TikTok has become a key online sales platform for beauty with $2.6bn in sales in the US across skincare, makeup, fragrance and haircare over the last twelve months according to data from Charm.io.
And it’s not only brands that have started selling on the platform but now also retailers with Ulta launching on TikTok Shop in March 2026 and Sephora more recently in September 2026.
In September 2026 they respectively generated $487K for Ulta and $888K for Sephora. On paper Sephora sales are impressive given that it only launched on September 19th and still made nearly twice as much as Ulta. However, Sephora sales entirely relied on a few products with the top 5 best selling products generating 99.4% of sales versus 26.0% for Ulta. Sephora’s top 2 best selling products actually generated 96.5% of sales and both were seasonal sets: the SEPHORA COLLECTION Advent Calendar with 87.4% of sales and the point of view. holiday vault with 9.1% of sales. Moreover 16 of Sephora’s 42 SKUs sold on TikTok in September 16 did not make any sale. Therefore, it will be interesting to see how Sephora continues to perform on TikTok beyond this viral launch driven by seasonal products.
On the contrary Ulta sales were more balanced with its bestselling product the Squishmallows Try ‘Em All Fragrance Set contributing to 6.0% of its sales. In terms of sales value by category makeup comes first at 55%, followed by perfume at 28%, skincare at 14% and haircare at only 2%. Interestingly Sephora only sells skincare, makeup and bundles such as it advent calendar for now and no perfume or haircare.
Both retailers being new to the platform it is still too early to know if TikTok, beyond giving them visibility and potentially driving traffic to their stores, could become a meaningful separate sales channel for them. To put things in perspective Ulta online sales were estimated at $1.2bn in 2025 compared to $1.4m on TikTok Shop since its launch in March in 2026.
