On TikTok Shop, beauty brands are booming, but which purveyors of cosmetic items are doing the most business? That’s one of the questions Charm.io looked to answer in a recent report on TikTok Shop sellers.
The ecommerce intelligence platform revealed that the top 25 best-selling beauty brands on TikTok Shop collectively generated $512.8 million in revenue during a year-long period that ended in June 2026. Overall, beauty sales are booming on TikTok’s commercial hub. During the second quarter of 2026, the gross merchandise value (GMV) of beauty sales on TikTok Shop reached $980 million. That represented a year-over-year increase of 82%.
Amid that spending spree, the big winners are K-beauty brands. South Korea’s top exports include Medicube, which recorded $62.8 million of GMV during Q2 2026, and Dr. Melaxin, which posted a quarterly GMV of $38.8 million.
Dr. Melaxin ranked first in Charm.io’s rundown of the best-selling indie beauty brands on TikTok Shop over the past year. During that period, the skincare purveyor generated $142.2 million of revenue.
The list of TikTok Shop beauty faves is impressive, but it’s also top-heavy. The top five indie brands on Charm.io’s year-long beauty ranking accounted for more than half of the total sales volume accumulated by all the listed sellers.
Zooming out beyond the beauty category, we see an even starker divide between the haves and have-nots. A Momentum Works report produced in collaboration with Tabcut found that about half of the 803,500 TikTok Shop stores in the U.S. recorded no sales in 2025. On the flipside, more than 2,000 of those sellers registered more than $1 million of annual GMV. And among 851,000 TikTok Shop affiliates, fewer than 300 reached seven-digit sales figures.
A piece published in Inc surmises that marketing explains the inequality of TikTok Shop beauty sales. Interfacing with creators and participating in the affiliate pipeline requires significant front-end investments, so established brands like Medicube and Dr. Melaxin are best positioned to haul in sales.
“The brands scaling on the platform are arriving with resources already in place, whether that’s an established marketing budget or a parent company covering the ramp period, not starting cold,” reads the piece. “That’s worth remembering before treating the platform as an equalizer.”
As for everyone else? It might be time to check out Whatnot. On the live-streaming shopping platform, beauty has become a big category, according to eMarketer. The digital marketing data firm recently revealed that 28% of all livestream shoppers have purchased beauty or skincare products.
Since those items often require demos, they’re a good fit for a platform like Whatnot. Interactive elements have helped a beauty seller called Theboyzzz cultivate a strong following on Whatnot.
“What makes beauty a different category than most is that it’s very testimonial based,” said Theboyzzz Co-Founder Merik Smith told eMarketer. “We let [hosts] play around with a bunch of different items, like skincare and makeup.”
Overall, for beauty brands selling on social media, the line continues to go up. At the same time, sellers must consider where and how they hawk their products. Not every platform fits every brand, and as TikTok Shop revenue starts to plateau, being choosy will pay off.
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