EOS
Three men founded EOS in 2007 with an egg-shaped lip balm. The brand hit $200M, stalled, and was rebuilt by CMO Soyoung Kang after a creator's TikTok in 2021 turned shaving cream into the number one shave brand at Target.
In late February 2021, a TikTok user named Carly Joy posted a 24-second video showing how she used EOS Shea Better shave cream on her bikini line, calling the result “blessing her fing cooch.” The video pulled 17 million views in days, and within seventy-two hours EOS had prototyped new packaging renamed “Bless Your Fing Cooch” with Carly’s instructions printed verbatim on the back of the bottle.
Sales doubled across retail partners the following week, orders on the EOS website jumped 25x, and traffic to the shave category increased 450x. Within a month, EOS was the number one shave brand at Target and had sold out nationally. The brand that Digiday had profiled in 2018 under the headline “Anatomy of a brand crisis: How EOS went from being hot to not” had just been pulled back into the conversation by a single creator and a marketing team that responded in days, not months.
The brand was founded in 2007 by three men around an egg-shaped lip balm container, hit roughly $200 million in revenue by 2015, then stalled. CMO Soyoung Kang joined in 2018 to rebuild it, and the TikTok response is the move that defined her tenure. By 2024, half of EOS’s revenue was coming from body care rather than lip, the brand had become the fastest-growing body lotion in mass retail at 50 bottles sold per minute, and the company was working with Centerview Partners to explore a sale.
At a glance:
| Founded | 2007 in New York by Jonathan Teller, Sanjiv Mehra, Craig Dubitsky |
| Brand meaning | EOS = “Evolution of Smooth” |
| 2015 revenue | $200M (court filing), #2 US lip balm at 11.5% market share |
| 2024 disclosed revenue | $100M+ (Axios reporting, December 2024) |
| Ownership | Privately held, Jonathan Teller controls ~85% equity |
| President (Sept 2025) | Soyoung Kang (CMO 2018-2025, promoted to President) |
| Distribution | Mass retail (Walmart, Target, drugstores), 18+ countries |
| Body care growth (2024) | #1 fastest-growing body lotion in mass retail |
| Sale exploration | Hired Centerview Partners December 2024 |
The Story
The 100-year-old category nobody was talking to women in
In 2006, Jonathan Teller, Sanjiv Mehra, and Craig Dubitsky looked at the lip balm category and noticed something the incumbents had missed. Chapstick had owned the shelves for nearly a century, and Burt’s Bees had built a sustainable second-place franchise, but neither brand was speaking to the actual customer. Roughly 80% of lip care was bought by women, and the products were still being designed and marketed as if the category were gender-neutral utility goods.
Teller was a serial founder, while Mehra had worked at PepsiCo and Unilever with real consumer packaged goods experience. Dubitsky was an incubator-stage operator who would later leave to start Hello Products. The three of them incorporated EOS in 2007 and spent the next two years engineering a product that did not exist yet.
A sculptor, a clay sphere, and the sound of a click
The team hired a sculptor to make clay models of spheres, testing how the package felt in the hand and against the lips. They engineered the closing mechanism so that the two halves made an audible click when sealed, because the click was part of the experience the brand was selling. They filed both utility and design patents on the spherical lip balm, which meant competitors who later tried to copy the format could not legally use the same closure design.
EOS launched in U.S. retail in 2009, and the egg-shaped package was the entire pitch: pastel colors chosen for shelf visibility, flavors chosen for women, and marketing pitched to an audience the category had spent a century ignoring.
From $25 million to $200 million in four years
EOS revenue went from $25 million in 2011 to $200 million in 2015, according to figures disclosed in a 2019 Delaware Chancery Court filing. By 2015, EOS held 11.5% of the U.S. lip care market, making it the number two lip balm brand in the country behind Burt’s Bees and ahead of Chapstick and Blistex. The brand was on track to do what almost no consumer product brand of its size had ever done, which was to displace a category leader that had owned the shelf for a hundred years.
The momentum came from a marketing strategy that turned out to be ahead of its time. Kim Kardashian was photographed with EOS lip balm in 2013, and Miley Cyrus held one in her hands in the 2013 “We Can’t Stop” music video, with Britney Spears and Hilary Duff also photographed carrying them. EOS was running a celebrity placement playbook three years before influencer marketing became standard, and the brand became visible in pop culture the way Glossier would become visible four years later.
The Strategy
The egg as a moat
The egg-shaped container was protected by two utility patents and at least two design patents, with Teller and Mehra named as co-inventors. Competitors could make spherical lip balms, but they could not legally use the same closing mechanism that produced the EOS click. The patent thicket gave the brand a structural advantage that lasted through the entire 2010s and made copycats easier to defeat in court than in stores.
The format was also defensible commercially, because EOS was the only sphere on the shelf, and the visual category leadership was hard to dislodge once consumers had associated the shape with the brand. Chapstick spent years releasing competing products that mostly looked like Chapstick, while EOS spent years owning a shape that none of them could match.
From one product to a category portfolio
The original EOS lip balm was the entire business through 2015. The brand expanded into hand lotion, body lotion, and shave cream over the next several years, with Shea Better 24H Moisture body lotion launching in late 2020. By 2024, body care accounted for roughly half of all EOS revenue, and the brand had become the number one fastest-growing body lotion in mass retail by unit velocity.
The shift from lip-only to multi-category mattered for survival, because the lip balm market had matured and EOS’s lead had narrowed by the late 2010s, while body care was growing faster as a category and gave the brand a second story to tell beyond the egg.
The Marketing
The CMO who became the brand
Soyoung Kang joined EOS as Chief Marketing and Innovation Officer in 2018, two years after a class action lawsuit had damaged the brand’s reputation and during the period Digiday would later call “anatomy of a brand crisis.” Kang’s tenure included rebuilding the brand’s voice for a TikTok-native audience, repositioning the product line around body care, and overseeing the marketing operation that ran the response to the Carly Joy moment in 2021. In September 2025, the company promoted her to President, a newly created role with full commercial P&L oversight.
The TikTok response stands as the clearest example of what she built. Within days of Carly Joy’s video going viral, EOS had reproduced the user’s specific application story in product form, renaming the variant, printing her words on the back, and sending the new units to retail. The campaign won the ANA Super REGGIE Award in 2022, the top prize in promotional marketing, and is now taught in marketing programs as a benchmark for creator-responsive brand work.
Super Bowl after TikTok
EOS aired a regional Super Bowl spot in 2024 across nine markets and saw a 30% lift in average weekly store sales for body wash in those markets. The 2025 Super Bowl ad expanded to national, promoting the new Cashmere Body Mist line. The brand had moved from a TikTok-native marketing model in 2021 to a paid-broadcast model by 2025, which mirrors the trajectory many consumer brands take as they mature.
The shift signals a different stage of the company. The early years ran on celebrity placements and the format itself, the middle years ran on the TikTok and creator responsiveness Kang built, and the current years are running on a more traditional brand-building budget, which is consistent with a company preparing for a sale.
The Numbers
| Year | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 2007 | EOS founded by Teller, Mehra, Dubitsky |
| 2009 | First U.S. retail launch |
| 2011 | $25M revenue |
| 2015 | $200M revenue, 11.5% U.S. lip care market share |
| 2018 | Soyoung Kang joins as CMO |
| 2020 | Shea Better body lotion launches |
| 2021 | Carly Joy TikTok moment, 35x web traffic, sales double |
| 2024 | Centerview Partners hired to explore sale; revenue $100M+ disclosed |
| 2025 | Kang promoted to President |
The company has remained privately held throughout its history, with no outside venture funding disclosed and no IPO attempted. Teller still controls approximately 85% of the company, following the 2019 forced exit of co-founder Sanjiv Mehra. The 2024 sale exploration is being handled by Centerview Partners, and no transaction has been announced as of mid-2025.
Controversies
The 2016 class action over lip balm
In January 2016, Rachael Cronin filed a class action lawsuit against EOS alleging that the lip balm caused rashes, blisters, and severe dryness on her lips, and the case was settled within the same month. EOS admitted no liability, kept the formula unchanged, and agreed to add ingredient details and usage instructions to the packaging. Class members were eligible for $75 in verified medical expense reimbursement, $15 in cash, or $20 in product credit, with higher payouts for documented injuries.
Between 2014 and 2017, the FDA logged 126 adverse-event complaints related to EOS lip balms. The brand survived the moment but spent the next several years repairing its reputation, which is the crisis that set up Kang’s hiring in 2018.
A co-founder lawsuit and a Manhattan apartment
In October 2019, Sanjiv Mehra filed suit against Jonathan Teller in Delaware Chancery Court alleging that Teller had withdrawn approximately $100 million from the company to fund an $11 million Manhattan apartment and a Hamptons house, then engineered a deadlock to squeeze Mehra out of the business. The Delaware court later found that Teller had breached his fiduciary duties, though the deadlock itself was ruled genuine for purposes of dissolution.
The litigation made the founding story messier than the brand’s public image suggested. EOS had been marketed as a clever beauty disruptor for over a decade, and the Delaware filings revealed a financial dispute closer in tone to a private equity dissolution than a consumer product success.
What You Can Learn
The right CMO is a turnaround. EOS was widely written off as a brand crisis by 2018. Soyoung Kang spent seven years rebuilding the voice, repositioning the product mix toward body care, and demonstrating the kind of creator-responsive marketing that the rest of the industry would spend the next four years trying to copy. The promotion from CMO to President in 2025 was an acknowledgment that she had carried the company through its second act.
Speed of response is a marketing channel. When Carly Joy’s TikTok hit in February 2021, EOS could have done what most consumer brands would have done, which is to file a polite cease-and-desist or hope the moment passed. Instead, the company prototyped new packaging within days, printed the user’s own words on the back, and got it to retail. Sales doubled, web traffic jumped 35x, and the campaign won the top award in promotional marketing the following year.
A patent moat is worth what it cost to file. Most consumer founders skip serious IP work because patents are expensive and slow to enforce. EOS spent the time and money to file both utility and design patents on the egg-shaped container, which is the reason competitors could make spheres but could not legally copy the closure. Twelve years later, the format is still the brand’s most recognizable asset, and no copycat has been able to dislodge it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who founded EOS?
EOS was founded in 2007 in New York City by three men: Jonathan Teller, Sanjiv Mehra, and Craig Dubitsky. Teller and Mehra served as co-CEOs through 2019, when Mehra was forced out following a legal dispute. Dubitsky left earlier to found Hello Products. The company is currently led by President Soyoung Kang, promoted from CMO in September 2025, with Teller controlling approximately 85% of the equity.
Why is the EOS lip balm egg-shaped?
The founders deliberately designed the egg shape after hiring a sculptor to test how different forms felt in the hand and against the lips. They engineered the closing mechanism to produce an audible click when sealed. The format was protected by two utility patents and at least two design patents, which is why competitors who later launched spherical lip balms could not legally copy the closure design.
How much money does EOS make?
EOS revenue went from $25 million in 2011 to $200 million in 2015, according to court filings. The most recent publicly disclosed figure was “more than $100 million” in late 2024, per Axios. The company remains privately held, has never raised outside venture capital, and is currently working with Centerview Partners to explore a potential sale.
What was the EOS TikTok moment about?
In February 2021, a TikTok user named Carly Joy posted a 24-second video describing how she used EOS Shea Better shave cream on her bikini line. The video pulled over 17 million views in days. Within 72 hours, EOS had prototyped new packaging renamed “Bless Your F*ing Cooch” with Carly’s instructions printed verbatim on the back. Sales doubled across retail partners the following week, and the campaign won the ANA Super REGGIE Award in 2022.
Did EOS lip balm really cause rashes?
In January 2016, a class action was filed by Rachael Cronin alleging EOS lip balm caused rashes, blisters, and severe lip dryness. The case settled within the same month, with EOS admitting no liability and keeping the formula unchanged, but agreeing to add ingredient and usage information to the packaging. Between 2014 and 2017, the FDA logged 126 adverse-event complaints related to the lip balms.
Sources
- Fast Company, “The Untold Story Of How Lip Balm Upstart EOS Outdid Chapstick”. Origin story, design process, market positioning.
- Wikipedia, “EOS (company)”. Founding history, product line, FDA complaint count.
- WWD, “Eos Cofounder Sues After Being Forced Out,” October 2019. Revenue figures from court filing, Mehra-Teller lawsuit.
- Axios Pro Retail Deals, “Lip balm and skin care brand Eos explores sale,” December 2024. 2024 revenue floor, Centerview Partners engagement, body care growth.
- PR Newswire, “EOS Appoints Soyoung Kang as President,” September 2025. Kang promotion details.
- Digiday, “How Eos skincare rode a TikTok trend to sales increases”. TikTok response sales impact.
- Adweek, “Eos Creates ‘Bless Your F*ing Cooch’ Shaving Cream Line Honoring Viral TikTok Creator”. Campaign details, Kang’s role.
- Campaign US, “EOS launches ‘Bless F*ing Cooch’ shaving cream line inspired by TikTok creator”. Campaign timeline, sales metrics.
- ANA, “eos Shave Cream Wins ANA Super Reggie Award”. 2022 award recognition.
- Glossy, “EOS doubles down on the shaving category”. Shave category leadership, growth rate.
- WWD, “How Eos Went From Spherical Lip Balms to Becoming the Fastest-growing Body Lotion Brand in Mass”. Body care expansion.
- Time, “EOS Lip Balm Resolves Class Action Lawsuit”. 2016 settlement details.
- Adweek, “Eos Wants to Make Fragrance Ads Fun Again With Expanded Super Bowl Play”. 2024 and 2025 Super Bowl campaigns.
- Bloomberg Law, “EOS Executive Must Face Claims of Breach of Duty”. Delaware Chancery ruling on Teller.