Walking through London’s Covent Garden on a brisk October morning, you spot a lengthy line of young women snaking far down the cobblestoned streets. You might assume that a famous face is doing a meet-and-greet, but in reality, the attendees are braving the brisk weather in the hopes of snapping up a free lip balm.
It’s not just a lip balm, however; it’s the TikTok-viral Summer Fridays Lip Butter Balm in its latest sought-after shade, Hot Cocoa. To celebrate, Summer Fridays has decided to treat its London community to a sweet little pop-up, where they can indulge in a real hot chocolate, snap up ‘exclusive merch’ and the new lip balm, as well as snag some skincare samples to try at home.
The concept of ‘free’ is a drawcard, sure, but travelling across London and waiting three hours in the cold for a $40 lip product available at Space NK? According to social media, the girl math is absolutely math-ing on that one. Welcome to an era where beauty brands have evolved beyond simple product purveyors into architects of desire.
This isn’t a one-off marketing stunt, but rather emblematic of a seismic shift in how modern beauty brands build their empires. Pop-ups like these allow brands with dedicated online followings to create immersive experiences, where every touchpoint strengthens the connection between brand and customer.
Gone are the days when success was measured purely in sales figures and shelf space. Today’s most coveted beauty brands engineer desire through a potent mix of product innovation, community building, and clever storytelling.
ENGINEERING DESIRE
Behind every viral moment lies a carefully considered approach to product development. For Summer Fridays co-founder Marianna Hewitt, it’s about creating timeless essentials that transcend the rapid rise and fall of social media trends. “We never just want to launch something just because we need to launch it or because everybody’s doing this trend,” she explains. We really think about longevity—which products will people use for years to come?”
This philosophy has paid off—the company’s Jet Lag Mask and Lip Butter Balm, launched in 2018 and 2020, respectively, remain cult favourites years after their initial debuts. In fact, the latter only really achieved cult status within the last three years, after Hewitt and her co-founder Lauren Ireland began introducing new flavours of the nourishing balm.
For Amy Liu, the founder of LA-based Tower 28 Beauty, it was a more personal route, born from her own struggles with sensitive skin, that led to product development. “I felt like it couldn’t just be me that has this issue,” she reflects. What began as a quest to create gentle, effective formulas has found even greater resonance in a post-pandemic world where, as Liu notes, “70 per cent of people now believe they have sensitive skin.” This shift in consumer awareness has transformed Tower 28’s sensitivity-first approach from a once-niche concern to a mainstream necessity.
Meanwhile, Bubble Skincare’s Shai Eisenman chose to shake up the industry through transparency and community co-creation. “We saw a huge gap—prestige skincare was innovative but not affordable,” she explains. The brand’s solution? An extensive network of over 80,000 real-world brand ambassadors who guide every product decision. “We won’t launch a product unless it achieves at least a 90 per cent approval rating from our community,” Eisenman reveals.
Such democratic, thoughtful approaches to product creation ensure that every launch is practically guaranteed to resonate before it even hits the shelves. Whether it’s Summer Fridays’s focus on enduring products, Tower 28’s focus on making sensitive-skin solutions accessible, or Bubble Skincare’s community-led innovation, it’s evident that both authenticity and a clear product direction are now fundamental to a brand’s success.
IN CONVERSATION
Where brands once spoke down to consumers through glossy magazine ads, today’s most successful beauty companies are engaging in ongoing dialogues with their audiences, creating spaces for connection that extend far beyond the transaction of buying skincare. While product innovation may be the foundation, it’s community cultivation that really propels the products.
“People came to us because they trust our recommendation, no matter what it is,” explains Hewitt, who began her career as a content creator before launching Summer Fridays with Ireland. This sentiment extends across a number of today’s most successful beauty brands, where peer-to-peer recommendations have replaced traditional marketing. It’s also the reason so many brands have launched lifestyle newsletters or print magazines, where founders, staff and friends of the brand share the things they’re loving across all categories with their communities. It builds trust and an authentic connection to the brand that fosters community.
Education is becoming another powerful tool for nurturing and engaging with these communities. Bubble’s Skin School initiative helps customers—particularly those who are young and new to skincare, as many of the brand’s target demographic are—better understand their skin. Tower 28 has found success in educating consumers about sensitive-skin concerns, which has proven particularly pertinent as sensitivity awareness grows.
A BADGE OF BELONGING
But it’s not enough to be popular online. The brands that transcend the digital space and become true each find a way to create an entire world that consumers want to be part of—whether it’s with exclusive merchandise, offering in-person collectibles, immersive pop-ups or educational initiatives, these brand events transform simple product launches into cultural moments, where skincare and makeup becomes a vehicle for both connection and community.
Summer Fridays has mastered this approach, transforming everyday spaces into immersive brand experiences. “It’s fun to be able to have those moments in your life,” says Hewitt. “In Los Angeles, we did our first coffee shop pop-up. I thought, ‘Okay, where do people want to go? Where do they hang out? Where do you want to take a photo?’ We had over 7,000 people come over a weekend. From there, we did an ice cream shop and then a pizza shop in New York.” The fact that they’re only open for a limited time only adds to the customer allure, creating urgency for fans to come in and ‘get the shot’ before the shop closes up for good.
At Bubble Skincare, brand extensions aren’t viewed through a strategic lens, but rather as natural expressions of the company’s ethos. “It’s less a strategy than an earnest outpouring of excitement for this fun and colourful world we’re creating,” explains Eisenman. “We love adding more joy to every aspect of life—packaging, events, spaces, clothes, bags, whatever! Bubble is, above all, about feeling good about yourself, your friends, and your life, and we’re just chasing that feeling wherever it leads us.”
This expansion beyond traditional boundaries reflects a broader shift in consumer behaviour, something Liu has observed firsthand with Tower 28. “The way we consume products, it’s part of our lifestyle now,” she notes. “I think the world is changing; the way we eat is changing, the way we think about our skin is changing.” This lifestyle integration has seen beauty brands become relative arbiters of culture, with their influence extending far beyond the bathroom shelf.
FORWARD THINKING
As these beauty brands continue to redefine what cultural currency looks like in the industry, their focus is increasingly on sustainable growth without losing their core appeal. For Bubble Skincare, this means doubling down on its community-first purpose. “So many things!” Eisenman says of what’s ahead. “More big, exciting brand moments. And a whole lot more joy. We remain fiercely committed to making clinically effective prestige skincare available to as many people as possible.”
Tower 28 is expanding its product range while staying true to its accessible luxury positioning. “We just launched the GetSet powder,” Liu reveals. “It is truly like blurring, setting, mattifying, but in a way that’s not like a full beat—not like baking. It’s instantly blurring, instantly mattifying.” It’s this kind of innovation—taking a familiar category but approaching it with fresh eyes that primarily consider a core demographic with sensitive skin—which aims to keep the brand at the forefront of an overcrowded market.
Summer Fridays continues to expand globally, with Hewitt noting their growing international presence through limited-time local community events and launches. What’s clear is that the future of beauty belongs to brands which can achieve that delicate balance: creating products that work, fostering genuine connections and building worlds that consumers will buy into. It’s a new kind of desire—one based not just on what a product is or what it does but on how it makes people feel part of something bigger than themselves (even if it’s just a certified social-media flex).
This story first appeared in the May 2025 issue of GRAZIA Singapore.
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