Beauty fans no longer find brands via ads.
Instead, they find new products through late-night scrolling sessions and watching their fave influencer’s latest Reel.
Deloitte found 61% of consumers have found a new brand or product on social media in the last year, and 71% said their most recent social purchase was a good or excellent experience. Proof that social isn’t just for inspo anymore, it’s a place people genuinely trust to buy.
Beauty is top of the pile for this kind of shopping behavior.
TikTok says it’s 2.5x more likely to be used for beauty searches from buy-ready shoppers than other social platforms.
And yes, this turns into revenue. TikTok actually helped drive a 22% rise in beauty products in 2024 and, last year, beauty was a top category led by trends like “GRWM” and “strawberry makeup”.
Basically, beauty influencer marketing is perfectly suited to how shoppers actually discover and buy beauty products.
Why Beauty Influencer Marketing Still Works
The beauty industry is basically built for influencer marketing because the product experience is very visual and the whole shopping process needs a lot of trust.
Here’s why it still very much works:
Visual storytelling acts as a product demo
Most beauty products are hard to evaluate from a static product page. The shade, finish, texture, coverage, wear-time… you need to see them.
Beauty creators can bring a bit of that to life with before and afters, showing how a product “wears” after 8 hours, and giving a preview of the texture in natural light.
Because the visual “proof” is baked into the content, you’re letting the audience see the results in a real-life context (like bathroom lighting or, you know, on real skin texture).
Tutorials are hot in 2026
People don’t usually shop by category when it comes to beauty products. They tend to shop by outcome (e.g. covering redness or getting heatless curls that last a whole night).
Influencers are great at creating tutorials. In fact, TikTok’s own beauty insights show a lot of people search for tutorial phrasing, like “best mascara” or “contour tutorial”, which is a very strong signal that audiences are using creator content to educate themselves before they buy.
Creators are trusted more than traditional ads
Beauty purchases are usually quite personal. People don’t want to buy into a hype, they want to find products that are a good fit for them – which is kind of tricky when everyone is so unique.
This is where creators earn their keep.
They’ve already built trust through a track record of sharing honest content, answering questions, and maybe even showing failures.
Ipsos’ research with TikTok basically confirms what most of us already feel as users: people are discovering products through creators they trust, not polished ads.
Deloitte backs this up too, calling out creators as a key source of credibility at a time when traditional ads are easy to scroll past.
Community compounds ROI
Routines and repeat purchases are a core part of the beauty industry.
Shoppers are very loyal to brands they love, which is why creator partnerships can quickly compound.
Comment sections become mini-consultations, which can lower friction for the next buyer. And when people ask follow-up questions and the creator responds, the product stays in the conversation that little bit longer.
Ultimately this all leads to better ROI.
Creators produce tutorials which build trust and create community, which keeps people talking about your products and buying more. It’s a continuous cycle.
Beauty Trends for Influencer Marketing in 2025
The strategies dominating influencer marketing for beauty brands look very different from the hyper-polished playbooks of the past.
- Micro- and nano-influencers are big right now. Trust and relatability matter way more than reach in beauty. Micro-influencers consistently outperform larger creators on engagement rates. Maybe this is because they feel more like a knowledgeable friend.
- Inclusivity is now an expectation. Audiences are paying attention to who gets long-term partnerships and who is trusted with educational beauty content. R.E.M Beauty lean hard into inclusive shade ranges and creator representation is a core part of their brand story. And age inclusivity is finally catching up too: creators aged 40+ are seeing stronger engagement in their skincare and real routine content.
- Real journeys are replacing hyper-polished perfection. Audiences are gravitating toward creators who explain why something works and how it performs over time. TikTok’s beauty insights show formula breakdowns and wear tests are hot right now.
- Nostalgia is back. We’re seeing a revival of bold, high-impact glam from back in the day (think full lashes, statement lips, etc), but through a 2026 lens… which is basically better formulas and a softer blending style. This is a great opp for “then v now” storytelling.
- Local is better than global. While overall Instagram beauty EMV declined a bit in the past couple of years, niche creators and regional influencer communities actually performed pretty well. Brands leaning into local creators often see higher save rates and more qualified traffic than broad, global campaigns.
How to Work with Beauty Influencers
Start by finding influencers with the same values as your brand.
If a beauty influencer wouldn’t realistically use your product, audiences will clock it instantly and no amount of creative polish will save you.
Then, use specific goals to drive your collaborations. Use UTM links, affiliate codes, and repeat content (like routines, updates, etc) so you can actually see what’s driving clicks and sales beyond the likes.
Partner with a real mix of ages, skin tones, skin types, and genders to be inclusive. Bake this into the campaign from day one rather than adding it on later.
Hand the reins over to creators — they know their audience best, after all. Trust will come so much quicker if you give them the freedom to share honest product reviews.
Finally, try working with beauty influencers who speak the same language as your target audience (both literally and culturally) and understand regional beauty trends. This will feel far more relatable.
Platform-Specific Campaign Tactics for Beauty Brands
No two social media platforms are the same, so it’s important to understand what works on each and how to use them to your advantage.
TikTok and Instagram are the most popular social stages for beauty, so we’ll stick with these two for now.
Treat Reels like a beauty storefront, a.k.a. short, snackable videos that show how a product works.
Reels are Instagram’s fast-growing format and they have higher reach and engagement than traditional posts, so make them a go-to for transformations and quick tutorials.
Here are some tips:
- Use product tags on Reels and feed posts so followers can tap to buy products they like the look of.
- Curate guides to bundle together routines or themed collections.
- Use carousels to share step-by-step visuals and multiple use-case shots that people can save and share.
TikTok
TikTok is a much more trend-driven beast. Here, it’s all about speed and native creativity.
TikTok’s algorithm loves content that feels authentic, so here are some tips to do it justice with your campaigns:
- Let creators use duets and stitch features to react to your products or remix trending sounds.
- Hook viewers in the first second with a trend reference or a visual surprise.
- Layer in how-to’s and quick tips that are both entertaining and useful (e.g. “heatless curl hack”).
- Share simple, conversational explainers about why a formula works or who’s best for.
Tip: mix and match these tactics to get the best of both worlds. Use Instagram for curated, shoppable storytelling and TikTok for fast-paced trending content.
Run Beauty Influencer Campaigns With Insense
Running beauty influencer campaigns is a lot easier when everything (from finding creators to launching content) lives in one place, which is exactly where Insense comes in.
- Start with the creator marketplace. Use the search tool to browse more than 70,000 creators. Filter by platform, audience, gender, category, follow count, engagement rate, and more.
- Find the right creators. Click into a creator profile to see engagement metrics (likes, comments, and saves), a breakdown of their audience, and some sample posts.
- Build and compare pitch lists. Once you’ve found a handful of creators you like, you can save them to a list for each campaign. You can then compare engagement and audience metrics side-by-side, add notes, and see how much they charge before you reach out.
- Create a detailed brief. Use Insense’s creative brief builder to share campaign goals, any mandatory details (like key claims), do’s and don’ts, and deliverables.
- Invite and collaborate. Once your brief is live, your selected creators can then submit content proposals, ask any questions, and share draft content with you to review. You get a central inbox for all this so you can see it all in one place.
- Approve, track, and optimize. After creators submit a post, you can review them against your brief, approve or request changes, and track performance all within the same dashboard.
Try Insense for free to explore the creator marketplace and start building your first campaign, or book a demo to see exactly how top beauty brands use it.
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