By Agnete Blichfeldt and Agnese Augusta Patriarca Bertoli. Cover image: La Beauté texturae by Anano Esartia.
In department stores, shelves are overflowing with luxury brand makeup. You can get your signature lipstick from Chanel, YSL, Valentino, Dior and many more, even though the shades are often quite similar.
Starting in autumn 2025, we can officially add Louis Vuitton to this lineup.
When the news broke that Louis Vuitton is finally launching a beauty line, we couldn’t help but wonder: why now? Almost every major luxury brand has already expanded into cosmetics, entering a market where most customers have already settled on their favourite products.
Louis Vuitton Makeup: Pat McGrath Leads the Brand’s Beauty Debut
Louis Vuitton is venturing into makeup with a new line called La Beauté, led by none other than Pat McGrath, the legendary makeup artist known for her work on the runway looks for LV’s seasonal shows. While the brand isn’t new to the beauty world—as it’s been creating fragrances for nearly 100 years—this marks its first major step into the makeup arena.
What Does Louis Vuitton Makeup Have to Offer?
With their new line, Louis Vuitton Makeup is releasing 55 new lipstick shades, 10 lip balms, and eight eyeshadow palettes. In an interview with Cosmopolitan, McGrath states that the makeup line “is the result of extraordinary craftsmanship, creativity, and innovation.” She emphasised that “the beauty universe is about so much more than just product, and what we are creating here will unlock a new level in luxury beauty.”
To explore the luxury makeup market and determine whether a Louis Vuitton beauty line can carve out a niche among many established products, we turned to the industry’s epicentre: Sephora.
Before sharing our findings, we must admit that we have a personal bias. We recently discovered that we use the same eyeshadow palette from Chanel, and our interview was conducted with our lips glossed in Dior.
Undeniably, we are not impartial when it comes to consuming and supporting luxury beauty products.
When a product becomes part of your daily routine, it feels personal. A Chanel lipstick can almost feel like an extension of your identity. In this sense, we argue that a significant portion of the luxury makeup clientele is already deeply committed to the products they know and love.
What Sephora Taught Us About Luxury Make-up
“Do you buy cosmetics from luxury brands? Why?”.
These were the questions we asked shoppers during a busy afternoon at Sephora. While most people struggled to find the right words, one word consistently stood out: quality.
Whether it was the raw materials, the chemical formulation, or simply the overall experience that comes with a high-end purchase, buying from a luxury brand seemed to elevate the entire process. Packaging was another highlight frequently praised—luxury makeup collections are often valued for their aesthetically pleasing and meticulously designed cases.
When we asked Sephora employees for their thoughts on luxury cosmetics, their responses—while acknowledging product quality and design as a given—focused on the personalised experience.
Each brand has its own dedicated display, complete with unique aesthetics and highly trained staff ready to assist with any questions.
Ultimately, what we seek in luxury makeup may not just be superior chemical formulas; rather, it could be the boutique-like experience: that brief moment when we get to feel like part of an otherwise unaffordable world.
The Only Luxury We Can Afford
But is it all fun and games, or is this actually the harsh reality of the fashion industry? Is lipstick all we can afford? Most of the time, yes—and that luxury packaging is likely to be kept and proudly displayed on a shelf in our bedroom.
The reason luxury brands are expanding into cosmetics is, quite simply, money. Makeup allows these brands to reach a middle-class customer base. Especially in times of economic crisis—and in an era when the fashion industry often feels like it’s collapsing—beauty becomes the most accessible and profitable entry point. In conclusion, there’s no denying the satisfaction of buying a luxury makeup product. However, beneath the thrill lies something deeper: the desire to feel like an insider, even while knowing, deep down, that we still feel like impostors.
