TikTok Shop is the hot new place to drop a hot new product. That’s according to Benefit, which leveraged the platform to launch its Fan Fest Mascara in July, and now Caliray. The latter debuted its Hideaway Brightening + Concealing Undereye Corrector on TikTok Shop on February 15 — the product will debut on Sephora and the brand’s DTC site on February 20. Caliray has sold at Sephora since it first launched, in February 2021.
“Clean” beauty-focused Caliray was founded by Wende Zomnir, who previously founded Urban Decay. In the past two years, the brand has increased its focus on TikTok, truly “leaning into” the platform with a focused strategy in the past year, Zomnir said.
“[TikTok] has been such a powerful platform in the beauty space. It creates this community between brands, creators and consumers. Being a creator-led brand, it’s a perfect platform for us to invest in,” said Erica Wohlwend, vp of marketing and strategy at Caliray. Zomnir herself has 62,000 followers on Instagram and 1,300 on TikTok.
Caliray’s recent growth on TikTok has been “crazy,” Zomnir said. According to a brand representative, in July 2023, the brand had about 8,800 TikTok followers, and it ended the year with over 50,000. As of February 16, it had over 70,000 followers. All of its products are available to shop on the platform.
In late 2022, when Caliray launched its So Blown Blurring & Hydrating Collagen Peptide Primer, the brand saw immediate virality on TikTok via a few popular posts. TikTok Shop had not yet launched, but the virality led to a sales lift for the product at Sephora. “We saw the [sales] impact at Sephora, and we sold out of the primer seven times last year,” Wohlwend said.
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To that end, Sephora does not mind its partner brands launching products on TikTok Shop first, Wohlwend said. “They’ve actually been challenging brands to invest more in influencers and specifically invest in TikTok, because they’ve seen the impact and the benefits of brands getting this kind of visibility through the platform,” Wohlwend said. Sephora was not able to respond to a request for comment in time for publication.
According to the Caliray team, its new launch is primed for success on TikTok Shop as it’s an “instant gratification product.”
“You can immediately see the difference once you apply the product to the under-eye,” Wohlwend said, noting the opportunity for content creators to showcase compelling before-and-after content. Some creators have taken advantage of the opportunity, as seen here and here.
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“I always say that if concealer, illuminator and color-corrector had a three-way, it would be this product,” Zomnir said. “We’re all about making you look hydrated, rested and illuminated — and not seeing the makeup.”
In advance of the TikTok Shop launch, Caliray seeded the product to over 200 TikTok Shop influencers. They were informed that the products would exclusively drop on TikTok Shop on February 15 and that, should their posts lead to sales for Caliray, they would earn a commission paid by Caliray. There was no obligation for them to post. This setup “entices the creators to create really strong content because they’re getting a kickback from it,” Wohlwend said.
As of Friday, the Caliray team said it was too early to comment on the product’s TikTok Shop sales, citing a still ongoing rollout of dedicated content among the TikTok Shop influencers who received it.
On February 1, the brand held an event in Beverly Hills where it invited press, influencers and, for the first time, TikTok Shop influencers to experience the product in advance of launch. Brand representatives discussed the TikTok Shop launch with possible participants.
“[TikTok Shop influencers] are so fresh in the influencer world. They’re excited, and they were stoked to be at an event,” Zomnir said.
“They knew what content to capture at the event, and they know what drives sales,” Wohlwend added.
