Ashtin Earle may call herself a “nepo sister,” but beauty brands are betting she can become a star in her own right.
On September 4, Earle Meets World debuted on Netflix, offering viewers an inside look at the relationship between Alix Earle, 25, one of TikTok’s biggest breakout stars, and her younger sister Ashtin Earle, 23.
Alix is the blonde bombshell you probably already know. She splits her time between Los Angeles, Miami, her family’s New Jersey home, and other places her work as an influencer brings her. Ashtin has long, dark-brown, nearly black hair, and lives in New York City. The elder Earle sister rose to TikTok fame filming “Get Ready With Me” content from her apartment as a senior at the University of Miami. In March, she launched her skincare brand, Reale Actives. The younger Earle calls herself a “nepo sister.”
While Ashtin’s following remains considerably smaller than her sister’s—836,000 Instagram followers and 1.5 million TikTok followers, compared with Alix’s 5.9 million and 8.7 million, respectively—her cultural momentum has accelerated since the show’s premiere. CreatorIQ data shared by Alex Rawitz, the company’s Director of Research and Insights, shows that posts mentioning Ashtin generally peaked in volume, earned media value, and engagement on September 4, while impressions surged two days earlier. “But [Ashtin’s] numbers have hung around ever since, and they're starting to rise again. This sets the stage really well for [brands about to work with Ashtin]” Rawitz said. According to data from Social Blade, in the last 14 days, Ashtin has gained approximately 182,000 Instagram followers and 200,000 TikTok followers.
“There hasn’t been another Alix since Alix,” said one CMO who is in the midst of negotiations with the younger Earle sister.
The CMO identified the arrival of TikTok Shop in the US in September 2023 as a turning point. “TikTok used to produce a ton of rising influencers, and people would be able to [quickly] gain traction and become very watched and followed on the platform. In the early days, we saw that with Charli D’Amelio and Addison Rae—and now we haven’t seen it since Alix,” she said.
Breaking through becomes more difficult, the CMO argued, when Shop promotions occupy a significant portion of users’ feeds. Of course, TikTok also has a financial incentive to emphasize commerce: TikTok Shop generated $980 million in US beauty sales during the second quarter of 2026 alone. And, according to Capital One Shopping Research, US consumers spent $15.82 billion on the platform in 2025, and that figure is projected to exceed $30 billion this year.
And as TikTok produces fewer broadly recognizable breakout personalities, brands are increasingly looking to television, particularly reality television, for talent with built-in cultural momentum.
To name just a few recent examples: In September, Sephora partnered with Maura Higgins ahead of her Dancing with the Stars debut. Over the summer, Maybelline partnered with Love Island USA Season 8 to launch its Lifter Gel Lip Oil collection through in-app glam rooms, shade-matching features, and exclusive TikTok Shop bundles. And earlier in the year, RoC tapped original The Real Housewives of New York City cast members Bethenny Frankel, Ramona Singer, and Sonja Morgan for a campaign.
“Brands now have to be really mindful of who they work with and when. It's not just ‘Oh, let me work with X person because they have a lot of followers.’ … Yes, you should work with someone who has followers, and great engagement, and a ton of comments. But timing becomes important. So that's where someone like Ashtin is interesting because she's currently got a show that the internet is pushing,” the CMO said.
On Monday, September 21, Ashtin will become the latest face of MACzine, MAC’s digital editorial platform. Although Earle Meets World was not the sole reason the brand selected her, the show provided “an exciting added layer of cultural relevance,” MAC Global Creative Director Nicola Formichetti told BeautyMatter; though, he said, “We were already excited about Ashtin for our September skin story.”
The September issue of MACzine highlights the brand’s new Studio Radiance Skin Tint Stick. “Her beauty and style feel cool, effortless, and fresh, which perfectly reflects what the product delivers. Most importantly, her affinity for MAC was already there, so the partnership felt incredibly authentic,” Formichetti said. He described the partnership as an organic extension of Ashtin’s existing relationship with MAC. She uses the brand’s products and was already a fan of its Lip Pencil in plum. “We had started building a relationship with her through some of our LA moments earlier this summer, including our Lustreglass Lip Tint event,” he said.
Of course, Earle’s current heightened visibility will contribute to the buzz MACzine generates at launch. “The timing ultimately unfolded naturally. [Ashtin is] entering an exciting new chapter through a cultural moment at the same time that we’re telling this new complexion story. It felt like the perfect opportunity to celebrate both, and that is what we love to do with our MACzine covers,” Formichetti said.
Pantene offers another example of a brand capitalizing on Ashtin’s growing visibility. The haircare company recently expanded its longtime relationship with Alix to include both sisters.
Pantene first partnered with Alix in 2024, after her organic post about using expired Pantene in the shower at her childhood home went viral. The brand is now teasing a December collection reveal through a commercial featuring both sisters, which ran during Earle Meets World for Netflix’s ad-supported viewers. “Alix, when she came into [the] Pantene [world], added all of this life with her fun, chaotic style of creating content. She wouldn't just be doing a ‘Get Ready With Me’ [alone]; she would be doing it with friends, like at midnight … And Ashtin is just naturally a part of [her] story, [she is also] in this world of people,” Marilyn Vennemayer, Brand Director at Pantene, told BeautyMatter.
By working with both sisters, Pantene can speak to their shared audience, while also giving each Earle girl a distinct story. When the collection is revealed at the end of the year, each sister will promote different products from the line.
Incorporating both Alix and Ashtin into brand content also means that Pantene is “reaching more unique consumers who have different hair types, backgrounds, interests, etc. Alix has been a great, broadly appealing and engaging advocate for the brand. And then, Ashtin brought in this layer of newness and freshness, and her perspective, which you see in the show,” said Sara Steinwart, also a Brand Director at Pantene.
The sisters’ relationship makes the partnership cohesive, but Pantene does not view them as interchangeable. “While they are obviously sisters and have this fantastic dynamic, their personalities are vastly different. And I think who they resonate with [is] also different,” Steinwart said.
Each sister is also on her own haircare journey. “They both have a super-high bar for wanting to have their hair look amazing for different reasons,” Vennemayer said. “Alix has her blonder, highlighted look [and has concerns about] hair damage and repair; Ashtin [wants to] maintain her natural beauty and [hair] health, [she wants to] get into modeling.”
Ultimately, brands’ interest in Ashtin speaks to a broader marketing shift, that is, if meaningful in how it impacts creative work, ultimately quite simple. The CMO summarized it best: “TikTok's not producing stars anymore, so brands are needing to get creative on who they work with and when.” Rather, they must identify personalities with authenticity, cultural momentum, and the potential to reach distinct audiences at precisely the right time. And that means Ashtin Earle’s moment is right this very second.
