According to Dan Murphy, svp of marketing at water and beverage company Liquid Death, it’s a bit of a “happy accident” that the company’s collaborations with megabrand E.l.f. and the Netherlands-founded grooming brand Reuzel launched within a week of each other. The E.l.f. collab, dubbed “Corpse Paint,” launched on March 26 and sold out in 45 minutes. And on April 2, Reuzel dropped its $22.95 Severed Head Strong Hold Clay Pomade, infused with Liquid Death’s mountain water. It also features imagery of a Liquid Death can on the packaging.
The E.l.f. collab, which riffed on the goth aesthetic, centered on a $34 box set made up of five products: the Dead Set Matte Magic Mist & Set setting spray, the Kiss of Death O Face Satin Lipstick in a black shade dubbed All Night, the Eye Die No Budge Cream Eyeshadow in white, the Dead Line H2O Proof Eyeliner Pen and a brush called Brush with Death. It was sold on E.l.f.’s e-commerce site.
Kory Marchisotto, E.l.f.’s CMO, said she has been a fan of Liquid Death since its launch in 2019. “When I think about who is on a one-way path of disruption and who has taken a stale, boring industry, flipped it on its head and brought in electroshock excitement that nobody thought possible, it’s E.l.f. in the cosmetics aisle and Liquid Death in the water aisle and beyond,” she said, regarding the motivation behind the partnership.
E.l.f. is unique in its shapeshifter abilities, going from an all-pink “Mean Girls” collaboration in January to this gothcore collab in March. “When I got here five years ago, we wrote the tagline ‘E.l.f. is for every eye, lip and face’. … If you’re going to say you’re for everyone, then you have to mean it in everything you do,” Marchisotto said.
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In a planned appearance, Julia Fox was photographed in a full “Corpse Paint” face on March 26.
Reuzel’s collaboration has a far different look and feel: It centers on a pomade.
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Founded in 2014 by Laurence Hegarty, Robert-Jan Rietvald, Leen Bergmann, Rob Wilcox and David Raccuglia, the brand started as an offshoot of a Rotterdam-based barbershop called Schorem Barbier. Leading up to the collaboration, Hegarty’s wife knew Mike Cessario, founder of Liquid Death, through a previous advertising job and introduced them. The founders wound up bonding over a similar brand origin story: Both began putting their brands out in the world before they had a product to ship and sell, Hegarty said. The product collaboration was eventually sparked by a lack of healthier beverages available at Reuzel’s annually hosted Scumbash music festival. The pomade marks Reuzel’s first collaboration, and its release is timed to its 10th anniversary.
“[Reuzel] has sworn to us that there’s a drop, or more, of Liquid Death in this,” said Murphy, regarding the pomade.
The pomade was designed to work for a wide array of hair types and is available on Reuzel’s website and Amazon. Unlike the limited-edition E.l.f. collab, which has sold out, the pomade will remain in Reuzel’s collection.
For Liquid Death, Reuzel’s international presence, as well as its product category, held appeal. “They are everywhere, so it could be the first time somebody in Korea would see Liquid Death,” Murphy said. “Plus, we were [excited] to do another fun, unexpected product: Liquid Death plus hair care.”
The marketing videos for the collaboration’s launch were inspired by a dog show — but, instead of dogs, they feature severed heads. It will be promoted across Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and X, as well as via email and SMS. The brands found they were well-aligned in their marketing strategies, in that both commonly feature humor and metal music in assets.
“We’re in a place now, likely driven by social media, where the things we buy say something about us — it’s all part of our personal aesthetic. And so the [worlds of beauty and beverage] overlap well,” Murphy said.
But don’t expect to see more beauty collabs from Liquid Death. “The next thing that we will do will be completely different. We love the notion of creative whiplash,” Murphy said.
According to a spokesperson from Liquid Death, which has a $1.4 billion valuation, just over half of its customers are men. The comany’s previous collaborators have included Nixon, Burton, MeUndies and Call of Duty, and its ambassadors have included Travis Barker, Tony Hawk, Martha Stewart and Whitney Cummings, among others.
