What’s Next for TikTok Shop’s Billion-Dollar Beauty Business

As one of TikTok’s most popular beauty influencers, Mikayla Nogueira receives her fair share of free stuff. But she’s still “obsessed” with impulse buying products on TikTok Shop, and has recently purchased K-beauty, clothes, tools for her hair and for her kitchen, kitchen tools and protein brownies.

“You can literally just hit ‘buy now,’ do Face ID and you’re done,” she told The Business of Beauty. “That is so cool, and that is why it’s also a problem.”

On TikTok Shop, Nogueira sells more than she buys: Her wedding lipstick, a collaboration with mass brand E.l.f. Beauty, sold 15,000 units in a day. Point of View, her own beauty line that debuted on Mar. 26, was originally slated to be sold on both TikTok Shop and a direct-to-consumer site.

That launch date was cutting it close to the Apr. 5 deadline set by Donald Trump for the app to find a US buyer or face a ban. Nogueira opted to scrap the TikTok Shop plans for the time being, selling the brand exclusively via DTC. A growing number of beauty labels have been prioritising TikTok Shop launches thanks to the app’s combination of rising sales and visibility through influencer content. But its short-lived shutdown ahead of its Jan. 19 ban inspired some founders to shift their distribution and social selling strategies in recent months.

Nearly two years old, TikTok Shop has grown into the US’s eighth-largest beauty retailer and is one spot behind Ulta Beauty, according to a recent Nielsen report. In a little over a year, e-commerce data firm Charm.io calculated that the app generated $1.8 billion in US beauty product sales. Reports have been rolling in that a deal would be reached before the deadline — the Financial Times reported Apr. 2 that the White House was “close” to agreeing on a deal with a group including Andreessen Horowitz, Blackstone and Oracle. Amazon and the founder of OnlyFans were also reported to have made their own eleventh-hour bids. Any announced acquisition will then have to hold up against future legal challenges and receive the Chinese government’s approval.

Ani Hadjinian, co-founder and CEO of Point of View, said that the main reason for Point of View’s pivot to DTC-only was to give followers a chance to sign up to buy the first batch of products before they inevitably sold out. But Nogueira did note her concerns about putting too many eggs in TikTok Shop’s basket.

“I was traumatised for these businesses that started on TikTok Shop,” she said, noting the challenges they’d face transitioning off the app.

A TikTok representative did not have a comment on the impending sale (or ban), but said that brands remained enthusiastic to sell on TikTok Shop.

The Next Big Incubator

As more brands have found success on TikTok Shop, the shelves of major beauty retailers have opened up to them. There’s K-beauty brand Anua, which launched at Ulta Beauty in January 2025 and was hailed as one of the specialty retailer’s most exciting new launches in a recent earnings call. The label was the top-selling skincare brand on TikTok Shop from March 2024 to February 2025 with over $26 million in sales, according to Charm.io. TikTok does not release public rankings, but a spokesperson confirmed the brand was among the top five. K-beauty brands like Beauty of Joseon and Medicube have also used the app as a springboard into the US market.

Hailey Bieber’s Rhode, one of the buzziest brands of late, still has yet to launch at a retailer, but has sold over 112,000 units on TikTok Shop, according to the app’s “units sold” figure for all products in its official store. Five-year-old skincare label Experiment does 20 percent of its business from TikTok Shop, compared to less than 5 percent from Urban Outfitters.

Brand founders and experts note that TikTok Shop helps to incentivise viral influencer posts, boosting sales beyond the app itself.

“TikTok Shop has a lot of halo effects beyond just the revenue you see coming in from that platform,” said Experiment co-founder Lisa Guerrera. “TikTok Shop was our first real channel expansion, and it offered a huge advantage for us to get more content circulating on TikTok, which helps us in many different ways.” The label is planning to launch at a larger retailer later this year, but would not say which.

The channel has also become valuable for legacy brands like Anastasia Beverly Hills, which released its Contour Sticks on the platform 10 days before its DTC site and 11 days before retailers. Benefit Cosmetics and Tarte have pulled off similar exclusive launches, with the latter being the top-selling beauty brand overall on TikTok Shop, according to Charm.io.

Coping With Chaos

For TikTok users, fear of the ban has only heightened their interest in buying beauty on the platform. Before the chaos of TikTok’s one-night shutdown on Jan. 19, people rushed to stock up on TikTok Shop beauty products as they scrolled through influencers’ frenzied goodbye posts.

While brand founders have publicly expressed confidence that the TikTok ban will be avoided, it isn’t stopping them from taking steps to diversify.

Experiment Beauty launched on Amazon after the brief Jan. 19 app shutdown, which “accelerated” the decision to launch on the marketplace.

“We just put pedal to the metal to make sure we got it done ASAP,” said Guerrera. While Amazon has become another major sales driver for her brand, she noted that TikTok posts have boosted the brand’s Amazon sales.

“Founders who have invested in TikTok Shop and are saying that they will see no impact are lying,” she said. “There will be an impact.”

Nogueira is confident that her new brand has a strong future eventually selling on TikTok. “My personal opinion is I don’t think TikTok is going anywhere,” she said. “In the future, Point of View being on TikTok Shop will be an amazing way for me to showcase the products, and for people to be able to purchase them quickly.”

Sign up to The Business of Beauty newsletter, your complimentary, must-read source for the day’s most important beauty and wellness news and analysis.