Having a viral cosmetic in your product arsenal is every beauty brand’s dream and one company that has achieved this goal is Benefit with Benetint Cheek & Lip Stain.
The 49-year-old red liquid stain has cemented its place as a make-up bag staple thanks to its ability to create a sheer, natural and buildable rosy flush on the face and lips that is non-drying, with one bottle of Benetint now sold every 11 seconds globally.
It is a mighty feat for the LVMH-owned brand and even more incredible to think that the product only came to be thanks to a surprising request by an exotic dancer – that’s right, Benetint didn’t start life intending to be a lip and cheek tint (full story revealed below).
Now, more than 14 million Benetints have been sold globally from 2008 to 2024, with three million of those sales occurring last year alone.
“Benetint’s story is not just about a beauty product, it is a story about who Benefit as a brand is,” says Sarah Harbon, General Manager of Benefit Cosmetics UK & Ireland.
“There is an entrepreneurial spirit at the heart of this product and that is how we still like to operate now – to find solutions to problems that we didn’t know until that moment existed.
“Benetint has always been a good seller and now this product, which is so old, has grown faster over the past 12 months than it has grown at any point in its history.”
But, how has a lip and cheek stain, which comes in very humble packaging, remained a cult classic nearly 50 years on, especially when it sits within one of the beauty sector’s most dynamic spaces – the blush category?
Harbon reveals how Benetint Cheek & Lip Stain became, and has remained, a category-defining make-up item in the latest installment of Cosmetics Business’ ‘Untold Story’ series.
More than 14 million Benetints have been sold globally from 2008 to 2024
How Benefit’s Benetint Cheek & Lip Stain came to be…
Benefit began in 1976 as a small boutique in San Francisco, California, which was called the Face Place before the company rebranded in later years.
The cosmetics brand was created by
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