TikTok-Famous Brand Basma Beauty Launches At Sephora

Basma Beauty’s TikTok-famous The Foundation Stick has landed at Sephora, marking its first wholesale partnership.

The single-product cosmetics brand is launching online at the beauty specialty retailer by way of its Accelerate program for emerging brands, which it participated in last year. The program was instrumental in getting Basma Beauty retail-ready.

“Something they always tell us is, ‘We’re in the kitchen with you,’ and they really mean it,” says co-founder Basma Hameed. “They’re there for you every step of the way, from packaging to marketing to anything that you need, because this is obviously new for me.”

A valuable piece of advice Hameed gleaned from Sephora was to press pause on releasing additional products and focus on Basma Beauty’s hero The Foundation Stick. She recounts she was counseled, “Don’t try to rush the process, especially for a new brand, because you can be easily forgotten. It’s very important to have one product that actually works. Let everybody know what it is, let everybody see it and associate it with your brand so you get that brand recognition.”

The product Basma Beauty is letting everyone see is its $40 The Foundation Stick that hit the market in 2021 and comes in 40 shades. The Foundation Stick provides lightweight, yet buildable coverage.

Its formula is the outcome of Hameed’s long relationship with facial products. At 2 years old, she suffered third-degree burns on half of her face and underwent 100 reconstructive surgeries that left her with scars and discolored skin. To address scarring, at 17 years old, she created a dermal technique called paramedical micro-pigmentation that implants skin tone pigments into scar tissue.

Along with Basma Beauty, Hameed currently operates namesake clinics in Beverly Hills and Toronto that specialize in the scar camouflage treatment along with other medical procedures targeting stretch marks, burns, birthmarks and hair restoration.

Basma Beauty co-founder Basma Hameed

“Makeup is really what gave me hope again and feel alive because my childhood was extremely hard, I was constantly being bullied and made fun of,” reflects Hameed. “When I apply my makeup, it gives me so much confidence.”

The formula for The Foundation Stick took three years to perfect, and Hameed spent another year perfecting its shades. She says, “Creating the shades was much easier for me because I had spent more than half my life at that point developing custom skin tone pigments for my clients.”

In the lead-up to developing The Foundation Stick, Hameed became familiar with the numerous foundation options on the market. A lot of the ones she grew up depending on were tailored specifically to scars and had a clinical design. She says, “I was embarrassed to take out that makeup or have it in my purse because everybody knew it was for scars, and it would just bring more attention to my scars.”

Hameed was adamant that shouldn’t be the case for The Foundation Stick. She strives for customers to be thrilled to have it in their makeup stashes and show to their friends. The Foundation Stick is housed in magenta pink packaging chosen to be elevated and chic.

Basma Beauty’s imagery is equally important. The majority of faces featured in the brand’s campaigns are from within Hameed’s network—her friends, family and colleagues—or people it spots on social media. Before photoshoots, it generally issues an open call for models.

“I genuinely believe that’s why our imagery has resonated with so many people. We’re not looking for perfection, we’re looking for real,” says Hameed. “Growing up as a beauty junkie, I constantly felt inadequate next to the images makeup brands would display. They all had perfect skin, perfect hair. That’s not real to me.”

Basma Beauty’s only product is The Foundation Stick. It’s priced at $40, comes in 40 shades and is now available on Sephora’s website. Cliick Agency

Bootstrapped Basma Beauty’s marketing strategy out of the gate was to send The Foundation Stick to influencers as well as makeup artists, who’d apply it to their clients. That’s how Kourtney Kardashian tried the product. Hameed mentions Vanessa Hudgens, Sara Hyland and Olivia Culpo are fans of The Foundation Stick, too. She says, “Makeup artists gave their stamp of approval, which was really helpful.”

The brand has experienced quite a bit of success on TikTok. In February 2022, influencer Mikayla Nogueira stitched TikTok user Cathy Nguyen’s video on The Foundation Stick. According to an article by publication Glossy on Nogueira, Basma Beauty received over 1,200 orders in less than 12 hours following her post and gained over 30,000 followers. Today, the brand has 157,100 followers and almost 4 million likes on TikTok.

TikTok videos on shade-matching tend to be popular for Basma Beauty. Hameed says, “People are so intrigued that they sometimes say, ‘Are you actually applying something because we don’t see it?’ They’re not used to seeing the foundation actually disappear.”

For almost a year, Basma has been teasing its next launch, a cream blush, on TikTok. The blush is slated for release in early 2024. “It may take a little longer to get another product, but my goal is to make sure that it’s a great product and actually works,” says Hameed. “I want this brand to really resonate with everybody. I feel like it’s very empowering to have something that’s not so specific like you have to be a certain person to wear it or a certain color. Everybody can enjoy it. We just got started, and we want to be here for a really long time.”