The Truth Behind Rhode Beauty’s Candy-Coated Marketing Tactics

Imagine that you’re scrolling on your phone. Suddenly, a Rhode post stops your thumb. Two lip tints, twisted up in candy wrappers like the fruit chews that you fought your sibling over as a kid. The caption simply says “sweet + salty.” You haven’t read a single word about the tints’ peptides or wear time, but you’ve already added them to your cart.

The truth is, though, you don’t want a lip tint. You want the feeling of candy on your tongue. And for one delicious second, your brain can’t tell the difference between skincare and candy. 

Then your bank app buzzes, and your sweet little fantasy becomes a $20 receipt.

That was the plan all along. Hailey Bieber knows exactly what she’s doing.

The Rhode brand didn’t blow up because it has good products. It blew up because it looks good enough to eat. Rhode has a cult following because it stopped selling products and started selling a feeling. The Rhode brand appeals to 18-25-year-old women chasing the soft, effortless, “it girl” lifestyle. And there’s a reason that candy post made you buy that lip tint. It even has a name.

Your brain took the shortcut.

Psychologists say that there are two ways to persuade people. The first is the central route. That’s when you think about your opinions. You read product ingredients, compare prices, and ask if the product actually does anything. The second is the peripheral route, and it skips thinking entirely. It runs on cues like color, mood, and aesthetic.

Here’s the fun part. When you’re scrolling quickly, your brain is lazy and a little cheap. It doesn’t want to analyze a lip tint’s ingredients, so it simply grabs the nearest shortcut and “feels” its way through your decisions. Those feelings live in the older, faster parts of your brain, the ones that center on reward and emotion, not the slow, analytical region that reads ingredient lists. When a candy wrapper hits your feed, it lights up your memory and pleasure centers long before logic shows up to the party. Your brain reads “sweet + salty” and quietly switches on feelings of appetite and comfort. You’re buying that product — no actual sugar required.

Rhode lives on this route. It doesn’t ask you to think. It asks you to purchase with your emotions — as quickly as possible.

The wrapper design isn’t about candy.

The candy wrapper lip tint design isn’t random. It’s nostalgic, playful, and a little ironic. And it precisely points to the soft, romanticized version of girlhood that young adult women reach for. Slow mornings. Glowy, bare skin. The kind of beauty that looks like it took zero effort.

Rhode ties its products to the vision of beauty products that feel as effortless as eating a piece of candy. You’re buying a specific version of yourself, the one who has her life together and lips that look like her favorite dessert. Underneath your emotions is a sense of identity. You want to be the girl who looks effortlessly stunning.

Rhode never argued that it was better than the five glosses at the bottom of your bag. It handed you a piece of candy and made you crave the feeling it invoked. Then, Rhode placed the product right in front of you — no work necessary.

So next time a post makes you a little hungry, check what you’re actually hungry for. It might not be the product, babe.

Featured Photo by Emmanuel Black on Unsplash.