This week, I checked in on Snif’s explosive sales day on TikTok Shop thanks to Mikayla Nogueira, and what it means for the fragrance category and the retailer as a whole. Additionally, Olaplex and Salt & Stone kick off a new wave of beauty M&A, and Sephora and Benefit face scrutiny over marketing to minors.
For Snif co-founder and CEO Bryan Edwards, getting onto TikTok Shop wasn’t exactly a choice, but a necessity.
“If you’re not operating a TikTok Shop, you’re gonna get left behind,” said Edwards, who took the fragrance brand to the social commerce platform in 2025. “For me, TikTok Shop is the last arbitrage opportunity that exists on the internet. It reminds me of Facebook 10 years ago.”
On March 10, roughly nine months into its time on TikTok Shop, Snif achieved its biggest sales day ever, thanks to a four-hour livestream hosted by mega influencer Mikayla Nogueira to promote Only Sunshine, the perfume she made in collaboration with Snif. According to the brand, the livestream generated more than $400,000 in sales, drew in more than 1 million unique viewers and helped Snif become the No. 1 fragrance brand on the platform and jump 635 spots to become the No. 96 brand globally on TikTok Shop.
While a livestream with Nogueira and her 17 million followers may represent the pinnacle of success on the platform, Snif is far from the only fragrance brand to find success on TikTok Shop. According to data from Charm.io, TikTok Shop generated more than $162 million in fragrance sales in 2025.
“Two-plus years ago, we didn’t know if we could sell fragrance, which you can’t smell, online. It turns out that we absolutely can, because fragrance is about storytelling much more so than visual before-and-after,” said Ajay Salpekar, gm of beauty on TikTok Shop. While 60% of viewers of fragrance content are male, 75% of those making fragrance purchases on TikTok Shop are women, according to Salpekar. And livestreaming is a growing channel for fragrance, he said, as 76% of fragrance users on the platform have purchased through a livestream.
“Brands are using TikTok Shop increasingly as a way to launch their new fragrances,” said Salkepar. “A lot of these fragrance innovations or scents or profiles are developed in collaboration with creators, whether it is something very specific, like the Snif and Mikayla collab, or [inspired by] the comments users make on creators’ Lives or short videos. Brands are paying attention to that.”
Livestream shopping, while a well-established model in markets like China, is still a new behavior for many North American consumers. But Salpekar said TikTok is helping brands connect with content creators who can generate both livestreams and short-form content through programs like the quarterly “TikTok Shop Beauty Besties.”
“Once a quarter, we bring together some of our top brands and some of the most promising creators, and we do matchmaking over merchandise, new launches or products that are going to be featured in particular campaigns,” said Salpekar. “And through that, there are these relationships formed between creators and brands that then lead to compelling content, whether it’s short video or live.”
Edwards said that Snif’s TikTok Shop presence is profitable, to the point tat it has hired an in-house manager to oversee its operations on the platform. But he says the platform’s value is more than just a sales driver.
“We view TikTok Shop as a marketing channel, not a sales channel,” said Edwards. “It generates revenue, but the real value is that it raises ships across every other sales channel that we operate, including, and most importantly, Ulta.”
Getting on the platform requires playing the TikTok game, however. That includes seeding thousands of free samples to creators every month in the hopes they will spread the word about the brand and participating in discounting and promotional deals, some of which are funded by the brand and some managed by TikTok directly, Edwards said. TikTok’s rating system, which ranks content creators on a five-point scale based on factors like their propensity to post and TikTok Shop storefronts on factors like how they fulfill orders, rewards those who play by the rules and can punish those who don’t.
“If we miss shipments, that score gets docked, and we get deprioritized in the algorithm. We get deprioritized in promotional selection,” he said. “And so we are incentivized to make sure we have all our ducks in a row and are providing an excellent consumer experience. And then, as the shop ranking goes up, we get more prioritization.”
Edwards believes those rankings build trust and transparency among both consumers and sellers. And TikTok Shop’s model helps compress what was once a lengthy process of generating social content.
“Think about the historic landscape of content generation: That was a customer coming to Snif, having to spend their money to purchase a product. We ship it to them, and then we’re hoping that that customer then goes onto TikTok to then make a piece of content about us,” he said. “With [TikTok Shop] you’re increasing the probability that they’re going to make a piece of content about you, because they’re a very high-intent, content-creator audience, and so you’re actually expediting this entire process and multiplying it.”
While fragrance is one of beauty’s most high-priced categories, many of the fragrance brands dominating TikTok Shop, like Phlur or Lattafa or Oakcha, offer bottles under $100. But Salpekar is confident that more luxury and prestige brands will join the platform in time.
“With any new platform, usually the initial burst of growth tends to be on the more affordable price range. But what we have seen is, every single quarter, that average order value continues to go up as more brands, as well as users, get used to buying their fragrance here,” he said. “I fully expect that over time, you’ll see more entrant prestige, prestige and eventually luxury fragrances on the platform.”
That is, if TikTok continues running. TikTok’s uncertain status in the U.S. has unnerved many content creators who rely on the platform and — as those who remember the heyday of Facebook can attest — social media platforms are far from fixed entities. But Edwards is confident that TikTok Shop is here to stay. And he’s not the only one: In March, Snif’s main retail partner, Ulta Beauty, announced it was joining the platform, and TikTok has also announced plans to create its own fulfillment center.
“We are making the bet that, for how ingrained TikTok is in society and in American culture, it’s not going anywhere,” said Edwards.
Executive moves:
Shiseido has appointed Caroline Foo as managing director for Malaysia. Foo will retain her existing role as president director of Shiseido Indonesia, overseeing the Japanese beauty leader in both countries. She will focus on establishing market growth and synergies between the two Southeast Asian markets.
L’Oréal has appointed Nora Wolfe as svp and U.S. head of media. Wolfe was most recently chief investment officer at Beauty Co-Lab, an Omnicom Group unit within L’Oréal USA.
Anna Teal is stepping down from her role as CEO of Grown Alchemist. Teal, who joined the skin-care brand as CEO in 2023, will launch a new wellness brand, Afima. She will also launch Beautiful Hustle, a Substack on beauty, wellness and business.
News to know:
The Italian Competition Authority is reportedly investigating Sephora and Benefit Cosmetics over the premature use of adult cosmetics by children and adolescents. The probe concerns whether the LVMH-owned beauty brands may be encouraging minors to purchase face masks, serums and anti-aging creams without appropriate warnings.
German conglomerate Henkel to acquire Olaplex in a $1.4 billion deal. The American hair-care brand was founded in 2014 and acquired by Advent International in 2019 — Advent International will exit its investment. Henkel’s portfolio ranges from home-care to personal-care products and includes hair-care brands Got2B and Schwarzkopf.
Advent International will acquire California body-care brand Salt & Stone for an undisclosed amount. Salt & Stone, which was founded by former pro snowboarder Nima Jalali in 2017, achieved $165 million in revenue in 2025. The brand also launched a collaboration with Kendall Jenner’s tequila brand 818 in March.
Stat of the week:
The 57th edition of Cosmoprof, held in Bologna from March 26-29, welcomed more than 255,000 industry professionals from more than 150 countries, and saw 3,104 exhibitors from more than 10,000 brands and 68 countries.
In the headlines:
‘He can say he went to the gym’: People are pumping themselves with fat from corpses to perk up their pecs, boobs and butts. Why matte makeup is trending again. The family feuds behind the Estée Lauder and Puig merger talks.
Listen in:
Julie Cartwright, founding president of fast-growing fitness brand Pvolve, joins the Glossy Podcast to talk Pvolve’s prolific partnership strategy with beauty, wellness and fashion brands like Tower 28 and Erewhon.
Need a Glossy recap?
Dupe fragrance has hit the mainstream. Now what? What’s driving the beauty bag charm trend. Lancôme gets serious about longevity with new skin-care line. Reddit’s new shopping ads are a play for beauty brands’ business. What a potential Puig and Estée Lauder merger means for fragrance