Kolsquare, the influencer marketing platform, has released its 2025 report ranking the most talked-about beauty brands on TikTok and Instagram, and the results reflect the battle between UK names and international giants as L’Oréal Paris dethrones Charlotte Tilbury from the top spot.
L’Oréal Paris ranks #1 on TikTok with £238.5M in Earned Media Value (EMV) and #1 on Instagram (with £28.6M EMV) knocking Charlotte Tilbury from last year’s first place on both platforms.
The brand has triumphed with sheer scale – 14,523 TikToks with 5.1 billion views, more than 82 million engagements and nearly 13,000 Instagram posts from thousands of creators.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Tilbury remains the UK’s strongest homegrown contender, ranked at #4 on TikTok (£102.7M EMV) down from #1 last year and #2 on Instagram (£28.568,380 in EMV) down from #1 in 2024. The brand continues to tap into one of Europe’s largest influencer communities – working with 15,113 influencers on Instagram and demonstrating the enduring global appeal of its British roots.
Other key findings from Kolsquare’s 2025 Beauty Rankings:
- TikTok beauty winners: Nyx Cosmetics held onto the top place with Huda Beauty going up two to secure #2. This year’s surprise wins were Made By Mitchell moving from #12 to make the top 10 at #7 and NARS jumping four places to rank #9.
- Skincare is a hotly contested battleground: CeraVe has overtaken La Roche-Posay on TikTok, generating £107.4M EMV, while Scandinavian brand Ole Henriksen rose a staggering 67 places on Instagram to claim #1 in skincare with a 7% engagement rate. Eborian led the field with engagement ratcheting up an impressive 13.7%.
- Haircare heats up: Garnier tops the rankings on TikTok for haircare, but on Instagram Kérastase dominates with £14.663M EMV thanks to 702 influencers, reflecting a shift towards premium hair products. Garnier worked with more influencers, 1,671 and posted more content, 6,065 vs. 2,002, but Kérastase achieved better engagement at 4.9% compared to Garnier’s 3.1%.
- Fragrance leaders: Maison Francis Kurkdjian rose to TikTok’s top fragrance spot, while Kilian Paris jumped four places to secure Instagram’s #1 with the highest engagement rate in the top 10 – 8.1%.
- Engagement over volume: NYX Cosmetics jumped a spot to secure #3 on Instagram with fewer posts than competitors (7,312 compared to 12,869 from L’Oréal) but leading with a 6.5% engagement rate.
“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 full reports analyse more than 3 million posts from over 800,000 influencers across both platforms in the first half of 2025, offering the most comprehensive benchmark for beauty brands navigating the creator economy.
Download the full TikTok and Instagram rankings from Kolsquare:
