On February 20, 2024, Beyoncé expanded her business ventures by launching her debut haircare line, Cécred. For the multi-Grammy-winning artist, her haircare line was more than just a new product; it represented a personal choice rooted in her own haircare experiences, with origins connected to Headliners, the family salon her mother, Tina Knowles, previously owned. Nearly a year and a half after its launch, Cécred has established itself as a leading brand and stands out in a crowded market that requires unique strategies and advertising to stay competitive. Through pop-up shops, influencer partnerships, customized products for different hair types, and the brand's nationwide rollout with Ulta, Cécred has handled much of the heavy lifting needed to build a lasting presence in such a short time. Given how much effort Beyoncé dedicates to her art, it’s no surprise that the same drive extends to her latest project’s culture.
Beyoncé’s brand: From The House of Deréon to Cécred
Cécred is not Beyoncé’s first successful business venture. In 2004, she and her mother helped establish the House of Deréon, a ready-to-wear fashion line that found great success through its junior line. In 2016, she launched Ivy Park, an athleisure line that she managed through Parkwood Entertainment, her management company, which collaborated with TopShop and later Adidas. During the peak of her Renaissance World Tour in 2023, she introduced Ce Noir, a fragrance brand. Soon after releasing her Grammy-winning Album of the Year, Cowboy Carter, in 2024, she also entered the whiskey market with SirDavis American whiskey, which has received awards. While some of her earlier businesses are on hold but not officially closed, her recent ventures show that experimenting, a commitment to learning, and connecting with consumers through authenticity are effective business strategies.
After years of building her personal brand, Beyoncé has achieved a level of fame and success that has earned her a large, fiercely loyal fan base, known simply as the BeyHive, also referred to as the Hive. Their loyalty is so strong that she could release any project, and most of her fans would buy it, ensuring sales. However, to create a successful national brand and achieve longevity, fans are just one part of the branding puzzle. To connect with audiences beyond the Hive, Beyoncé has grounded Cécred with Tina Knowles’ decades of experience and knowledge as a successful salon owner and former hairdresser, as well as her role as Vice Chairwoman of the haircare line. Because of this, Cécred is where star power meets cultural authenticity and innovation.
Hollywood and Beauty Execution
Beyoncé exists uniquely at the intersection of entertainment and commerce, a characteristic that has always been reflected in her branding. For example, during her recently completed Cowboy Carter World Tour, Cécred, alongside her other brands, had pop-ups where fans could get up close and personal with products, receive exclusive gifts, and even meet “Ceyoncé,” an inflatable Cécred bottle featuring a Cowboy hat, sunglasses, and luscious red lips. Through this pop-up, fans were able to get their fill of the spectacle of the Cowboy Carter Tour in tandem with the Cécred Roadshow.
Before this, when the brand was just starting out, Cécred focused on working with influencers through pop-up events that offered an intimate experience with the Cécred brand, including product reviews, in-depth hair consultations, education about scalp health, and even a few guests receiving hair care directly from Tina Knowles herself. Right from the beginning, through these influencer events alone, Cécred established itself as credible and personal, whereas other brands might have kept their influencer relationships at a superficial level.
This unique mix of spectacle and beauty best practices has propelled Cécred to be more than your typical celebrity brand. If Tina Knowles’ hands-on approach at influencer events was any sign, Cécred focuses on credibility and longevity, driven by firsthand experiences with the product, rather than relying on typical campaigns that heavily depend on elusiveness and hype.
Beyoncé’s Partnership with Ulta
Having established itself as an award-winning collection, Cécred expanded and joined Ulta Beauty’s brand portfolio in 2025, launching in over 1,400 stores nationwide and continuing to maintain its presence through its main website to offer exclusive brand deals. This partnership provided Cécred with greater visibility and scale, enabling it to reach both fans and everyday consumers.
The deal also strengthened Cécred’s staying power, as retail partnerships add familiarity that brands need to succeed. Cécred had already demonstrated that its products work and had the accolades to prove it. Still, its innovative collaboration with Ulta only helped increase its growth and reach consumers who might not have been able to interact with it if it had remained an online-only product.
The Protection Collection: Cécred’s Newest Addition
Recently, Cécred announced that it will expand its range with the launch of its Protection Collection, specifically designed for protective styles such as braids, twists, locs, and more. The collection features Cécred's PhytoFerment technology, which combines herbalism with science, and includes five high-performance essentials created to detox, refresh, and nourish the scalp and hair, no matter the hairstyle.
This rollout is strategic, as it is now available through Cécred’s website and will be in Ulta’s online stores starting September 7th, with nationwide availability in Ulta Beauty stores by September 21st. Not only does the core collection drive loyal consumers to Cécred’s website if they feel September is too far away, but it also sets the brand apart from other celebrity products that solely chase trends and neglect effective marketing of their products.
More importantly, the Protection Collection aims to reach out to people, especially those whose hair types are not typically targeted by marketing, and those who are often overlooked or ignored. This approach will only increase customer loyalty when they finally feel like a brand genuinely sees and caters to them, fostering a sense of mutual investment between the brand and its audience. I’ve used Cécred’s core collection myself, and, as a person that finds themselves wearing protective styles more often than not, I fully see how important it is that a brand is focusing on hairstyles that aren’t top of mind for other businesses. Like many of 100,000 people that WWD reported as waiting for a chance to order Cécred’s edge drops from its core line, we can feel that our hair is a priority and that Cécred is listening.
A Glimpse into Beyoncé
To bolster the brand voice, in a rare turn of events, Beyoncé has used the one thing she’s best known for to support Cécred : her voice. Most people familiar with the star know that she is fiercely private about her personal life and rarely gives interviews now that she’s at the peak of her career. Still, fans were surprised to see Queen Bey appear in videos where she discussed her own routine with the products she helped curate, even demonstrating how she uses them.
It's one thing to claim that your product works and for others to use it, but creating a series of videos showing the product in use adds a level of authenticity that other celebrity brands strive for. It transforms the idea that Cécred might be just a business venture into something much more personal, especially for an artist known for her love of privacy.
Cécred’s Essence
Cécred has already earned numerous accolades and was recently named one of the most powerful beauty brands of 2025 by WWD. From her international tour to nationwide retail stores, Beyoncé demonstrates that she manages her brand and business like a performance, making her latest haircare venture unsurprisingly successful. Cécred, as a brand, is more than just a haircare line; it's where culture and commerce come together, and other entrepreneurs and celebrities can learn that influence shouldn’t be the primary force for success but rather a helpful foundation for building a lasting, successful brand. And if Cécred follows the trajectory of Beyoncé’s career in the music industry, its growth in the beauty business has only just begun.