The Celebrity Skincare and Makeup Lines That Are Actually Good (And Those We’d SKip)

Every product on Beauty Empties is one that actually gets used up and bought again. Some of the links in this post are affiliate, which means we may earn a small commission if you make a purchase, at no extra cost to you. Thanks for being here!

Celebrity beauty brands have a habit of disappearing almost as fast as they launch. Kim Kardashian’s SKKN shut down last June (Coty sold its stake back at a $71 million loss, ouch). Gwen Stefani’s Gxve and Drew Barrymore’s Flower Beauty closed a few months later. Unfortunately (or fortunately), shoppers saw this coming before the companies did. “I generally don’t trust them…I always feel like they’re doing it for marketing/pr and not because they’re genuinely passionate about it,” one Reddit user recently wrote when asked about celebrity brands, adding that she’d rather give her money to established names. And then, in the same comment: “the only celebrity product I own is the haus labs concealer brush.” (Haus labs was founded by Lady Gaga.)

In fact, Haus Labs is on of the celebrity-owned brands even the biggest skeptics seem to love. It was that confession and others that inspired this story. Below, here are the seven celebrity brands we discovered people seem to genuinely use (and buy again). You’ll notice some very big names didn’t.

Rare Beauty Soft Pinch Liquid Blush

“I have used this product (the Hope color) for almost 2 years now and I am so obsessed with it,” reads one of the roughly 21,000 Sephora reviews (4.6 stars) on Selena Gomez’s liquid blush. “Worth every penny I have put into it. I will never use another blush!” That kind of loyalty is everywhere with this one. Rare says it sold one every three seconds at its peak, and when the brand expanded into Ulta this past February, it broke the chain’s launch-day sales record. And the product that did it costs $25.

The formula is a weightless liquid pigment, in matte and dewy finishes, that blends with a fingertip and hangs on through a workday. The pigment is no joke, though. The distance between glowing and overdone is about half a dot. “Super pigmented, blends well, and lasts all day. A little goes a long way,” is how one Reddit reviewer put it. One fan has worn the same shade for over three years and puts a dot on the back of her hand first, swirling it “a bit with my finger, which evens out the pigment.”

Fenty Beauty Gloss Bomb

You can’t talk about any of this without starting the clock in 2017, when Rihanna launched Fenty Beauty with 40 foundation shades and embarrassed an entire industry overnight. Time put the launch on its best-inventions list, and Fenty still gets graded on its own curve. “love fenty, they truly are the blue print. everything i’ve gotten from them is a 10/10,” went one verdict in a Reddit thread about celebrity brands this spring.

Don’t get me wrong, the famous foundation is good. But the product we’d grab first is the Gloss Bomb: shea butter, thick without turning sticky, 9 mL when most $23 glosses hover around 5, and the original Fenty Glow is a rose nude that flatters nearly everyone. “It makes everything look good, even if you’re putting it on bare lips! You can’t feel the glitter in it at all, it’s so smooth,” per one longtime Sephora forum review. One repurchaser took hers to Chile in the winter, “and it was nourishing!” in weather that makes most glosses useless. The scent is the great divider, though, and that debate has been running since 2018: the same forum reviewer above finds it “a strong noticeable fruit scent so keep that in mind. It reminds me of lychee personally,” while another “find[s] the peach smell to be overwhelming.” You won’t know your verdict until it’s on your lips. Among our BEEs the Gloss Bomb has become the default gift (nobody returns it), and a surprising number keep a backup tube going before the first one runs out.

Haus Labs Triclone Skin Tech Foundation

Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs flopped the first time. I don’t think the brand would even argue with me on this one. The 2019 version launched as an Amazon exclusive, did about $20 million a year, and got shelved. Then came the 2022 do-over, reformulated top to bottom for Sephora, and the Triclone foundation is what people came back for. “the haus labs triclone foundation is INSANE,” wrote one oily-skinned reviewer on Reddit. “i’ve been doing makeup for years and i’ve never gotten a compliment on my foundation until i started using this one. many people said i look fresh and my skin looked clear.”

The ingredient list reads like skincare: 51 shades, serum-y medium coverage, hyaluronic acid, squalane, and a patent-pending fermented arnica the brand credits with calming redness (their claim, not an independent study’s). It picked up an Allure clean-beauty award in 2023 and averages 4.7 across some 14,000 reviews on the brand’s site. “It is a great foundation,” a dry-skinned Sephora forum member wrote after trying it in-store. “I will say that it does a good job of keeping skin feeling hydrated through out the day but it’s not a replacement for a good skincare routine. (Low-key waiting for a sale so I can get it at a discount…)”

Now for the other side, because there is one. “After a few hours it breaks down and looks awful. Don’t waste your money,” reads one acne-prone post on the same forums. Finding your shade takes homework even with 51 options (“I got a great shade match but had to do a lot of research”), and the price has crept from $45 to $52 since launch. And if you want a true matte, this isn’t your foundation, because the formula only comes in satin.

Rhode Peptide Lip Treatment

Three years after Hailey Bieber launched rhode with exactly three products, e.l.f. bought the company for a billion dollars. The Peptide Lip Treatment did much of the convincing, with $10 million sold in its first eleven days and a Sephora arrival last September that e.l.f. called the biggest brand launch in the retailer’s North American history. What I love about the fans here is how reluctant they are. “I hate to recommend influencer or celebrity products but this is my holy grail T_T It really helped with my lip eczema and it’s smooth, non sticky consistency looks great on top of make up,” one Reddit user confessed in a lip balm thread. The formula is simple and good: peptides, shea butter, cupuaçu, and babassu in a glossy balm that doesn’t sting or sit waxy, with an unscented version for anyone who wants lip care without a dessert course.

I’m not giving rhode a free pass here, though. Its Sephora rating is 4.1, the lowest of anything in this article, and a chunk of that comes from the flavored versions (“so grainy and not worth it ime,” per one unconvinced commenter). Even the superfans hedge: “I LOVE them. The shades and formula are one of my favorites when you get a good batch, but I hate the experience is a hit or miss. There’s definitely a quality control issue that has been going on since the release.” The skincare side takes its dings too: “Rhodes glazing milk broke me out with small red raised bumps. Disappeared as soon as I stopped using it,” one reviewer reported, though she salvaged hers as a nighttime hand cream. So order the unscented, and maybe don’t order it in July.

Victoria Beckham Beauty Satin Kajal Liner

Nobody is filming get-ready videos about Victoria Beckham Beauty. That might be the most useful thing I can tell you about it! The cult item is the Satin Kajal Liner, a creamy gel pencil (kajal just means it’s soft enough for the waterline) that glides on without tugging, smudges into a smoky wash if you move fast, and then sets and refuses to budge. “They smudge out really nice giving an eyeshadow look. I don’t like the attached smudger so I use a brush and love the result,” one fan explains. The chatter happens on Mumsnet instead of TikTok, mostly among women who have never filmed a get-ready video in their lives. “Yes yes yes! I love them! Bought one in olive green and loved it so much I bought two more!” went one reply in a worth-the-hype thread there.

The people who sell this pencil best are the former skeptics. “I was a total skeptic,” wrote one convert on Reddit, citing her creased eyelids and her waterproof-liquids-only rule. Then she caved: “bought one, and have since bought 8 more colors. It’s the best eyeliner, totally worth the money.” Mumsnet reviewers manage to agree and complain at the same time. “I have a couple, they’re nice but I find them too soft to get a thin line. They’re better for a smudged, smokey look. The colours are lovely and intense though,” goes one reply, and a less patient one: “they are very very soft and smudgy. I have to sharpen mine almost every use. Not worth the money IMO.” Both camps are describing the same pencil, by the way. The same softness that makes it glide is what blunts the tip, and at $35 a pencil, sharpening away a third of it stings. If you have hooded eyes, give it a beat to set before you blink, or it will travel.

Among BEEs it circulates as a word-of-mouth pencil, recommended in comment sections more than in hauls, with Cocoa as the standing first order and with everyone agreeing the branded sharpener isn’t worth buying (“do not buy the sharpener,” one owner warns; a standard drugstore one does the job better).

The Outset Firming Vegan Collagen Prep Serum

Scarlett Johansson built The Outset to be everything a celebrity brand usually isn’t. She shaped it around her own reactive skin, the packaging doesn’t lean on her name, everything is fragrance-free, and it’s the only brand in this article with a Leaping Bunny certification. “Awesome skincare, works great and my skin is SUPER sensitive,” wrote one Redditor who’d gone through four products from the brand with zero reactions. “I’m in my late 40s with Lupus and it works amazingly on my skin. (I don’t get any sort of compensation, just like the product.)” another offered, in a thread that wasn’t even about beauty. The one to buy is the Firming Vegan Collagen Prep Serum ($46), hyaluronic acid layered with a botanical blend the company calls vegan collagen.

Let me translate that bit of marketing into English. No topical collagen replaces the collagen your skin makes, plant-based or otherwise. What this serum does is hydrate, smooth, and layer under makeup without pilling, and if your skin reacts to everything, that short ingredient list is the appeal. The review that stopped me came from a reviewer about to turn 75, who has tried “countless skin care lines over the years, ranging in price from moderate to ridiculous,” and landed here: “It will not erase the wrinkles we’ve earned, but it does smooth fine lines.” The gripes are practical. “I love this stuff, my only complaint is a lot gets wasted at the end because the pump doesn’t reach the bottom,” one daily user wrote, estimating a fifth of each bottle goes unreachable, and a second buyer wished “it were a larger bottle for the price, as it goes quickly.” Nothing here out-muscles a retinoid, and $46 is real money for hydration, however nicely it layers. BEEs with reactive skin treat these as the products they can always come back to, and the refillable jars get nearly as much affection as the formulas.

Honest Beauty Hydrogel Cream

Jessica Alba launched Honest Beauty back in 2015, when a famous founder was still a novelty instead of a Tuesday, and the Hydrogel Cream is the least famous product here and one of the most rebought: two weights of hyaluronic acid (one sits near the surface, one sinks deeper), squalane, a bouncy gel texture, a Byrdie award, and 5,900-plus five-star ratings on Amazon, all for $23. “This is an amazing light weight moisturizer. Very similar to more expensive brands,” reads one of those reviews. “I have very sensitive skin, and this does not irritate it. It is very glowy/dewy. It fully absorbs and doesn’t leave you feeling greasy.” Another commenter keeps it as her gentler stand-in for her old drugstore gel-cream: “its not perfect but its never burned or stung me.”

The fine print comes from the people wearing it. “It never feels like it dries down,” one combination-skinned reviewer warned, “and caused my skin to produce more oil.” That’s the split with this one. It’s lovely on normal-to-dry skin and too much on oily. Another fan flagged the tub itself: “The main con is the jar packaging. I hope the brand will swap to better packaging some day!” Before you get attached, know that the parent company has been trimming its makeup range to focus on skincare, so we’re recommending the cream, not everything with the Honest label on it.

The Big Names That Didn’t Make It

You’ll notice who’s missing. Kylie Cosmetics’ much-advertised Kylash mascara sits at 4.0 at Ulta with a steady stream of flaking complaints. JLo Beauty’s $79 serum keeps racking up irritation complaints across the internet. And r.e.m. beauty survived its parent company’s bankruptcy (Ariana Grande bought her own brand back for $15 million, a whole saga on its own), but the reviews mostly stop at pleasant, and pleasant isn’t enough to earn a second purchase in this category.

And to be fair to the skeptics, they have a point, and the brand graveyard backs them up. “After the celeb perfume craze of the 2000s and Fenty, a lot of the launches felt like a cash grab. Especially in this economy, it feels like an odd choice to support multi millionaires and billionaires,” as one Reddit skeptic put it. I get it! Even the happy endings in this article come with disclaimers attached (the rhode fan literally opened with “I hate to recommend influencer or celebrity products”). The seven above are the ones that broke through that resistance.

What Our BEEs Are Buzzing About

Here’s what the beauty community is saying about celebrity beauty brands:

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We cross-checked every product against PETA’s Beauty Without Bunnies database and the Leaping Bunny program before publishing. Where you see our cruelty-free mark on a product card, the brand has been independently certified by PETA and/or Leaping Bunny. Brands without it may still be cruelty-free under their own policies; we only use the mark on the independently certified ones.