e.l.f. Beauty chose prestige-grade quality over lowest price — 23 quarters up (interview)

What was changed

In Fortune's Leadership Next podcast (published February 12, 2025), CEO Tarang Amin — e.l.f.'s first non-founder leader, then 11 years in the role — described the biggest change he made at the company founded in 2004 to sell $1 cosmetics online. e.l.f. was historically very focused on very low prices, he said; it realized it could take inspiration from the best of prestige and from its community, drive quality up, and take prices up while keeping phenomenal value. Its Halo Glow Liquid Filter retails at $14 against a prestige equivalent at about $44; the average e.l.f. price is about $6.50.

Amin paired the pricing shift with distribution — at the time only in Target, then expanding to Ulta Beauty and Walmart and going global — and with community-led marketing. In 2019, after his CMO pushed TikTok, the brand composed its own 'Eyes. Lips. Face.' song and hashtag challenge, which drew around 2 billion views with no celebrity fees. It became what he called probably the first beauty brand with its own Twitch channel, after noticing about 70% of its consumers play or watch gaming, and built a Roblox experience that just passed 20 million visits.

Results he cited on the episode: e.l.f. is the number one unit share brand in US color cosmetics and number two in dollar share; Power Grip Primer is the number one SKU in all of color cosmetics; and the company has stacked 23 straight quarters of growth, a streak the hosts also cited.

Why it worked

Capping everything at the lowest price left value on the table; prestige-inspired quality let e.l.f. raise prices while still undercutting prestige by a wide margin.

Amin argued younger consumers learn beauty online and want prestige-level quality at a fraction of the price, which fits a brand positioned between drugstore and department store.

The employee base mirrors the customer — 74% women, 75% Gen Z or millennial, 44% diverse — so product reviews Amin runs every other week surface insights fast.

Living where the community lives (TikTok, Twitch, Roblox) keeps marketing cheap: the 2019 song earned billions of views without paid celebrities.

What can be applied

A mass brand can close the quality gap with prestige and charge more for it, as long as quality moves first and the community it serves helps set the agenda.

Aftermath

The interview aired with the streak intact and tests ahead: hosts flagged impending tariffs and anti-DEI backlash — e.l.f.'s board is 70% women and 44% diverse — while Amin pointed to the Roblox milestone (20 million visits) and said the company keeps following its community onto each new platform.