How beauty brands are popping up around World Cup festivities

Paula’s Choice, for example, was named the official 2026 World Cup skin-care sponsor, and Unilever’s personal care brands, including Dove and Rexona, are some of the major sponsors of the tournament. But it’s not just official FIFA sponsors capitalizing on the sport’s growth among women. As brands look to jump on cross-cultural moments across North America, companies like Not Your Mother’s, NYX and Fazit are trying to bring fans together in person and drumming up brand awareness during the tournament. 

But these activations are part of a bigger trend of beauty brands trying to expand beyond standard marketing channels to capture female audiences. Beauty’s infiltration of traditionally male-dominated sporting events has been on the rise in recent years.

“More than ever, beauty and sports are coming together,” Amit Sarin, head of partnerships and collaborations at beauty brand Fazit, said in an interview with Modern Retail. Fazit is a beauty brand that sells glitter freckles makeup and game-day face patches, and is an official U.S. Soccer Partner.

“We’re seeing big companies like Sephora getting behind teams with major sports partnerships,” Sarin added. “That has been validating for those of us trying to serve the fans expressing themselves through beauty.”

Naturally, many beauty brands have started supporting women’s leagues, with Urban Decay and Ipsy recently becoming official beauty partners of WNBA teams. This year, clean makeup brand Saie became the official beauty sponsor of the New York Knicks, which resulted in a major marketing moment when the team won its first NBA championship in 53 years earlier this month.

But for many beauty brands, the impetus for participating in World Cup activations is simple: It’s a cultural moment that is too big to ignore.

World Cup mania

A number of brands are using the World Cup to create beauty moments with their soccer-loving customers.

Hair-care brand Not Your Mother’s took a number of lucky customers and influencer partners to watch Colombia versus Portugal in Miami on June 27. The sponsored event is part of the brand’s bigger experiential World Cup campaign in Miami.  

Charlene Patten, CMO of Not Your Mother’s, said that in the past few years, beauty marketing in sports has evolved to highlight how women want to look at an event, whether it’s at a watch party or the game itself. 

“The World Cup in particular is a complete cultural event, and as part of our latest strategy, we want to be at the edge of culture,” Patten said. “Even if you aren’t a sports person, there is so much excitement and curiosity around it.” The heavy investment in sports marketing also follows the company’s rebranding last year.

Not Your Mother’s, founded in Tampa in 2010, was inspired to activate in the host city of Miami and represent its diverse population. 

For the match-day activities, about 40 influencers and customers attended a pre-game party before heading to see Colombia face off against Portugal, where the group watched from a branded suite while creating real-time content on behalf of the brand. 

The company chose a number of Florida-based influencers from different cultural backgrounds to represent the participating nations, including Latinas and Europeans. Patten said the brand chose three customers and their plus-ones to attend the event as part of the giveaway, selecting them based on video submissions. “We didn’t want this just for influencers, which is what happens at big events like Coachella,” Patten said.

The pre-party offered hairstyling and customizable Not Your Mother’s branded jerseys. Patten said the muggy Florida summer is also a chance for attendees to put the brand’s products to the test. “We have a lot of empathy for curly girls who fight with humidity,” Patten said. 

Fazit has also been running promotions throughout the tournament, including discounts celebrating the U.S. wins. But it’s also doing IRL activations in close proximity to the games. 

Fazit launched in 2022 with acne patches and silicone scar patches, but it exploded in popularity after being worn by Taylor Swift at a Kansas City Chiefs game in late 2024. Since then, Fazit has expanded its team spirit collections to lean further into game-day makeup, following the sales spike Swift delivered. This year, the company wants to keep that sports-focused momentum going. 

For the World Cup, the company wanted to build on the popular fan experience of applying a favorite team’s decals or colored glitter before stepping into the stadium or stopping by a watch party.

In turn, Fazit launched its first-ever in-store makeover collaboration at beauty lounge Blushington. As part of the experience, Blushington is exclusively offering Fazit’s soccer patch collection for retail purchase or as a $15 professional application add-on service. The collaborative service is available at Blushington’s New York City, Houston and Boca locations, which are located near host stadiums. 

Fazit’s Sarin said the company’s investment in soccer-focused products and sponsorships is a big opportunity to attract new customers this World Cup. 

The brand’s products are available online and at multiple retailers. However, Sarin said, the Blushington partnership allows the brand to do in-person experiential sports marketing in a setting that makes sense for its products.

“It felt right with Blushington having locations where the energy is,” Sarin said. He pointed to the number of social media posts coming out of the activation’s cities, including fan zones and celebratory viewing parties. “We wanted that on-site appeal of customers getting a fresh freckle face and walking out into the heart of where all this is happening.”

For Blushington, the collaboration is also a way to drive more client bookings and face decal add-on services throughout the summer. 

Nicki Maron, co-founder of Blushington, said she was eager to partner with Fazit as her company has seen a rise in Blushington clients booking sessions as part of their pre-game routine.

“People are thinking about what they’re wearing and how they present themselves at sporting events,” Maron said, and beauty has become part of the fan experience. “We are seeing families coming in wearing their jerseys, with the moms or daughters opting for a pre-game blowout,” she said. So the Fazit decal add-ons are complementary to these types of services.  

Like other sporting events that Fazit has promoted its products for, Sarin said the World Cup is the type of communal experience the company wants to keep integrating into  its marketing. 

“Looking at the beauty category, there is an opportunity to serve not only the female athlete but also the female fan,” Sarin said. “Fazit, at its core, is a brand built on joyful expression. How can you not be happy wearing glitter freckles?” 

This month, NYX Professional Makeup launched its Pasión Proof campaign in partnership with Katia Itzel García. Last week, Garcia made history during the Tunisia vs. Netherlands game, becoming the first Latin American woman to serve as head referee of a men’s FIFA World Cup match. 

The brand is also activating in-person events across the country, including watch parties, sampling sessions, and out-of-home ad campaigns in host cities Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Dallas.

Ana McMahon, general manager at NYX Professional Makeup, said the campaign is part of the company’s efforts to reach soccer fanatics among its Latina customers. “Latina fans don’t just watch fútbol, they live it,” she said in an email. 

The brand chose Garcia as the latest face of its “Make Them Look” series, which highlights boundary-pushing female figures. With this World Cup also featuring the first all-American, all-women officiating crew at a men’s World Cup, NYX wanted to incorporate the historical moment into its latest marketing efforts. Pasión Proof specifically promotes NYX’s Lip IV hydrating serum, highlighting it as a sweat-resistant solution fit for high-intensity activities like refereeing a high-stakes game.

“Pasión Proof is an extension of something we’ve been building for years: our commitment to investing in women in sport and the culture they create,” McMahon said.

Patten, for her part, said sports marketing requires beauty brands to be nimble in planning their campaigns. That is especially true of this year’s World Cup, in which ticketing and logistics became a headline-making topic.

“We are super agile; we’re not the brand that plans campaigns a year in advance,” Patten said. “That’s because we want to be at the speed of culture.” 

Blushington’s Maron expects beauty to become an increasingly important part of the sports fandom experience. “Years ago, beauty and sports may have seemed like two separate ecosystems, but today they’re one and the same,” Maron said.