L'Oréal Paris tops UK social media beauty ranks with GBP £238.5m EMV
L'Oréal Paris has become the most talked-about beauty brand on UK social media, surpassing Charlotte Tilbury, according to the latest findings from influencer marketing platform Kolsquare.
Kolsquare's 2025 report analysed the performance of beauty brands across TikTok and Instagram in the UK, focusing on earned media value (EMV), engagement, and creator activity over the first half of the year.
Top ranking brands
L'Oréal Paris reached the top spot on both TikTok and Instagram, reporting GBP £238.5 million in EMV on TikTok, and GBP £28.6 million on Instagram. This result dethrones last year's leader, Charlotte Tilbury, in both categories. L'Oréal's performance was driven by 14,523 TikTok videos amassing 5.1 billion views, over 82 million engagements, and close to 13,000 Instagram posts contributed by thousands of creators.
Charlotte Tilbury, despite losing its #1 ranking, remains the UK's most prominent homegrown brand. It placed fourth on TikTok with GBP £102.7 million in EMV and second on Instagram with GBP £28,568,380. The brand maintains a strong relationship with Europe's influencer community, partnering with 15,113 Instagram influencers, which Kolsquare suggests as evidence of the brand's continuing global draw.
Trends across platforms
Kolsquare's rankings further identified other emerging trends. On TikTok, NYX Cosmetics retained its top place, while Huda Beauty advanced two positions to finish second. Notably, Made By Mitchell climbed from twelfth into the top ten, securing seventh, and NARS advanced four places to ninth.
The skincare sector remains a competitive arena, with CeraVe overtaking La Roche-Posay on TikTok to achieve GBP £107.4 million in EMV. Scandinavian label Ole Henriksen rose 67 positions to the top of Instagram's skincare category, and achieved a 7% engagement rate. Eborian led in engagement rates at 13.7%.
In haircare, Garnier achieved the highest TikTok ranking, but Kérastase led Instagram's haircare segment with GBP £14.663 million in EMV, collaborating with 702 influencers. Although Garnier partnered with more influencers and posted more content, Kérastase generated higher engagement, 4.9% compared with Garnier's 3.1%.
The fragrance market also demonstrated significant movement. Maison Francis Kurkdjian rose to TikTok's leading fragrance spot. At the same time, Kilian Paris climbed four places to become Instagram's fragrance front-runner, posting the highest engagement rate in the top ten at 8.1%.
Engagement versus volume
NYX Cosmetics secured third place on Instagram despite publishing fewer posts than L'Oréal (7,312 versus 12,869), but led in engagement rate at 6.5%, underlining the significance of quality interaction over volume.
Industry analysis
"These results show how fragmented and fast-moving the UK beauty landscape has become," said Quentin Bordage, CEO at Kolsquare. "TikTok is a global stage where scale and creativity win, while Instagram rewards targeted, high-engagement strategies. British brands like Charlotte Tilbury are still powerful players, but international competition has never been fiercer."
Kolsquare's report draws on an analysis of over 3 million posts and 800,000 influencers on TikTok and Instagram in the UK, providing benchmarks for brands operating in the creator economy.