Five Food Brands Moonlighting in the Makeup Aisle | Left Hand Agency CPG High Five
I'm a sucker for cosmetics. Put a lip gloss near a checkout lane and it’s going in my cart. Lately has been a great stretch for me, because food brands and beauty brands will not stop teaming up. And it's not just me falling for it. When e.l.f. launched its first pickle lip balm, it sold out in eight minutes and 77 percent of the people who bought it were brand new to e.l.f.
Pickle. Lip balm. EIGHT minutes.
Here are five of my favorite recent food and beauty collabs, and why I think each one is a smart move (or at least a fun one).
I worked at the mall in the '90s, and before that my dad used to drop me off there because hanging out at the mall was free and relatively safe (unless you count the cloud of perfume you walked out of Macy's wearing). The food court was the place to be seen, and I will forever remember the lost art of cruising it looking for boys to flirt with. Cinnabon was a treat, but it was worth walking past just for the smell. And the frosting was always the selling point.
Mane, the beauty brand from celebrity hairstylist Jen Atkin, clearly gets that, because the star of this kit is a lip gloss called Extra Frosting. It comes with a brush, a mirror, and a Cinnabon reward card, which is genius. The beauty purchase sends you right back to a Cinnabon, and there are more than 2,400 of them, mostly in malls, airports, and travel plazas. I love me some lip gloss, so this is the one I'd actually buy.
Jell-O has been around since 1897, and for those of us over 35 it's still working to shake off a certain former spokesman. I had never heard of Tower 28 before this, which tells me I am not their target customer, and that's kind of the point. The collab brings Jell-O to a younger Sephora shopper who has zero memory of those old commercials. There's a $24 Lip Jelly Duo in Strawberry and Lemon Lime, and a $20 Lil' Pudding Snack Set with four mini lip treatments packed in a clear cup that looks just like a pudding cup, red foil top and all.
Jell-O isn't on our regular menu, but my husband is from the Midwest, so we have holiday "salads" that include Jell-O. That makes me one of Byron Sharp's light buyers, and light buyers are exactly who a brand like Jell-O needs to reach to grow. A lip gloss at Sephora reaches them in a place the pudding aisle never will.
I really love Fishwife, and not because I love tinned fish. I'm a fresh oyster gal myself. My daughter, on the other hand, loves herself some tinned fish. What I love is the brand and its founder, who has built something that's culturally huge. Dieux took its reusable silicone eye masks and packed them in a collectible sardine tin with hand-drawn art from Fishwife's in-house illustrator for $25. Both brands are founded and run by women and both care a lot about sustainability, so the fit goes deeper than the packaging.
Still, the idea of fish on my face doesn't sit well, even though I know it's just silicone. But here's the fun part: marine ingredients show up in cosmetics all the time. Guanine, the stuff that gives a lot of lip glosses and highlighters their shimmer, has traditionally come from fish scales. So I’ve probably been putting fish on my face for years. Cool cool cool.
4. Yogurtland x Too Faced
Froyo is back and I’m excited for it. Growing up, we had TCBY, which is barely around anymore, and we went every week. I had my favorite flavors (peanut butter and pumpkin) and I waited all year for them to come back on the menu.
Yogurtland and Too Faced teamed up on a Sweet Peach Tart froyo topped with Too Faced Gummy Sweet Peach Rings, tied to Too Faced's peach makeup collection. It's already gone, sorry, but the strategy is worth a look. Peach is such a specific flavor, and while I love fresh peaches, it's not something I seek out in a frozen dessert. But the fit makes sense. Yogurtland was born in Southern California, and Too Faced plays to a younger crowd.
And here's the part I find most interesting: Too Faced is owned by Estée Lauder, which bought it back in 2016. Estée Lauder is a classic brand with an older customer, and it was smart to buy Too Faced instead of trying to sell Estée Lauder to Gen Z. This collab is that strategy working.
This one flips the usual formula. Instead of makeup that looks like dessert, it's a tiny cupcake inspired by makeup, specifically Laura Geller's marbleized blush in a shade called Pink Buttercream. So the tie-in is... the color of the frosting? That's about as loose as it gets. Still, I love Laura Geller makeup, and the audience match is strong even if the product link is weak.
Laura Geller has gone all in on women over 40 (ahem, me), and since 2021 it has only used models over 40 in its ads. Baked by Melissa's little cupcake boxes are a go-to gift for the woman who buys presents for everyone. That's the same woman. There's a lot of crossover here.
What to take away from these Food Brands.
Almost every brand calls its collab "unexpected," which means the word doesn't mean much anymore. The ones that work aren't really about the product fit. A cupcake that looks like blush is a stretch. A lip gloss that tastes like pudding is a gimmick. What makes these smart is audience fit. Jell-O reaches light buyers it can't reach in the pudding aisle. Estée Lauder reaches Gen Z through Too Faced. Laura Geller finds her 40-plus customer while she's buying gifts. Each brand is renting the other's audience for a few weeks, and if it's done well, some of those people stick around. And if a pickle lip balm can sell out in eight minutes, I'm not going to judge a sardine tin full of eye masks!
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