Hailey Bieber, Rhode and a Billion-Dollar Glaze

Rhode launched on 15 June 2022 with three products: a serum called Peptide Glazing Fluid, a moisturiser called Barrier Restore Cream, and a lip balm called Peptide Lip Treatment, sold directly from the brand's own website. Hailey Bieber named it after her middle name, and on launch day she sold its products herself on an Instagram Live.^[1]

Three years later the company was sold for up to a billion dollars.^[2]

The launch was built around a finish rather than a shade. The serum's name promised skin with a glaze on it, and the brand has kept to the idea: its founder was behind a widely shared trick of blending the glazing fluid with a foundation stick for a dewier finish.^[3]

A finish is harder to own than a shade and easier to spread. It can be imitated with other brands' products, which is exactly what makes it travel on social media, and every imitation still carries the name of the thing it imitates.

Rhode's best-known object is not a formula at all. In February 2024 it released a phone case with a slot for its Peptide Lip Treatment, a product designed to be seen whenever the phone is, which is to say constantly. By August 2023 the company had already sold about a million of the lip treatments.^[4]

On 28 May 2025 e.l.f. Beauty agreed to buy Rhode in a deal valued at up to a billion dollars. In the twelve months to 31 March 2025 the brand had net sales of 212 million dollars, built on a direct-to-consumer business, and e.l.f. planned to put it into Sephora stores in North America and the United Kingdom before the end of the year. Bieber was to stay on as founder, and to become chief creative officer and head of innovation.^[5]

The buyer was explicit about what it was paying for. Rhode, e.l.f. said, made the best of prestige accessible, carried the company into the prestige channel and into Sephora, and had established itself as a disruptor in content, commerce and community.^[5] The formulas were in the deal. So, in so many words, was the audience.

The purchase closed on 5 August 2025, with 600 million dollars paid in cash and about 200 million in e.l.f. shares, and up to 200 million more tied to how the brand performs.^[6]

How much of the price was for the products and how much for the audience. A brand that sells largely through its own channels owns its customers' attention directly, and its founder's following is part of that channel. From the outside, the value of the two cannot be separated.