Hailey Bieber's viral approach to glowing skin, blusher and glossy lips makes us want to apply less. In the best possible way, of course. So it perhaps comes as no surprise that Hailey, one of social media's most famous faces, is launching into the makeup space with her Rhode beauty brand exclusively at rhodeskin.com today.
The star, who is married to Justin Bieber, has a string of ballerina-turned-model-turned-influencer-turned-entrepreneur hyphenates. But perhaps the biggest ace up her sleeve is that she possesses the type of polished, golden hour beauty aesthetic that Instagram and TikTok eats up – whether she's revealing bare skin that looks like it's bathed in actual dew or a fresh makeup look that immediately becomes a byword for cool-girl beauty amongst her millions of followers.
I first met Hailey on the eve of Rhode's UK launch in May this year, when her beauty brand's focus was solely on skincare that delivers an effective roster of dermatologist-approved actives – notably brightening niacinamide, firming peptides and plumping hyaluronic acid – to give skin that now-infamous fresh-faced 'glazed donut' finish.
Now she's making her first foray into makeup, kicking off with four shades of Peptide Lip Tint, an amped up version of her best-selling Peptide Lip Treatment. Infused with the same shea butter and peptide formula, the Lip Tint boasts a sheer-but-buildable formula in pink, berry, coffee and rose taupe hues – imagine the lovechild of a coloured lipgloss and a skin-loving balm and you get the picture.
Ready for glazed donut skin, a plumper pout and sun-flushed cheeks?
For this exclusive interview with GLAMOUR, we're chatting over Zoom – me in London, Hailey in Idaho. She is sitting on her front porch, wearing a huge smile and a cosy hoodie, her hair scraped back nonchalantly into a tiny, neck-grazing ponytail.
As you'd expect, Hailey Bieber's skin is so glow-y it's like she's walking around with her own personal lighting crew. But what my eyes are immediately drawn to is her precisely applied latte makeup, especially the glossy Espresso-coloured lip that I'm here to talk to her about. Over to you, Hailey…
The reason I chose to launch with these four Lip Tints was because they were really good colours for Fall.
As the weather gets a little bit chilly, I've really been leaning into the Espresso shade a lot. I feel like Toast is a really nice beige colour that I love, but also the Raspberry Jelly because it feels very seasonal. Yesterday I had on Ribbon, so every day is something different.
I've incorporated my skincare into my makeup videos and it's just the way that I do things. A marriage of skincare and makeup feels very true to me.
I feel like moving into colour was a natural progression. Our Peptide Lip Treatment is one of our best-selling products. People really love it, so I always knew I wanted to do a tinted version. Given the fact that the Peptide Lip Treatment is also my favourite lip product, it was like a no-brainer. We're in the second year of our brand and it feels like the right timing to step into that world, but in a subtle way because this is a product that already exists. It's just a sister version.
The makeup Mary Phillips did for me for the 2022 Academy Museum Gala was my favourite. It had supermodel blasts.
I wore a brown YSL dress and I had my brown hair and it was just kind of monochromatic with a really pretty nude '90s lip. I always love when things feel effortless. That's the undone vibe I'm always hoping to go for, so I definitely really loved that look. I just remember seeing the pictures and I was like, ‘Wow, this makeup is everything to me’.
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My ‘latte makeup’ was like a happy accident.
Latte makeup was probably one of the best looks I've ever done on myself. I was bored one day and I wanted to do it. I shocked myself with how good it came out – I didn't even know that I could do makeup that nice!
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A makeup artist put the Peptide Lip Treatment onto my eye as a gloss to create a wet look.
So there's definitely ways to mess around with the Peptide Lip Tint in that kind of capacity. I usually just use it straight up on the lips and combine it with a good lip liner or put it over a nice lipstick shade. The aesthetic for the colour collection is really just enhancing what's already there. Your skin is the best canvas for makeup and I feel like the way that I do my makeup is just enhancing the canvas that's already there. I also think with colour it's more fun and I want people to be able to play around with it, whether you use a little or a lot. There can be a sliding scale of that person's individuality coming through, but I also want the products to be good for the skin.
I don't think I'm ever going to be the girl that does a full, full, full beat.
I look back at photos of myself on red carpets and I'm like, ‘What was the thought behind this makeup?’ There's been a few beauty disasters, like a bad red lip and a super dark eyeshadow that's just not good. When you're young, you think more is more. I've grown into myself and as I've gotten older, I feel like I understand what looks nice and what looks right for me with my skin, my hair, my features. For me it's a less is more vibe. Effortless energy is something that I always want to stick to and that's what I just gravitate towards. A lot of the time it is really just because I'm being lazy but I think it's really about comfort at the end of the day and what makes me feel good. And I don't feel super comfortable with a lot of makeup on.
Makeup to me is a form of self-expression.
I think that's why I love the makeup and skincare community because there's such individuality. You see all these hacks and tips from other people on TikTok. Making them your own by chewing them, swallowing them and regurgitating them back to the world in your own way is a form of expressing yourself. Even when there's a trend going on – whether it's latte makeup or strawberry makeup or whatever it might be – you get to see people's expression through each thing and I think that's so wonderful.
I use makeup for self-care, too.
Makeup has a way of being able to boost your mood in a lot of ways when you're feeling extra tired – or like today, for me, it's extra jet-lagged. I just came from Tokyo and even doing my quick little five minute thing I felt gave me a boost of energy, which I think is self-care in so many ways.
If I had 15 minutes to get ready for a party, I would do my little contour concealer trick.
I'd do my Rhode skin prep and then I'll probably wear foundation just because it's more of a nighttime thing. I like when my skin still shows through. Even when I'm getting my makeup done, I always tell people, 'I really want this skin to look like it's breathing.' I'd add a bit of blush and contour – there's a really nice Makeup Forever Palette where one side is blush and one side is contour. I also really like the Tom Ford Shade And Illuminate Contour And Highlight Duos. Then I would use a creamy, blendable concealer – I love the Nars Radiant Creamy Concealer – to do my little contour concealer trick [what Hailey calls her ‘Mary P contour trick’ after her makeup artist Mary Phillips, where she uses bronzer on the contours of her face and then adds concealer underneath her cheekbones to sharpen the definition]. A little wash of something on the lid, mascara – right now I'm really liking Hourglass – my Peptide Lip Treatment, lip liner and maybe a little powder just in the areas where needed, and that's my typical routine for going out.
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My best beauty hack is to put foundation in your hands and then rub them together to warm up the product.
I learnt that backstage from Pat McGrath. I also love to add the Rhode Peptide Glazing Fluid to foundation to thin it out. When you apply it, you kind of get this really beautiful glow-y skin finish from it.
A little quick lip exfoliation is really nice.
I sometimes think we forget about lip prep, so using a lip scrub with warm water is important to get away the dead skin on the lips and give them a little bit more life. There's always ways you can do really cool DIY – I feel like you can use baking soda and sugar. I've definitely had that done to me many, many times on set.
I used to be a ballet dancer, so stage makeup was always a big thing for recitals.
My first encounter with makeup was going through my mom's makeup bag and using her blush, her powder and lipstick. I remember when I was a little kid at my first ballet recital, my mom gave me rosy cheeks and a little lip gloss so I think a lot about performance makeup when I think about makeup. I remember doing a lot of my friends' makeup for performances – they would come to me and be like, can you do my eyeliner? I always loved that as my grandma was a makeup artist. Really falling in love with skincare and then doing my makeup and other people's makeup definitely comes from her.
I've definitely always been super skincare obsessed.
I've always been all about skincare. I think as I've got older, I really developed my philosophy around beauty and always dreamed of having my own brand. It felt natural for that to be skincare because of how immersed in it I am in my day-to-day life. I've always been very product and ingredient obsessed because my mom was always that way. My grandma was also obsessed with trying different face creams, and with their texture and richness. She was very picky about it. I feel like I learned so much from them about how to be particular about my skincare.
If I ever have a daughter one day, I'd tell her not to dry her skin out so crazily when dealing with breakouts.
When I was a teenager and started having more breakouts, I thought the answer was to use acid on my skin to dry it out. At the sight of a pimple, I would have to get rid of it as quickly as possible, whatever it took. I was like, 'If it says it gets rid of acne, I'm going try it. There are better ways to handle this than burning your skin because then you are just left with having to repair it. It's a vicious cycle. Now as an adult, when I get a breakout, my approach is so much more gentle. I would also definitely tell my younger self to leave her eyebrows alone! When I was a teenager I plucked my brows really badly.
Ready for glazed donut skin, a plumper pout and sun-flushed cheeks?
I don't know why people gravitate towards my style, but I'm glad that they do as fashion and beauty is a good way to connect with people.
My style is really like self-expression for me. A lot of my personality and my taste comes through. I dress to be comfortable. Of course, sometimes I'll wear a tight dress and high heels and that's maybe not as comfortable as sweatpants. But I do like to do the whole juxtaposition of big baggy jeans and a big jacket. I definitely always feel my most comfortable in something baggy. It could be men's or women's clothing, like very genderless. But I'm inspired by so many other women's styles as well. I look at Rosie Huntington and Rihanna and Princess Diana. I mean, you look at Rihanna's maternity style. It has completely changed the conversation around that. I think she's such a trailblazer when it comes to fashion.
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I definitely struggle with anxiety. For me it's about knowing when to take a break.
I struggle with ups and downs, as we all do. Surrounding yourself with people that are reminding you of who you are and people that can speak a lot of truth in your life is important. Just like taking the time to rest and protect your space, whatever that looks like for you. That's definitely been helpful, but there's good times and there's not so good times, and that's the story for everyone.
I'm someone who is very hard on myself – I have been since I was very young.
I'm a people pleaser – I struggle with that. If I have a daughter one day, I would hate to see them be so hard on themselves. I'm still hard on myself but I'm trying not to be.
Scent is so important for triggering memory. Everyone has an attachment to those nostalgic ChapStick lip balm scents and I just really wanted to bring that back.
I remember being a little kid and loving those little ChapStick lip balms that had yummy flavours and smelt like watermelon. I wanted to bring that nostalgia back through the scents and flavours of our Peptide Lip Treatments. So sure, it's been fun. When it comes to fragrance, I go between different perfumes, but I find myself always coming back to one. And that's the Ex Nihilo Fleur Narcotique. I've worn it for years now. It's quite heavy – like sexy but nice. I also like Bond No. 9 as a lot of their stuff is unisex. I like unisex scents.
I trained as a ballerina, had a career as a model and am now an entrepreneur but, in a flip universe, I would love to have tried the acting world.
I just never gravitated towards it in the way that my family did. And I think it's just because it wasn't meant to be. I mean who knows in the future, but I think in an alternate universe, I maybe would have liked to try it out.
I've had a lot of hair transformations over the years.
I've had a thing with my hair for the last two years. It was long. I had extensions on and off. I was playing with the length a bit, and sometimes I miss it because I did have so much fun. But I was ready for a drastic change. I had let my hair grow out – no more dying it blonde, no highlights – and let it go back to its natural colour. So I wanted to see what it would look like with this shorter length. I cut it for a shoot and I absolutely love it, but it is such a hard style to maintain. It's like you have to trim it every two weeks, so I'm going to let it grow out. I do a lot of hair care to maintain it when I'm in the sun or at the beach. I love to put coconut oil in my hair and let it sit. I also really like Jennifer Anderson's brand, LolaVie. I have quite fine hair so it can get oily very quickly. I find that a lot of leave-in conditioners are a bit heavy but the Perfecting Leave-In Conditioner is so light and smells amazing.
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Hydration is so important for keeping the skin healthy and balanced.
Even as a teenager, and even with breakouts, I'm very lucky to have had fairly good skin my whole life. Growing up, I feel like I always had a good relationship with my skin because when I was a child my mom took really good care of it. It was always about head to toe hydration. That was a big lesson for me. There's a fine line between overdoing it and underdoing it and figuring out what that balance is. If my beauty cabinet was on fire, I would obviously want to take my Rhode products but also my favourite Cle de Peau Body Cream.
My mini stroke [Hailey was hospitalised 10th March, 2022] really showed me how our bodies are so fragile and life can change in a second.
I have never experienced something like that before. It's definitely been an eye-opening experience in terms of awareness. I'm the type of person who is on top of my health and going to see the doctor and blood work – probably at times too much. It's just one of those things – you can never see it coming until it happens. It altered my perspective for sure. I think it was meant to happen, though, because it helped the doctors to find that I had this other issue in my heart [a patent foramen ovale, or PFO] and then I had a procedure to have this hole in my heart closed. So it's like if that one thing hadn't happened, they wouldn't have found the other thing. It's kind of a blessing in disguise and then on top of that, I get to talk about it and hopefully help raise awareness.
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Women need to ask more questions about birth control.
There was a link to birth control pills for me [in a video posted on YouTube and Instagram, Hailey said that her doctors came “to the conclusion of why they think I had the blood clot in the first place. One was that I had just recently started birth control pills, which I should have never been on because I am somebody who suffers from migraines anyway”]. We don't ask the questions we need to and sometimes our doctors don't ask us the questions they need to. Everything's healthy now, which is great.
My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs would be that mishaps are gonna happen, mistakes are gonna happen and if you can take those and use them to improve your brand, then do it.
You're never going to lose with that mentality. Everyone makes mistakes when they're on that journey. I had a hard time accepting that because I want everything to be a hundred percent perfect, a hundred percent of the time and that doesn't exist. There's so much that's out of your control. Also listening to your audience and your consumer, and then using that feedback to improve your brand, is very important.
To be here and talk about this brand feels very empowering for me because it's something that I've been able to watch come to life from the start to now…
This is something that I really just enjoy doing. It's a ton of work and building a brand isn't easy, but when you're doing something you love it doesn't feel like work. I still feel like we're just getting started and there's so much more to come…
Rhode Peptide Lip Tints are launching on 28th September, 2023. All Rhode skincare is available to buy now.
For more from Fiona Embleton, GLAMOUR's Acting Associate Beauty Director, follow her on @fiembleton.
