EXCLUSIVE: A New, TikTok Trend-led E-tailer Wants to Be the ‘Supreme’ of the Beauty Industry
A new beauty e-tailer has just dropped — literally.
Haut Drops, a first-of-its-kind e-tailer founded by beauty veteran Leslie Ann Hall, is set to launch on Monday via TikTok Shop with the aim of capitalizing on the platform’s rapid trend cycle and bringing “drop” culture to beauty in a new, brand-collaborative way.
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“When you look at gaming and when you look at streetwear or sneakers — there’s so much culture there,” said Hall, who is also founder and chief executive officer of Iced Media, TikTok Shop‘s first beauty agency partner which has onboarded brands like Dieux, Moroccanoil and more to the platform.
“There’s also this rich beauty culture, but mostly what you see is brands building community in a transactional way — we believe we have an opportunity to build community around the shared interest in beauty culture, and we’ve identified this gap where single-brand shops are not delivering the full shop-the-trend experience that’s possible,” she continued.
To that end, Haut Drops, which has onboarded four brands at launch — Glow Recipe, Topicals, Caliray and Moroccanoil — aims to deliver monthly limited-edition drops inspired by TikTok’s beauty trends du jour (think: slugging, cherry cola makeup, cortisol face and the like) as well as broader, relevant cultural happenings (fashion week, Met Gala, the always-viral “Bama Rush” season and so on).
Each drop will feature a curated, multibrand assortment of products that align with the corresponding trend, and come 2025, Hall envisions ramping up to bi-monthly drops — which will increase to weekly drops later next year.
“We’ve been intentional about creating a unique, limited-edition keepsake with each drop, because we know there’s this impulse-driven, FOMO mindset with the TikTok Shopper that makes these collectibles a big opportunity,” said Hall.
The first drop will be a four-piece “Glow on the Go Jet Set” holiday bundle. Retailing for $88, the set features a mini-sized bestseller from each of Haut Drops’ debut brands, packaged in a limited-edition mini yellow backpack.
“We frequently see a lot of excitement from our customers around Glow Recipe’s launches and limited-edition products. Through Haut Drops, we’re elevating that connection,” said Christine Chang, cofounder and co-CEO of Glow Recipe, which this month marked its 10-year anniversary by temporarily bringing back discontinued favorites, including its Banana Soufflé Moisture Cream, Lip Pop and more.
Because Haut Drops handles all marketing, order fulfillment and creator commission payments under one roof, a drop can go from conception to TikTok’s virtual shelves in as little as three to seven days.
“The number-one goal for Haut Drops is to be the top destination for shoppable beauty trends on TikTok,” said Hall, who envisions Haut Drops as something of a “Supreme for beauty; we want to build ourselves as a household name that’s synonymous with authority on beauty trends — not just a destination for buying things.”
Since the shopping integration’s formal U.S. rollout in September 2023, TikTok Shop has become the ninth-largest beauty retailer in the country, per NIQ, which reports that in the U.K. — where the commerce arm launched years prior — TikTok Shop ranks number-two.
According to Statista, social commerce made up 18.5 percent of e-commerce sales in the U.S. in 2023 — nearly doubling since 2020 and poised to capture even more in the coming years. Still, many brands have been hesitant to join TikTok Shop, some out of fear of cannibalizing their other sales channels, or a reluctance, particularly among prestige and luxury brands, to partake in the discounting that often catalyzes sales on the platform.
But because a brand doesn’t have to have a TikTok Shop storefront of its own to get in on Haut Drops, Hall aims to offer a “solution-oriented approach” for those brands who want visibility on the platform without setting up their own shop.
“TikTok Shop uniquely marries America’s number-one entertainment platform with the technology that makes the consumer shopping experience easy in a way that hasn’t existed before,” said Hall. “With Haut Drops, we’re aiming to answer the way that consumers buy — which is a multibrand assortment of products combined to achieve a specific look or regimen.”
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