Like most beauty influencers, Daisy Marquez has embraced the full-lips look that is now standard on Instagram. But after three years of fillers, she’s switched out the needle for the gloss wand.
“I did hop on the trend” of the ultra-full lip look at the height of the Kylie lip-kit era, she said. “I kind of rode the wave until it got to a point where I was like, ‘I don’t think it’s really fitting me anymore.’ So I went ahead and I dissolved my lips.”
Marquez is the face of Morphe’s first-ever lip-plumping gloss that officially launches in stores and online on September 1. Along with a new eyeliner that’s also launching, it is the latest product in the brand’s new “Make it Big” franchise. With the $12 gloss, the brand is getting in on the growing popularity of lip plumpers as consumers seek out affordable ways to achieve the full-lip effect and influencers and celebrities get a “glow-down” with dissolved fillers. The vegan product offers a topical application of common lip-filler ingredient hyaluronic acid.
The push into plumpers is part of Morphe’s ongoing expansion of its product categories. The first product in the Make It Big collection was the brand’s first-ever mascara that launched in October. It’s now serving as a source of new customers — 49% of its buyers are new to Morphe.
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“Diversifying our category offering to better serve our customer is a key strategic initiative for Morphe,” said Eden Palmer, vp of merchandising for global brand and third party at Morphe parent company FORMA Brands. “While the brand’s heritage and equity are firmly entrenched in eyeshadow palettes and brushes, we know there is a bigger world out there, in terms of categories our customers are shopping.”
Lip plumpers, in particular, have seen strong popularity in the past year, thanks in part to TikTok. Too Faced’s Lip Injection, which went viral on TikTok last year, was mentioned last week in Estée Lauder Companies’ financial report for fiscal 2021 as a source of growth offsetting overall declines in makeup for the group. Several brands have launched new lip-plumping glosses for the first time in the past year geared toward being a filler alternative. Lawless’ plumping lip gloss is called “Forget the Filler,” while Paula’s Choice released a “lip booster” with hyaluronic acid and peptides.
“I never was really into lip-plumping glosses until I got [my fillers] dissolved, and honestly, they do work,” said Marquez. Her decision came as influencers and celebrities such as Huda Kattan, Molly-Mae Hague and even Kylie Jenner herself have announced that they dissolved their fillers over the past few years.
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Marquez dissolved her lip fillers earlier this year after the filler started moving to different parts of her lips, she said. “Everyone was like, ‘OMG, why did she do that? She looks completely different.’ But I actually really like my small lips now.”
But the full-lip look is still highly in demand, whether via plumpers or less involved procedures like the “lip flip” that’s being promoted on TikTok, with over 64 million views of the hashtag #lipflip.
And the glam look is far from dead when it comes to makeup, according to Morphe.
“We believe beauty is not a monolith,” said Palmer, who noted that Gen Zers don’t apply a “singular definition” to beauty. “One day, they might go for a natural look, and another, they may want to experiment with bright shades and graphic eyeliner. [Another] day, it might be full glam,” she said.
