Reporting live from the Age of Peptide Dominance and Celebrity-Backed Brands.
Review #11 - Rhode đ
What Is It
Rhode is âa line of curated skincare essentialsâ. Howâs that for a brand statement? The company is founded and creative directed by Hailey Rhode Bieber, model, influencer, and Wikipedia-certified socialite. She and her team of renowned dermatology & chemistry experts, formulate products with âhigh performance ingredientsâ intended to ânourish your skin barrier over timeâ.
Their goal is to create an entire skincare routine, rooted in science-backed, efficacious formulas, with a simplified and transparent narrative at an accessible price point. Before completely overhauling my routine (I was skeptical but also tempted!!), I decided to dip my toe into the Rhode skincare suite with their hero product, the Peptide Lip Treatment.
Brand / Aesthetic
Rhode is Hailey and Hailey is Rhode. The two are inextricably linked, both visually and conceptually. Sheâs been deemed a âformidable threatâ to the Kardashianâs once-supreme beauty and aesthetic empire, and praised for pioneering the âclean girl aestheticâ for a new era of âI woke up like thisâ.
My next association with Rhode is unbelievable photography. While the lifestyle photos are great and almost all centered around Hailey (although my favorite might be this shoot with Gabriette) I prefer their straight up product shots.
Somehow they capture both minimalism and maximalism in a relatively straightforward, common sense image. I never really understood the whole âpicture-worth-1000-wordsâ proverbial crap, but here I am, humbled. I guess you could venture to say Iâm now a Belieber?? Sorry, I couldnât help myself.
Actually, puns are on the table here, with quite a few present on their site.
Generally speaking, their copywriting is great. This isnât a new thought â few are these days, and Iâm cool with that â so if you want more background on the talented writers behind all of this glaze-centric language,
has it covered.As most are with Celebrands (I have a copyright in review, but nice try) these days, I went into this research project highly skeptical and ready to sniff out phoniness, Holden Caulfield style. But when I read through their site, everything changed and I became absolutely convinced that these products would solve all my problems and I should buy them, like, yesterday. There is one tagline, though, that I really canât get behind.
Rhode frequently comes back to this line, both on the site and socials, and it just isnât hitting for me. Iâm capisce on the concept itself, but I have to wonder *Carrie Bradshaw voice* there must be a way to communicate this more eloquently, right?
Their copy, and most of their existence, come to think of it, shines the brightest on social. OnwardsâŚ
Marketing
I would consider Rhode a social-forward brand. As you may recall, Hailey has made other brandsâ products sell out almost instantly from an ostensibly off-the-cuff TikTok, so it would be upsetting if Rhodeâs social presence wasnât top-tier.
Their Instagram content & engagement makes me want to believe in the algorithmâs preference for high production value once again, but alas, this is a false illusion when you remember the whole Hailey Bieber being a social media celebrity thing.
Itâs important to mention that I had a very cursory understanding of Hailey and her content. I knew she was a BFD online, but I never felt compelled to follow. In hindsight, Iâd chalk this up to my age, interests, and the, shall we say, impassioned conversation around the Hailey/Justin/Selena of it all. From what I can tell, she seems to have cast a magic spell on a specific sector of Gen Z Girlies, and the way she harnesses her influence is strategic and dare I say genius.
Iâm going to speak on behalf of the brand-nerd community when I say that Rhode is widely accepted as a Celebrand that makes sense. Haileyâs pre-Rhode content, specifically on YouTube, is largely beauty-related, save for the random cooking videos, so when she launched Rhode it was a no-brainer for anyone familiar with her schtick. In fact, I remember thinking how smart it was for her to create Rhode so she could finally start capitalizing on the power of her recommendations.
How naive of me, and perhaps you too, dear reader, because with a level of calculation only rivaled by Chief Mastermind Taylor Swift herself, this was all by design.
Story time! It all started with the Justin Bieber docu-series, Seasons, which was directed and produced by Michael Ratner and his studio, OBB. He and Hailey became friends, and eventually she approached him to help her launch her first đ brand. While they built out a team and tested products, Hailey leveraged his video production expertise and went in on the long-form beauty content. The GRWM videos and Whoâs in my Bathroom series strengthened an already-loyal fanbase while positioning her as a knowledgable, or at least experienced, skincare lover, and the fact that sheâd share real opinions about brands she was using (and helping them go viral as a byproduct) proved her authenticity. That way when Rhode finally launched, sheâd have the trust and credibility from followers and distant observers alike.
Hailey played the long game with the pre-launch hype â your week-long campaign of pixelated âsomethingâs comingâ grid posts could never.
Weâll fast forward through some C-Suite shakeups and trademark controversy to Rhodeâs current day existence. Naturally, vlogs are still an integral part of the brand, with a dedicated Rhode playlist on Haileyâs YouTube channel thatâs embedded on their site. Pure SEO genius. The Jeopardy outro music is playing in my head, so letâs wrap this up.
What I Think They Do Well
The food motif and its accompanying photography
theyâre consistent and the pics are fabulous
Quick and flashy campaigns
see the infamous Erewhon smoothie, the Krispy Kreme Strawberry Glaze situation, et al
Genuine activism
this is a whole thing that I donât have the time to go fully in depth on, but the give-back work that Rhode does feels real, unlike the performance from most other brands. Plus, I love everything Erica Chidi does.
Straddling the line between aspirational and accessible
high production value + under $30 products = Gen Z is foaming at the mouth
UGC
This is a non-issue given the above equation â their customers strive to be Rhode Girlies that emulate the aesthetic, giving them an endless bank of content that costs next to nothing
Influencer product testing
label-free formula testing is very smart for hype, influencer relations, and of course, actual product formulation
What They Donât Do So Well
The food motif
I know, I contradict myself! The aesthetics of the Y2K junk food look great and took that trend to new heights, but itâs misaligned with their mission of optimal skin health. Am I the only one whose periorial dermatitis flares up at the mere suggestion of sugar?!
Ingredient education on their website
Theyâve got good info in their reels about how peptides work but this seems useful for the PDP as well
Having products to sell
Theyâre constantly sold out of the lip tints in all flavors. Big miss, just ask the commenters.
IRL anything
theyâre not in retail (yet) and they rarely have any in person activations, save for the Coachella photo booth and other exclusive influencer events. Havenât you heard? The girlies are craving community!
Content, connections, and capital (wow, I am a tagline machine!) are no problem for Rhode, which leads us to our final question: is it any good?
Efficacy
The reviews make this product out to be Godâs gift, so by the time I got my product, I had high expectations.
My lips are very, very dry (how is she still single? you ask) and itâs fair to say that my apartment doubles as a lip product habitat, with each region home to a signature balm. So when Hailey promised me a âdreamy formulaâ that âworks hard to nourish and moisturize dry skinâ, I said, Iâll be the judge of that.
Iâm happy to report that she did not lie. This lip balm is actually really awesome. You can count me in as one of the 92% of consumers who said their lips felt soothed and protected from dryness. Words like ânourishâ and âmoisturizeâ are right on the money; I could almost feel the hydration happening in a matter of seconds after applying it.
Also, unlike other chapsticks, I didnât have to reapply this every hour like clockwork. Its lasting power speaks to it being a âtreatmentâ and not a balm, but it feels like a miss to not use verbiage like âlong-lastingâ more frequently in their marketing content. Just saying. Very efficacious, love the sleek tube design, minimal packaging waste: check, check, check.
*Note: Being the sensitive-skinned woman that I am, I played it safe and got the unscented flavor to avoid any possible irritation, although a salted caramel lip product is definitely intriguingâŚ
Overall Thoughts
The girls who earnestly loved watching the Victoriaâs Secret fashion shows are the same girls who love Rhode. They can also eat dairy without a stomach ache. Donât ask me to explain either, itâs a working theory. The standom runs deep, so Iâm treading lightly here.
The more time I spent deep-diving into Rhodeâs content, the more confused I felt about my opinion of it. Am I too old â and weird â for this brand? Or maybe I want to buy everything? The Peptide Lip Treatment is really worth all of the hype, and now that Iâve run out of my beloved Marie Veronique products, I could certainly be convinced to try the rest of Rhodeâs offerings.
The final conclusion: Rhode is ushering in a new generation of basic, in the best way possible. Oh, and itâs a damn shame that the stans arenât called Rhodies. If youâre listening Rhode, first oneâs free. đ
Rating: âď¸âď¸âď¸âď¸/5
In Other NewsâŚ
Spoke too soon, one more Rhode thing. Do we think theyâll make their retail debut in Sephora or Ulta?
Soft Services, a brand in my personal hall of fame, launched a new Buffing Bar.
Non-alc is entering the stratosphere.
Apparently Deux launched a new oatmeal cookie flavor. I wouldnât know since they blocked me on Instagram.
If youâre still considering the Oura ring after all that, itâs now available in Target. So is Acid League, too.
Thatâs all for now. If thereâs a product you want reviewed or just want to chat, reply to this email. :)
looks impeccable on my lips, leaves them drier than Sahara desert
TY for the Link in Bio shout out!