The beauty industry has largely treated TikTok Shop as a Gen Z growth engine, but the team at Laura Geller Beauty is proving that demographic may not be the only winning consumer on the platform.
The 29-year-old brand, which built its business serving women 40 and older long before “mature beauty” became a trending category, spent much of 2025 ranked at #2 in TikTok Shop’s makeup category. Even as competition intensifies and rankings shift, the brand has remained in TikTok Shop’s top 10 while continuing to see “strong double, triple-digit comps week over week, and are on track to double our sales from last year,” according to Gladys Castro-Rezabek, Laura Geller Beauty’s VP of E-commerce, Social, and Live Commerce.
What makes Laura Geller’s performance particularly notable is who is driving it: Women over 40 account for the majority of Laura Geller Beauty’s TikTok Shop audience. In a social commerce ecosystem largely optimized around Gen Z and ever-evolving trend cycles, the brand has quietly built one of the platform’s most effective conversion engines by doing almost the opposite.
“We've never been a brand that's chasing after Gen Z. We’re very true to our customer,” Castro-Rezabek said.
That strategy has become the foundation for what looks like a repeatable TikTok Shop playbook for beauty brands targeting underserved consumers.
The brand first began seeing signs of momentum and a spike in sales in mid-2025 after its Jelly Balm lip product unexpectedly went viral. The moment confirmed that the customer Laura Geller Beauty spent years building around was already active on TikTok—and buying.
“From [that moment], we saw the benefit of building our own internal [TikTok] strategy and playbook,” Castro-Rezabek told BeautyMatter.
That playbook Castro-Rezabek is referring to borrows more from the live-shopping retailer QVC than from traditional influencer marketing. Laura Geller Beauty has deep roots in television retail, and much of its TikTok Shop strategy mirrors the mechanics that made live shopping successful years before social commerce existed: real-time demonstrations, education-led selling, routine-based merchandising, and personality-driven trust.
As a result and as part of its TikTok Shop brand ambassador strategy, the brand recently tapped Amber Milt, the Director of Education and backup on-air host for Laura Geller Beauty on QVC. “Building around showing how real women are using the products and how they perform in real time, textures, finishes—all of those things are things that [Milt] was doing on QVC already,” Castro-Rezabek said, adding, “So it was easy for us to adapt it onto the TikTok platform.”
Laura Geller’s affiliate network now has over 20,000 creators, and while creators with larger followings matter, it isn’t always a priority when selecting collaborators for the brand. In fact, Castro-Rezabek says relatability is the secret sauce when looking for the ideal Laura Geller affiliate.
“Some of our strongest affiliates have 10,000 to 16,000 followers,” she said. “Ultimately, we’re looking for an affiliate that we can partner with that's authentic to our customer.”
Rather than polished creators driving aspiration, Laura Geller found success with women who resemble the brand’s actual consumer and can speak credibly to her concerns:wrinkles, texture, complexion changes, and accessibility.
That emphasis on authenticity has become particularly important as TikTok Shop’s affiliate economy matures. According to NielsenIQ, nearly as many buyers aged 55 and older (34.5%) shop TikTok's beauty category as those aged 18-34 (35.4%). During Cyber Week 2025, Gen X accounted for 33% of beauty sales.
Laura Geller also invests heavily in affiliate enablement. It hosts creator webinars (virtual and IRL), maintains direct communication channels with affiliates, and works closely with creators on education and product feedback. According to Castro-Rezabek, some creators who started small have now driven six-figure sales for the brand.
“[Our affiliates] have become an extension of our team,” Castro-Rezabek said.
The strategy reflects a broader shift happening across TikTok Shop: Creators are increasingly functioning less like traditional influencers and more like distributed sales associates.
Education has also shaped how the brand approaches merchandising, but rather than focusing primarily on hero SKUs, Laura Geller heavily prioritizes bundles, which now account for more than 50% of its TikTok Shop business.
The strategy reflects a key insight about the brand’s consumer: Many shoppers are either new to makeup or returning to makeup after years away and looking for guidance around their changing beauty needs. The TikTok Shop-exclusive bundles serve as an entry point or re-entry to the brand.
“What bundles offer to her is not just [an attractive] price point … they're also giving her a full routine,” Castro-Rezabek said. “And when you layer on how the affiliates and creators educate her and show her how to apply the product, it makes it that much more accessible,” she added.
For older consumers, TikTok Shop has become less about impulse purchases and more about education-driven shopping. Consumers can watch creators demonstrate products, learn how to use them, and purchase them all within the same experience—something that resonates strongly with mature shoppers looking for trust and practicality over trends.
The brand’s live-shopping strategy has also evolved. Laura Geller now streams between 18 and 20 hours weekly through an in-house studio operation featuring dedicated hosts, freelancers, creators, and brand talent. During TikTok Shop’s recent Super Brand Day, Laura Geller Beauty expanded its live programming with celebrity appearances and participation from Laura Geller herself.
But the brand increasingly sees live shopping as more than just sales events.
“There’s nothing better than seeing some of the comments when we introduce a product,” Castro-Rezabek said. “You get a little bit of a gauge of how it might perform.”
The feedback loop has helped legacy products find new life on the platform. Earlier this year, the brand saw traction around its Bold Beauty Kajal Duo after a creator unexpectedly accelerated sales.
“It was from an affiliate who was not our top affiliate, but within two weeks [of the viral post], she's now within our top three,” Castro-Rezabek said.
Operationally, the brand says merchandising discipline has been just as important as content strategy.
“Assortment has been very important and making sure we're staying in stock—going back to merchandising 101, right product, right time, right inventory—to ensure we have that velocity for scale,” Castro-Rezabek said. “Then you can layer on your ad and your spend and make sure you're balancing all of that as needed. But right now, our affiliates are still driving the majority of our revenue.”
That operational focus may ultimately be what separates sustainable TikTok Shop businesses from temporary viral wins. While many brands still frame TikTok Shop primarily as an acquisition tool, Laura Geller increasingly sees it as a meaningful growth channel with halo effects across DTC and Amazon.
At the same time, the brand credits TikTok itself as a strategic collaborator. The brand has weekly meetings and check-ins with TikTok reps. Laura Geller was recently named TikTok Shop’s Creators’ Pick Brand of the Year—an award based on creator sentiment rather than sales performance—and was selected for TikTok Shop’s Super Brand Day programming, where top-performing brands on the platform offer massive discounts, TikTok Shop-exclusive product drops, and limited-time giveaways.
Ultimately, Laura Geller’s success reveals a broader blind spot in how the beauty industry views social commerce. The assumption that older consumers are disengaged from digital discovery no longer reflects reality, particularly as platforms increasingly merge entertainment, education, and purchasing into a single behavior loop.
“[Mature consumers] have been the underserved … but that’s changing,” Castro-Rezabek said.
For brands trying to crack TikTok Shop, Laura Geller’s growth offers a useful reframing of the platform. Winning may have less to do with chasing Gen Z trends and more to do with understanding a consumer deeply enough to build infrastructure, education, and creator ecosystems around their needs.
