e.l.f. Cosmetics and #eyeslipsface: the TikTok challenge, seven years later

November 8, 2026

In October 2019 e.l.f. launched the first TikTok hashtag challenge built on an original song. The numbers people quote for it have grown every year since. We checked the hashtag today.

#eyeslipsface on TikTok	3.77M videos, 12.8B views
#elfcosmetics on TikTok	556K videos, 11.5B views
TikTok followers (@elfyeah)	3,034,606
Instagram followers	7,650,927
TikTok posting rate	about one a day

Background

The challenge launched on 4 October 2019 with a song by iLL Wayno and Holla FyeSixWun, made with the agency Movers+Shakers. e.l.f.'s CMO said the aim was to "kickstart us into having daily content" source. A week later e.l.f. reported more than 1 billion views and 400,000 videos source. By May 2020 Glossy reported 5 billion views and 3 million videos, with some products selling two to six times their previous rate source.

Then and now

	Reported then	Our pull, 8 November 2026
Views	1B+ (Oct 2019), 5B+ (May 2020), 7B (later press)	12.8B
Videos	400K+ (Oct 2019), 3M (May 2020), 5M (later press)	3.77M

Views kept climbing long after the campaign. The video count tells a different story: today's 3.77M is below the 5M quoted in later coverage. Videos get deleted, and press figures are rarely checked against the platform. If you cite a campaign number, pull it yourself and date it.

Strategy now

Daily content, as promised. 90 TikToks in 88 days, and 24 Instagram posts in 12 days.
Retail in every caption. e.l.f. tagged 104 different accounts in its last 116 posts. The most common are retailers: Target (11), Shoppers Beauty (8), Amazon UK and Germany (6 each) and Walmart (6).
Product launches as entertainment. The top TikToks were the Peel of Approval launch on TikTok Shop (11.2M views), e.l.f.'s Brazil launch (9.9M) and pickle-flavored lip balms (8.3M).

Results

Median TikTok views (last 92)	75,168
Top 10% of TikToks	above 3.0M views
Median TikTok engagement	2.4%
Median Instagram reel plays	295,506

Lessons

Own the sound. An original song gave every creator the same hook, and the hashtag still grows years later.
A challenge is a start, not a strategy. e.l.f. used it to start daily posting, and kept going.
Connect content to the shelf. Tagging retailers in posts turns views into a place to buy.
Re-measure old wins. Campaign numbers in the press drift. A fresh pull gives you a number you can defend.

How we pulled the numbers

About 9 credits of ScrapeIO calls, the same ones any script or AI agent can make:

curl "https://scrapeio.com/v1/tiktok/profile?handle=elfyeah" -H "x-api-key: $SCRAPEIO_API_KEY"
curl "https://scrapeio.com/v3/tiktok/profile/videos?handle=elfyeah" -H "x-api-key: $SCRAPEIO_API_KEY"   # 3 pages
curl "https://scrapeio.com/v2/instagram/user/posts?handle=elfcosmetics" -H "x-api-key: $SCRAPEIO_API_KEY"  # 2 pages
curl "https://scrapeio.com/v1/tiktok/search/hashtag?hashtag=eyeslipsface" -H "x-api-key: $SCRAPEIO_API_KEY"

Engagement rate is (likes + comments + shares) / views for each video, and we report the median so one viral post does not skew it. To run the same audit on any brand from Claude Code, Cursor or Codex, install the skills with npx skills add xhoantran/scrapeio-agent and ask for a competitor social audit.

Sources

Social numbers pulled through the ScrapeIO API on 8 November 2026 (UTC); they change daily. Everything else is from the sources below. This is an independent analysis of public data, not affiliated with or endorsed by the brand.

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