Are We Anywhere Near Peak Lip Balm?

Laneige, originally known for its Water Sleeping Mask during the K-beauty wave of the 2010s, has become a lip leader. The Amorepacific-owned brand was early to recognise that the lip balm craze would only get crazier after the 2015 launch of its Lip Sleeping Mask, a juicy balm which became a hero product and kicked off an industry-wide period of lip premiumisation and innovation.

Shoppers have since flocked to every new variant: lip oil, lip tint, lip liner, lip gloss, lip glaze, lip contour, lip stain, and lip serum, and on and on. Laneige has kept up: In January, the brand introduced its fourth lip franchise, a group of “oil tints” inspired by different musical genres, from Disco Coral to Jazzy Jam.

Lip products have been driving growth in beauty for the past several years, thanks to endless iterations of balm and oil formulations combined with the increasing hybridisation of skincare and colour. (Even haircare brands, like Gisou and Morrocanoil, have lip offerings.) With its relatively low “opening” price point, “lip is an easy way to acquire new clients,” said Sunia Pervez, a former senior merchant at Sephora and the founder of the The SP Collective.

In 2025, prestige makeup grew 4 percent, anchored largely by lip products and the ongoing “skinification” trend, according to a Circana report. But growth has moderated. In first quarter 2026, prestige lip sales increased just one percent compared to the same quarter last year; mass sales were up two percent. There has been a shift in what’s popular: the “all other lip” category, a segment that encompasses tinted lip treatments that aren’t balms or oils, was the “top gainer” with 57 percent growth. Lip colour is up seven percent.

In such a crowded category, guaranteed growth is farther from certain. “I’ve seen in the numbers that there has definitely been cannibalisation, not only across brands but even within existing brands who play in lip [and across their] own collections,” said Cassie Cowman, co-founder and partner at beauty advisory firm View From 32.

Blurred Lines

One of the consequences of the proliferating lip category is that consumers are less brand-loyal than ever. As more labels enter the fray, one way to keep fans coming back is to offer more colours, flavours or textures. Collectibility is a purchase driver — Laneige consumers “are obsessed to line up all their little jars, all the little soldiers,” said Julien Bouzitat, senior vice president of prestige at Amorepacific US.

But it also risks causing product fatigue. “All those competitive launches, supported by social media, contribute to overwhelming the consumer,” he said. Consumers now expect greater innovation in their lip products at lightning speed: Bouzitat noted that last year’s Laneige launches, like its viral Glaze Craze peptide balms, would sustain interest for three to four months. Now that’s contracted to three to six weeks, though he acknowledged it is a bit “self-inflicted” due to the brand’s packed launch schedule.

The bet for skincare brands like Laneige is that a lip product will convert a customer to a brand’s more expensive facial offerings. Bouzitat said that while lip products do “bridge” consumers to buy its skincare, it is actively trying to “rebalance our portfolio” in that direction. But that doesn’t always work, said Cowman, who cited Fresh Sugar Lip Treatment’s rise and crash in the 2010s as a cautionary tale.

Instead, brands are continuing to innovate around lip products that can be used together. Pairing experiments that combine products from different brands for unique looks are popular on TikTok, said Pervez. Expanding into new lip categories made sense to Summer Fridays, which was the number one prestige lip brand in the US last year per Yipit data, and one of the earliest skincare brands to signal to other skincare purveyors that it was lucrative with its hit Lip Butter Balms.

In February 2026, the brand launched lip liners and lip stains; the stains sold out the first week. “People were using a stain and a Lip Butter Balm over it, which doesn’t cannibalise Lip Butter Balm, because it’s something you can use together,” said Marianna Hewitt, cofounder of Summer Fridays.

What’s New and Breaking Through

Summer Fridays is on to something. Lip liner sales were up 33 percent in prestige and up double digits in mass in the first quarter of the year per Circana. And stains are on fire. “The searches are skyrocketing,” said Cowman. On Amazon, Wonderskin’s and Sacheu’s peel-off lip stains hold the top two spots on the “lip makeup” bestseller list, even if consumer reviews and ratings on stains are lower than average.

Multifunctional products, what Cowman called “balms on steroids,” are also resonating. It’s no longer enough to just say your product is hydrating. Eadem, whose tinted peptide lip balms tout exfoliating benefits and plumping, has seen an over 650 percent increase in popularity on search and social media in the past year, according to Spate. Lip serum popularity is also up over 180 percent, with brands offering vitamin C, hyaluronic acid and even retinol-like ingredients in their products. Longevity brand Oneskin just released a tinted SPF “lip shield,” Maed’s entire brand proposition is set up as a multi-step lip skincare routine, and Dr. Idriss offers a “lip basting duo,” comprised of gentle AHA to exfoliate the skin before applying a balm.

In lip colour right now, it’s a “free for all,” said Pervez. Colour is also multi-tasking more than ever. Kulfi and K-beauty brand Nooni, thanks to their respective lip oil stains that fit all the buzzwords and benefits into one product, are both up over 550 percent in popularity per Spate. Haus Labs just relaunched its formerly-viral Atomic Shake longwear glossy lip lacquer, featuring “marine algae extract.”

So where does old-fashioned lipstick fit in? Pervez sees MAC’s entrance into Sephora as a potential nostalgic gateway back to classic lipstick, as is Pat McGrath Labs’ dual-ended lip liner and lipstick, the brand’s first launch since its new ownership deal. But in the meantime, “blurring” products, heavily influenced by K-beauty trends, might be the bridge back to lipstick for younger customers who don’t remember the heyday of the lip kit.

Celebrity makeup artist Nina Park gained fame thanks in part to her signature “blurred lipstick” technique that has been worn on actresses Emma Stone and Greta Lee. Merit calls its blurring lipstick Lip Blush. Violette_Fr offers multiple SKUs with unique formulations that offer a smudgy, bitten look that doesn’t require much precision. Bigger brands, from YSL Beauté to L’Oréal Paris, released lip blurring colour products in the past few months.

Shoppers can probably expect even more lip options on the horizon. “Brands are just having such FOMO with each other,” said Cowman. “It’s like, ‘Oh my god, if I don’t have a lip product, how am I even in the conversation today?’”