Inside Salish Matter’s sold-out (and shut down) Sephora launch

Jordan Matter, the self-proclaimed “oldest guy on YouTube,” expected a few thousand people to show up to his daughter Salish’s teen skincare brand launch.

Instead, a reported ~87,000 people packed into New Jersey’s American Dream mall Sept. 6, hoping to see Salish in person and be some of the first to get their hands on Sincerely Yours products, which are being sold at Sephora. The event was supposed to run from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. EST, and the first 100 people in line were promised they’d receive either a meet-and-greet with Salish or a limited-edition Sincerely Yours sweatshirt.

The Publish Press reports that by 7 a.m. on launch day, the mall had already reached capacity, with 10,000 people waiting in a secondary overflow venue and 2,000 in line at the mall’s Sephora location. Jordan and Salish went onstage in the mall’s main atrium, documenting the appearance in a livestream titled THE SCARIEST DAY OF MY LIFE!

If the reported number is correct, that means Salish–who’s 15 and has been the face of 58-year-old Jordan’s channel for several years now–drew more people to American Dream than both James Charles‘ Morphe lauch in 2018, and MrBeast‘s Beast Burger brick-and-mortar opening in 2022. (Charles, by the way, is an investor in Sincerely Yours.)

Police were called to the event, and American Dream ended up shuttering it early, citing safety concerns. Jordan and Salish were prevented from addressing fans, leading to complaints from people calling the launch “completely unorganized [and] unsafe.”

“We signed up, got tickets and they were never scanned because it was open to everyone,” one attendee wrote on TikTok. “So deceiving! She came out briefly and we could barely see her.”

As for American Dream, it told People, “Today’s event saw an incredible turnout, once again proving the power of American Dream and our partnerships with iconic influencers. Although the massive attendance did impact the original schedule, Salish was still able to connect with many of her fans in person and through her on-stage performance.”

Organizational challenges aside, the sheer amount of people who showed up at the event have pushed it beyond our industry and into mainstream news, getting Salish the kind of media attention you normally only see for major names like MrBeast and Kai Cenat. And while career photographer-turned-YouTuber Jordan has cultivated a significant audience around Salish with will-they-won’t-they videos about her love life and (scripted) wacky teen adventures, she’s not as well-known as MrBeast or Cenat outside the digital video ecosphere, making this an interesting case study.

Jordan tells us the idea for Sincerely Yours “really started with Salish. As a teenager, she was searching for skincare that actually worked for her age group–something clean, simple, and designed for Gen Z.” After realizing there was “a huge gap in the market, we decided to create it together,” he adds.

About the American Dream shutdown, he commented on the crowd being “so big,” and said, “What meant the most to us was seeing how much love and support our fans brought with them, connecting with them is always the highlight of everything we do.”

The Matters’ team wouldn’t disclose revenue from the launch, but said all product sold out within an hour. Sincerely Yours’ items are priced under $30, in keeping with its tween/teen target demos’ wallet sizes.

A longtime creator cosmetics industry expert tells us they would expect a launch of that anticipated size to have around $50,000 worth of product available.

Sincerely Yours is currently selling online at Sephora.