Why Rare Beauty Became a Billion-Dollar Brand: The Consumer Psychology Behind Shared Values

Every few years another celebrity launches a beauty company, and almost immediately people begin debating whether it's any good.

It's a fair question because the market is saturated. Every year another actor, musician, or influencer introduces a new skincare line, another lipstick collection, another serum that's supposed to change everything. Some disappear almost as quickly as they launch. Others become billion-dollar businesses.

I've always found that interesting because most of us aren't cosmetic chemists. We don't know whether one foundation is objectively better than another. We haven't tested every concealer on the market. Yet within a surprisingly short amount of time, we all seem to arrive at the same conclusion about certain brands. We decide which ones feel authentic, which ones feel opportunistic, and which ones we'll happily recommend to a friend.

In July, Rare Beauty expanded into more than 1,300 Ulta Beauty stores nationwide while launching its first liquid foundation in forty-eight shades. During the same week, Selena Gomez received the Excellence in Beauty Philanthropy Award after Rare Beauty's commitment to donate one percent of sales to mental health initiatives surpassed $30 million.

The success of Rare Beauty demonstrates something consumer psychologists have understood for decades: people are naturally drawn to brands that reflect and reinforce the values they already hold. Shared values create familiarity, familiarity creates trust, and over time, that trust becomes advocacy.

The question is why.

Why We Naturally Trust Brands That Reflect Our Own Values

Think about the people you've been friends with the longest. If you traced those relationships back to the beginning, chances are they didn't start because you both liked the same coffee shop or rooted for the same football team. Those things may have given you something to talk about, but they probably aren't what built the relationship. More often than not, the connection grew because you discovered something much deeper. You shared similar beliefs about family, work, integrity, generosity, ambition, or simply how people should treat one another.

Those shared values created trust long before they created loyalty.

One of the biggest misconceptions about branding is that consumers choose products after comparing features, pricing, reviews, and benefits. Of course those things matter, but they usually come much later in the decision-making process than we like to admit. Human beings are constantly trying to make sense of the world around them, and one of the ways we do that is by looking for patterns. We pay attention to what people consistently say, consistently do, consistently support, and consistently avoid. Over time, those observations become expectations, and those expectations become the lens through which we make our decisions about them.

Psychologists have been studying this behavior for decades.

One of the most widely accepted explanations is Social Identity Theory, which suggests that a portion of our identity comes from the groups we belong to and the values those groups represent. Whether it's our profession, our community, our political party, our favorite sports team, or even the brands we choose to wear, people naturally gravitate toward things that reinforce how they see themselves. Those choices are expressions of identity.

Closely related is Self-Congruity Theory, which proposes that consumers are more attracted to brands whose personalities and values are consistent with their own self-image or the person they aspire to become. In other words, we don't just buy products because they solve a problem. We often buy them because they help us express something about ourselves.

When you look at branding through that lens, shared values become much more than a marketing message. They become psychological signals. They help consumers answer a question they rarely ask out loud but are constantly evaluating:

"Are these people like me?"

And that question has very little to do with makeup.

Why Rare Beauty Speaks to Mental Health and Inclusivity

This is where I think Rare Beauty becomes such a perfect case study. 

When celebrities expand into new business ventures, they aren't simply launching another company. They're extending a personal brand people have been getting to know for years. Consumers expect that same identity to carry into every new venture because that's how trust is built. If the values suddenly change, the disconnect is difficult to ignore.

Long before Rare Beauty existed, Selena Gomez had built a public identity rooted in vulnerability, mental health, and inclusivity. Those weren't themes introduced to help sell makeup. They had been part of her relationship with her audience for years.

She spoke openly about anxiety, depression, lupus, and the emotional toll of growing up in front of millions of people. She publicly discussed receiving treatment for her mental health, later revealed her bipolar diagnosis, and consistently used her platform to encourage more honest conversations around emotional well-being. She executive produced 13 Reasons Why, a series that sparked conversations around adolescent mental health. She later released the documentary My Mind & Me, giving audiences an unusually personal look at her own struggles, and co-founded Wondermind, a company dedicated entirely to making conversations about mental fitness more accessible.

When Rare Beauty committed one percent of all sales to mental health organizations, it didn't feel like a cause selected by a marketing department because it was already true to the larger brand it was built upon: Selena Gomez. It was a natural extension of the person behind it. The same was true of inclusivity. Rare Beauty's philosophy that beauty isn't about perfection wasn't confined to advertising copy. It influenced product development, campaign imagery, and eventually the launch of a foundation available in forty-eight shades. Each decision reinforced values consumers had already come to associate with Selena Gomez.

This is how shared values become brand identity.

Not because a company writes them into a mission statement, but because they're the core identifiers consumers come to associate with the brand over time. Every interview, every partnership, every product launch, every philanthropic initiative, and every public statement becomes another piece of evidence helping them decide whether a company's actions consistently reflect the values it claims to hold.

How Shared Values Compound Over Time

Think about somebody you've known for twenty years. Over time, you've come to understand what they value. You know the kinds of decisions they're likely to make because you've watched them make  similar choices over and over again. If they suddenly behaved in a way that completely contradicted those values, it wouldn't just surprise you. You'd start wondering what changed.

The same thing happens in our relationship with brands, both personal and product-based.

Once consumers begin identifying with a company's values, they naturally expect future decisions to reinforce them. That's why every partnership, product launch, philanthropic initiative, and public statement matters. Each one either strengthens the identity consumers have come to associate with the brand or begins to challenge it.

That's also why certain product launches, marketing campaigns, or brand extensions feel authentic while others feel performative.

Consumers aren't simply asking whether they agree with a company's latest message. They're asking whether that message is consistent with everything they've already come to believe about the brand. If those values have been demonstrated repeatedly over time, the new decision feels believable. If those values appear only when they're convenient, trust begins to erode.

This is what I mean when I say branding compounds over time. Every decision that reinforces the same identity builds on the one before it and makes everything associated with it stronger. Instead of asking consumers to learn who you are with every new product or venture, you're reinforcing beliefs they've already formed. Brand equity compounds, and much like investing, the greatest returns don't come from starting over every year. They come from building on the equity you've already created.

Why Shared Values Become Your Greatest Differentiator

This is also why shared values become one of the strongest differentiators a brand can have.

Products, pricing, and packaging can be copied and matched. But shared values create something much more difficult to replicate: a true identity.

That's why two brands selling nearly identical products can occupy completely different positions in the marketplace. Consumers aren't choosing between products. They're choosing between identities that represent different values.

I always tell my clients that I can’t create their brand; I only help them focus on the key components that will make it connect with their audience. Branding has never been about inventing an identity. It's about pinpointing the values you've been communicating all along, packaging them in a specific way, and reinforcing them consistently enough that they become unmistakable. That's what creates differentiation. And that's why shared values remain one of the few competitive advantages your competitors can't simply copy.

The Psychology Behind Rare Beauty's Success

Rare Beauty did not become a billion-dollar brand because Selena Gomez is famous. Neither did Rhode by Hailey Bieber or Kylie Cosmetics.

Fame may have introduced consumers to the brand, but fame alone has never been enough to build a lasting business. We've seen too many celebrity brands disappear to believe otherwise.

Rare Beauty succeeded because consumers already recognized themselves in the values Selena Gomez had been communicating for years. The brand wasn't introducing a new identity. It was extending one they already understood and trusted.

Social Identity Theory tells us that people naturally gravitate toward individuals and brands that reinforce their own values and sense of self. Self-Congruity Theory explains why consumers prefer brands that reflect who they believe they are, or who they aspire to become.

Rare Beauty didn't create those psychological connections. It inherited them from the personal brand it was built upon. Years of consistently reinforcing those shared values transformed familiarity into trust, and trust into the kind of advocacy that marketing budgets alone simply can't buy.

Curious what values your audience actually associates with your brand?

Our Personal Brand Assessment evaluates your messaging, positioning, online presence, and trust signals to identify whether your identity is helping your marketing or quietly working against it.

Learn more about the Personal Brand Assessment