The Year Our Lips All Looked like Jelly
As a beauty writer, it felt like I couldn’t have a work dinner without someone pulling out this year’s most coveted beauty product and slathering it all over their lips like jelly. That product is not the latest red matte lipstick but, in fact, the opposite: a high-gloss, hypermoisturizing, and sheer product called a lip oil. This year, Summer Fridays, Milk Makeup, Eadem, and Osea all launched their own versions. Coincidence? Certainly not.
But the rise of lip oils didn’t start this year; it happened in 2020, when wearing face masks became mandatory. The more we wore masks, the more dehydrated our lips became. That’s when Dior’s beloved lip glow oil debuted and we were instantly hooked. This year alone, a number of brands’ offerings enjoyed a rise in popularity, including E.l.f. Cosmetics’ Glow Reviver Lip Oil, Fenty Skin’s hydrating and strengthening lip oil, Topicals’ Slick Salve, Dior’s Addict Lip Glow Oil, Summer Fridays’ Dream Lip Oil, Clinique’s Black Honey Lip + Cheek Oil, Ami Colé’s Lip Treatment Oil, YSL’s Candy Glaze balm, Eadem’s Le Chouchou exfoliating and softening peptide lip balm, Merit’s Shade Slick tinted lip oil, Gisou’s Honey Infused Lip Oil, Glossier’s high-shine lip gloss, Laneige’s Lip Glowy Balm, Tower 28’s Shine On Lip Jelly, NYX’s Fat Oil Lip Drip and Vacation’s Chardonnay Lip Oil.
If you feel like you’re seeing lip oils (along with lip butters, balms, serums, and masks) everywhere this year, you’re not wrong. According to multiple beauty founders, that was because big retailers pressured them to make a category Gen Z and Gen Alpha would buy into. And it seems to be working; when we went shopping with Sephora tweens in February, one 12-year-old’s go-to lip product was Dior’s Lip Glow Oil.
So why have lip oils grown so quickly in terms of popularity and virality in a way that lip balms just … haven’t? (Sorry, Blistex.) It’s partly due to the product’s texture: Lip oils are a hybrid of lip gloss and lip balm, usually consisting of a blend of oils that hydrate the lips, leaving them with a glasslike finish. The appeal is also partly due to the sheerness of the product, allowing shades to work across different skin tones. And then there’s the price point, which hovers around $40 for the more expensive ones (like Dior’s.) Less expensive ones like E.l.f’s go for as low as $8. Sure, that might be expensive for a lip product, but lip oils tend to be on the more affordable end of the spectrum compared to some of these brands’ other beauty products, like moisturizers or serums.
Summer Fridays launched a lip oil this year following the success of the company’s balm in 2020. They wanted something that could moisturize lips and be sheer enough for everyday use. “Our goal was to create a balm that deeply moisturized like a traditional balm, delivered the shine of a gloss without the stickiness, and stayed true to our commitment to being vegan — which can be especially challenging in lip care,” Summer Fridays founders Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Ireland told the Cut. The product quickly became one of Summer Fridays’ best-sellers, and recent insights show that it was part of the reason that catapulted the brand into becoming the No. 1-selling skin are brand at Sephora this year (claiming 10.5 percent of skin-care sales, which includes the beloved lip balm and oil), a spot formerly held by Glow Recipe. “When we looked at other lip oils on the market, we noticed many didn’t contain much actual oil. So we formulated ours with nine vegan oils to ensure it was nourishing while delivering that lightweight, glossy finish,” the founder said.
Summer Fridays Lip Butter Balm
Summer Fridays Dream Lip Oil
Jenefer Palmer, founder and “chief seaweed officer” of Osea, credits the rise of lip oils to social media and acknowledges how unique the lip category is to Gen Z and Gen Alpha. “They prefer products that are approachable, multifunctional, and offer immediate results,” she says. “Lip care checks all those boxes.”
Amy Liu, founder and CEO of Tower 28, whose ShineOn Lip Jelly, a soothing lip gloss and oil hybrid launched in 2020, wrote: “Lip has traditionally been understood as a fickle category, easy to come in but people are always willing to try a new one.” For $16, ShineOn is an affordable buy that keeps you wanting to come back to try more.
There was also TikTok drama about which lip products were good and which were overhyped. A month into Topicals’ popular Slick Salve launch, creators went to TikTok to share their thoughts. Some raved about the formula, while others tried to put the brand down, complaining that the product is sticky. Topicals founder and CEO Olamide Olowe took to TikTok to respond to the mixed feedback: “The community we focused on most is people with extremely chapped and dry lips, so these are people who have eczema, these are people who … are on Accutane.” Since the brand launched in 2020, it has been its mission to serve individuals with skin conditions. “Skincare for Flare-Ups,” is Topicals’ tagline. Last month, the brand expanded its lip balm offerings. Initially available only in a clear shade, Slick Slave is now available in açai, a bold berrylike tint.
Topicals Slick Salve Glossy Lip Balm
Lip products were so popular this year that Hailey Bieber even made a special iPhone case for them. The case features a silicone design that’s molded to fit the brand’s Peptide Lip Treatment. (And while many tried to replicate the case, it simply can’t be duplicated.)
Hewitt and Ireland think we’re not done seeing this category grow, “While trends come and go, there’s always a demand for products that keep lips hydrated,” they said. For a category as niche as lips, will we reach a point where there are simply too many products? Who knows. But I’ll be slathering on my Ami Colé lip oil in the meantime.
Ami Colé Lip Treatment Oil