Hailey Bieber’s billion-dollar beauty brand, Rhode, already had a headline-making year.

Following its blockbuster $1 billion acquisition by E.l.f Beauty, Rhode is gearing up for its next significant milestone. Bieber’s beauty brand is prepping its debut with Sephora, among the most anticipated retail partnerships of the year just months following the acquisition. 

Needless to say, it’s been a busy year for Bieber, and only three years after cofounding and launching the brand in 2022. But she is laser-focused on bringing what she’s dubbed “the world of Rhode” to consumers beyond its successful activations, social media and own website.

“This whole time since we launched Rhode, I’ve stayed true to my gut. That’s what’s brought the vision to life,” she said of the skin care powerhouse that has expanded into makeup hybrids and even phone cases.

“Even if we felt like it was going left when everyone else in the industry was going right, that’s what makes something different and creative. I want it to feel new, different and still within the world of Rhode, and I also want to be able to have a presence that melts well into the world of Sephora as well,” said Bieber.

To that end, merchandised on a gondola in all doors in the U.S. and Canada, the brand will be shoppable with the retailer starting Sept. 4.

“You’re going to see things that feel reminiscent of all the pop-ups we’ve done. Our really beautiful, chic, Rhode glossy gray — [Sephora] encouraged me to bring our brand identity into their stores, and I wanted to do something that as soon as you see it, you know it could only be Rhode because our brand identity is so strong,” Bieber continued.

The appetite for Rhode is high, at Sephora and elsewhere. On the retailer’s site alone, Rhode had north of 2 million searches, and the brand said it’s slated to be Sephora’s largest launch in the U.S. and Canada in the company’s history.

Tasked with executing that vision for Rhode’s next chapter, Lauren Ratner, who serves as president and cofounded Rhode with Bieber, said, “we’ve been laser-focused on continuing to expand our product portfolio of our high performance, efficacious products that our customers keep coming back for, and building out the world of Rhode.”

Ratner pointed to its recent Beach Club activation in Majorca, Spain, around summer launches Lemontini Peptide Lip Tint, Pocket Blush in shades Sun Soak and Tan Line, a summer kit and a lemontini-colored Lip Case. The launches and concurrent activation generated the brand’s single biggest revenue day in its history, garnering more than 80 million impressions, and happening in tandem with Rhode’s entry to seven countries.

“There’s always been a global appetite for the brand,” said Ratner. “Selling directly to our customers is how we built our community. We were deliberate in doing that first: It helped us understand our consumers’ wants, needs and built a direct relationship. But we always wanted to bring the world of Rhode and our products globally.”

Though the Lemontini-themed pop-up in Spain was a success by every metric, Ratner also noted past pop-ups in key markets like New York as gold mines of insights. “We’ve only been in business a few years and we didn’t have the scale to provide all of our customers, or potential customers, with the ability to try the brand in real life ourselves,” Ratner said. 

“We saw our customers react so strongly and so positively to walking into this immersive world and Rhode-branded moments. We’ll be bringing that brand expression into Sephora as well, and we’re bringing back some favorites. Our Jelly Bean, Strawberry Glaze and Salty Tan limited-edition lips are going to become a core part of the Sephora lineup,” Ratner said.

At the time of Rhode’s sale to E.l.f. Beauty, it had topped $212 million in net sales for the 12 months ending March 31, no doubt driven by megawatt marketing and limited-edition drops, as well as internet virality. CreatorIQ data indicates that it was the top skin care brand by earned media value in 2024, clocking growth of 367 percent.

“We’ve been disrupting for 21 years, and so is Hailey and her team,” said Tarang Amin, chief executive officer of E.l.f. Beauty. E.l.f. reported its 26th consecutive quarter of sales growth on Aug. 6 (a day following the Rhode deal closing), and also announced that with its namesake brand, it was entering Sephora in the Middle East. Partnerships with Sephora are only becoming more vital.

“That follows our successful launch with Sephora Mexico last year,” Amin said. “Rhode takes it to a whole different level by them introducing Rhode to all U.S. and Canadian doors in September, followed by the U.K. later this fall.”

Though Bieber’s vision of the brand will remain her own, she’s taken cues on how to win at retail from E.l.f.

“One of the things the Rhode team appreciated is our deep retail expertise,” Amin said, counting current partners Ulta Beauty, Target Corp. and Walmart Inc. for its flagship brand. “You look at every channel we’ve gone to, the one unifying theme of any retail we are in around the world is that E.l.f. is their most productive brand on a dollar-per-foot basis. We outsell everyone. That’s the entire proposition: our innovation, our marketing, and also our expertise of how to make a brand work in-store.”

Among those capabilities, Amin said he was helping Rhode build out its field sales team “to have even greater coverage. Field coverage is important for brands, and many brands wait too long and slowly build. We’re building up from the very beginning, and the Rhode team was really open.”

It didn’t take a lot to get Sephora on board, either. “Sephora was very open to Rhode, which has a very different and sophisticated aesthetic. They didn’t have a cookie-cutter model of ‘this is the way it should look,’” Amin said. “Therefore, there’s this gondola presentation they were very open to cocreating with us.”

Cocreation is key, but Amin said not to expect hallmarks of Rhode — from its measured launch cadence, eye to fledgling categories or the ensuing marketing blitzes — to change.

“They’re very curated products that tie back to Hailey and her vision. That is 100 percent what Sephora wants. She has an incredible instinct and aesthetic, and they want that,” Amin said. As for the benefit Rhode has to its parent, Amin noted that E.l.f. Cosmetics has the highest mind share with Gen Z per Piper Sandler data, and is the most purchased brand among Gen Alpha and Millennials.

“Rhode and the Sephora partnership build upon that strength we have,” Amin said. “It’s seeing strong results amongst Gen Z and Millennials, but there are different consumers who frankly don’t have access to Rhode. This just opens up the aperture in a much bigger way.”

With exponentially more distribution on one hand and the support of her new parent company on the other, Bieber is all-in. “My focal point right now is Sephora,” she said. “I was going to say I just want to get my feet wet, but I want to dive right into the retail experience. It’s my first time having a brand go into retail.”

In addition to the impressive sales spike Rhode’s sustained, it was also the youngest beauty company to sell at a billion-dollar valuation, as reported at the time. Bieber was also then named an adviser to E.l.f. Beauty as a whole. Don’t expect her to rest on her laurels.

“Even with the sale to E.l.f., it’s given me a whole, entirely new excitement, passion and motivation. I expanded my role at the company now and I still have so many ideas,” she said. “It doesn’t make me feel like I want to slow down. It really ignited a new fire in me to send it into the stratosphere even more.”