Summer Fridays
Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Ireland turned a single hydrating mask into Sephora's #1 skincare brand by market share, reaching $200 million in retail revenue in six years.
Summer Fridays launched in March 2018 with one product, a hydrating mask in a blue aluminum tube, and sold exclusively through Sephora. Within two weeks it became the number one bestselling skincare product on sephora.com, and by the end of its first year the brand had generated $4.8 million in revenue from that single SKU. Six years later, it held 10.5% of all skincare sales at Sephora, ranking as the retailer’s number one skincare brand by market share in 2024.
Co-founders Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Gores Ireland were both beauty and lifestyle influencers with a combined 1.3 million Instagram followers at launch, but they built Summer Fridays as a product company rather than a content play. They self-funded the initial launch, spent two years on product development before releasing anything, and designed packaging specifically to photograph well on iPhones, a decision that turned every customer post into free advertising.
At a glance:
| Founded | March 2018 |
| Founders | Marianna Hewitt, Lauren Gores Ireland |
| CEO | John Heffner (former Drybar CEO, joined June 2020) |
| Ownership | Self-funded at launch; Prelude Growth Partners invested August 2019; TSG Consumer Partners took majority stake July 2024, founders retained significant minority |
| Revenue (2024, projected) | ~$200 million retail |
| Products | Skincare, lip care, body care, color, fragrance |
| Retailers | Sephora (primary), Sephora at Kohl’s, Amazon, summerfridays.com, Cult Beauty, Selfridges, Mecca |
The Story
Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Gores Ireland both grew up in the Midwest, both worked in broadcast journalism, and both moved to Los Angeles independently in 2009 before being introduced by a mutual friend. Hewitt had been a TV news anchor after studying broadcast journalism at Kent State (graduating in 2008) and pivoted to beauty content creation full-time, while Ireland had anchored morning news before launching her lifestyle blog “You + Lu.” By the mid-2010s both had built substantial influencer followings in LA’s beauty and wellness scene.
The idea for Summer Fridays came in 2016, when Ireland was pregnant and switching to cleaner skincare ingredients while Hewitt was traveling constantly for content creation. Both wanted a single product that could hydrate and de-tire skin in one step, and they could not find one that met their standards. They named the brand after the workplace tradition of leaving early on Fridays during the summer, meant to evoke that end-of-week feeling of relief, and spent the next two years developing the formula. When Sephora saw the final product and the audience the founders had already built, the retailer increased its initial production order by six times what it had originally planned.
The Strategy
One product, designed for the feed
Most skincare brands launch with a full range of cleansers, serums, and moisturizers to fill a shelf. Summer Fridays launched with one: the Jet Lag Mask, a hydrating treatment in a distinctive blue aluminum tube that the founders had tested on iPhone cameras to ensure it photographed well under any lighting. That single design choice turned the product into its own marketing engine, because every customer who posted a shelfie or a flat lay was producing polished visual content for free. The founders understood that in 2018, a product that looked good on Instagram would travel further than a product with a bigger advertising budget, and with 1.3 million combined followers ready to see the launch, they did not need paid media to generate initial awareness.
Sephora from day one
Unlike Rhode, which spent three years selling DTC before entering retail, or Glossier, which built its entire identity around avoiding traditional retail, Summer Fridays went straight to Sephora as an exclusive retail partner. That decision gave the brand immediate credibility with consumers who might have been skeptical of another influencer skincare line, and it gave Sephora a product that was already generating organic social media attention before it hit shelves. The exclusivity arrangement also meant Summer Fridays did not have to split its attention across multiple retail relationships during the critical early years, allowing the founders to focus on building a single, deep partnership rather than managing distribution complexity.
The Lip Butter Balm became the real business
The Jet Lag Mask put Summer Fridays on the map, but the Lip Butter Balm, launched in 2020 starting with a vanilla flavor, became the product that turned the brand into a category leader. By 2023 it was the most searched lip care product on Google and was selling one unit every eight seconds worldwide, eventually surpassing the Jet Lag Mask as the brand’s top seller. The product hit at the intersection of the clean beauty trend and the lip care obsession that dominated social media throughout 2022 and 2023, and its success gave Summer Fridays the revenue base to expand into body care, color cosmetics, and fragrance.
Slow product development, professional management
Every Summer Fridays formula takes between 18 months and three years to develop, which is slower than most competitors in the influencer beauty space and more in line with heritage skincare brands. The founders also brought in professional management early, hiring John Heffner (formerly CEO of Drybar) as Chairman and CEO in June 2020, when the brand was only two years old. That decision to bring in an experienced operator while the founders focused on brand and product development mirrored the playbook that larger beauty companies use, and it positioned Summer Fridays for the kind of institutional investment that came later.
The Numbers
| Year | Estimated Revenue | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | $4.8M | Single product (Jet Lag Mask) |
| 2019 | ~$20M | Product line expansion began |
| 2023 | ~$150M retail | Lip Butter Balm became top seller |
| 2024 (projected) | ~$200M retail | Double-digit growth continued into 2025 |
Sephora dominance: Summer Fridays captured 10.5% of skincare sales at Sephora in 2024, jumping five ranks to become the retailer’s number one skincare brand by market share. For context, Sephora carries hundreds of skincare brands, so holding a double-digit share of the entire category is an extraordinary concentration of consumer preference.
Investment: The founders self-funded the launch and took their first outside investment from Prelude Growth Partners in August 2019, with the amount undisclosed. TSG Consumer Partners acquired a majority ownership stake in July 2024, with both founders retaining significant minority positions. The terms of both deals remain private.
Earned media: Summer Fridays generated the highest earned media value of any beauty brand in 2023, beating out brands with far larger product lines and advertising budgets, which demonstrates how effectively the brand’s Instagram-native design philosophy translated into unpaid coverage.
Product expansion: The brand has moved from skincare into lip care (2020), body care, blush (2025), lip liners (February 2026), and fragrance with Sunlit Vanilla at $82 (March 2026), building each new category on the same slow development cycle that produced the original Jet Lag Mask.
What You Can Learn
One great product can be worth more than a full range. Summer Fridays generated $4.8 million from a single SKU in its first year because that product was genuinely differentiated and designed to spread organically. Most online businesses launch too many products too early and end up with a catalog of mediocre offerings instead of one thing people actually talk about.
Design for the channel your customers already use. Testing packaging on iPhone cameras before finalizing the design sounds obvious in retrospect, but most beauty brands in 2018 were still designing for how products looked on a retail shelf rather than in a social media post. The founders understood that Instagram was their primary storefront and designed accordingly.
Bring in professional operators before you need them. Hiring a CEO with experience scaling a beauty brand (Drybar) when the company was only two years old gave Summer Fridays the operational infrastructure to grow from $20 million to $200 million without the stumbles that many founder-led brands experience at that inflection point.
A retail exclusive can be more valuable than wide distribution. Going exclusively to Sephora rather than trying to land at every retailer simultaneously gave Summer Fridays a single, deep relationship with the most credibility-granting partner in prestige beauty, and the concentration of resources paid off with a number one market share ranking.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who founded Summer Fridays?
Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Gores Ireland, both former broadcast journalists turned beauty and lifestyle influencers, co-founded Summer Fridays in 2018 after two years of product development.
How much revenue does Summer Fridays generate?
Summer Fridays reached approximately $150 million in retail revenue in 2023 and was projected to hit roughly $200 million in 2024, with double-digit growth continuing into 2025.
What was the first Summer Fridays product?
The Jet Lag Mask, a hydrating facial treatment in a blue aluminum tube, launched in March 2018 as the brand’s only product and became the number one bestselling skincare item on sephora.com within two weeks.
Is Summer Fridays sold at Ulta?
Summer Fridays is not sold at Ulta and has maintained Sephora as its primary retail partner since launch, with additional availability on Amazon, the brand’s own website, and select international retailers including Cult Beauty, Selfridges, and Mecca.
Who owns Summer Fridays?
TSG Consumer Partners acquired a majority ownership stake in July 2024, with both founders retaining significant minority positions. Prelude Growth Partners had previously invested in August 2019, and the founders self-funded the original launch.
How does Summer Fridays compare to other influencer beauty brands?
Summer Fridays is one of the few influencer beauty brands to reach the number one market share position at Sephora, outperforming brands backed by celebrities with far larger audiences. Rhode achieved a $1 billion valuation faster, and Rare Beauty generated higher total revenue by year four, but Summer Fridays’ dominance of Sephora’s skincare category is unmatched among founder-led brands of its size.
When was Summer Fridays founded?
Summer Fridays launched in March 2018 with a single product, the Jet Lag Mask, after roughly two years of product development that began in 2016. The brand is named after the workplace tradition of leaving early on Fridays during the summer.
Sources
- WWD, “Summer Fridays, Glow Recipe Among Top 10 Skin Care Brands by Market Share at Sephora,” 2024. Sephora market share ranking (10.5%, number one in skincare) and five-rank jump in 2024.
- WWD, “Marianna Hewitt, Lauren Ireland’s Summer Fridays Lands Investment From TSG Consumer Partners,” 2024. TSG majority stake deal, $150 million in 2023 retail sales, $200 million projected for 2024, founders retaining significant minority.
- Business of Fashion, “Summer Fridays Struck Gold With Lip Balm. Can It Do the Same With Fragrance?” 2026. Lip Butter Balm launch year, blush and lip liner expansion, Sunlit Vanilla fragrance details, double-digit 2025 growth.
- Business of Fashion, “Summer Fridays Announces Growth Investment From TSG Consumer Partners,” 2024. Combined 1.3 million Instagram followers at launch, Prelude Growth Partners exit, international expansion plans.
- WWD, “Drybar CEO John Heffner to Join Summer Fridays,” 2020. John Heffner appointment as Chairman and CEO in June 2020, Drybar background.
- BeautyMatter, “Influencer Brand Summer Fridays Lands Investment From Prelude Growth Partners,” 2019. Prelude Growth Partners investment in August 2019, $20 million retail sales projection for 2019, early retail distribution.
- Glossy, “Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Ireland, Summer Fridays: Influencer Brand to Know,” 2018. Founders meeting in LA in 2009, broadcast journalism backgrounds, You + Lu blog, community-driven product development.
- Marie Claire Australia, “Summer Fridays’ Lauren Ireland On Turning A Skin Care Product Into A Multi-Million Dollar Business,” 2021. Jet Lag Mask selling every two minutes, Lauren Ireland’s pregnancy as catalyst, professional management philosophy.
- Screenshot This, “How Summer Fridays Rewrote the Beauty Brand Playbook,” 2024. Lip Butter Balm as the most searched lip care product on Google in 2023, sold every eight seconds worldwide, highest earned media value of any beauty brand in 2023.
- The Chalkboard Mag, “Marianna Hewitt and Lauren Ireland on Building Summer Fridays”. Product development timelines (18 months to three years per formula), brand origin in 2016.
- TSG Consumer Partners, “Summer Fridays Announces Strategic Growth Investment From TSG Consumer,” 2024. Majority stake acquisition terms, founders’ continued leadership roles.