share of Hailey's total EMV than the share of RHODE Skin's EMV driven by posts about Hailey.
• Given RHODE Skin's extremely strong numbers across the board, a traditional marker of a healthy and dedicated creator community, it's safe to say that the community is fueling success for the brand on top of Hailey's efforts.

That said, as an observer and studier of the creator economy for the last nine years, it’s my professional opinion that having Hailey Bieber as a brand founder doesn’t hurt. Why don’t more brands try this one simple trick?

Nonetheless, ascribing all of RHODE Skin’s success to Hailey is unfair and inaccurate. The brand has made investments in its product line, captured the zeitgeist, and displayed some of the savviest community-building I’ve ever seen. Sure, Hailey makes that easier. But plenty of celebrity brands never come close to the same social media saturation.

In the end, ‘¿Por qué no los dos?’ is not the most satisfying answer. But as is often the case in life, it might just be the most accurate one.

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