Rhode Lays Out Path to $1B in Sales: Global Expansion & Innovation

After being acquired by E.l.f. Beauty in a deal valued at $1 billion in May 2025, Rhode has its sights firmly set on achieving sales at that same number.

“We’re a pretty young business, and we’re pacing nicely to get to be the fastest beauty brand to a billion dollars in global net sales,” said Nick Vlahos, the CEO of Rhode, which was founded by Hailey Bieber, in an interview.

Last week, E.l.f. said its net sales surged 51 percent to $520.8 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2027 ended Sept. 30, compared with the same period a year earlier. While it didn’t break out Rhode’s sales for the quarter, chairman and CEO Tarang Amin said the brand’s record-breaking expansion into Sephora North America and Europe was a big contributor to growth.

The last time Rhode’s sales were made public was during E.l.f.’s first-quarter earnings call when CFO Mandy Fields said it contributed approximately $160 million in sales. For reference, Rhode achieved $212 million in net sales in the full year preceding the acquisition.

Vlahos, meanwhile, disclosed that total net sales have exceeded $500 million over the last 12 months as of June 2026.

According to Amin, Rhode’s launch into Sephora Europe, into 19 countries — the biggest launch Sephora has ever seen — is the first time Sephora Europe actually beat Sephora North America.

Vlahos expanded that he is seeing a lot of momentum in all 19 countries post-launch.

“You hear a lot of brands that do well from an introduction standpoint and they get off the ground, but what gives us confidence is we’re seeing within the data strong repeat across the portfolio, and it’s repeat not just in one segment. We see our lip business, our skin business, and our hybrid color business performing within those 19 markets really well,” he said. “What we’ve captured in Sephora when we look at the data, and this goes towards even North America because we always get the question around, ‘Hey, you’ve been in North America now for over a year, how’s repeat looking,’ and the data set that we see is within 12 out of the 13 Sephora segments that we compete in we’re number one or two.”

He was quick to stress, though, that DTC remains a strong and key part of the brand, using the example of a sun-kissed collection exclusive to this channel. “That was a record-breaking launch: $27 million in one day, 70 percent of those consumers that bought that day were repeat customers. But what was really interesting is 90,000 consumers that day were new to Rhode. Even while being in retail, people are still just discovering the business.”

Back to international, there’s still a lot more ground to cover. In addition to North America, the 19 European countries and the U.K., Rhode is also in Australia and New Zealand via Mecca.

“Around 74 percent of Rhode’s social following is outside of the U.S., and now being in 19 European countries, what we find is we’re still only in about 40 percent of Sephora global doors,” said Vlahos. “We have a very measured approach around expansion over the next few years, as we continue to be strategic around where we go. We’re not interested in just putting products everywhere within the market. We want to be strategic to be where our consumers are, where our community sits, and where we’re able to do it in a way where we can create the theater in-store — how the products show up, how they look.”

This expansion has been helped greatly by being part of a bigger company. “When we were independent, we had two facilities that would have to service both retail as well as our direct-to-consumer customers. Now, being part of the E.l.f. network, we have in total roughly nine facilities,” continued Vlahos.

In terms of category expansion and product portfolio, he describes Bieber as “a designer, an architect, and a taste maker” who, from an innovation perspective, is at the forefront when it comes to anticipating where consumer sentiment is going. A key part of this has been wearables, which started with the phone case.

“Wearables have become a bigger deal within the market, and we introduced a collaboration with Alexandra Leclerc that was a precursor to our European launch, which consisted of our mini version of pocket blushes, and then we had accessories — the keychain accessory where you can connect the pocket blush as well as some limited-edition lip tints,” he said, noting that that collab had a waitlist of over 200,000 and sold out of most items within the first hour. “It was our largest limited-edition launch in our company history, and again shows the ability to continue to drive our direct-to-consumer business.”

More innovation is on its way. “You’re going to see additional innovation coming from us across different segments, so that’s going to be the number-one priority and that’s important to Hailey.”

As for how big Rhode can scale in the next few years, Vlahos believes the world is its oyster.

“As we look out over the next year, two years, we’re going to continue to accelerate from a business perspective. We’ve got best-in-class products when you look at what we’re doing from a lip perspective, from a skin perspective, and now hybrid color. You see a really nice mix within the portfolio, and why we believe we’ll continue the momentum,” said Vlahos.