“As of last year, the lip stain [represents] less than half of our sales,” he says. “You might not know this because it still has so much visibility out there, but, for example, our eyeliner is another top seller in its own category and within its own niche. We have our blush product, the Phlush Stick, that came out last year. That’s taking a strong percentage of sales.” And the Hyper Bond All-Day Stay Serum foundation, launched last year, is growing steadily month on month, he adds.
This product diversification comes as Wonderskin enters a new phase of growth. In May, the brand raised $50 million in its first Series A funding round, led by Insight Partners, with the capital earmarked for retail expansion, product development, R&D and expanding its inventory. Its business is currently 75% direct-to-consumer and 25% wholesale, but the balance will shift this year: Wonderskin is adding 1,500 new US doors through its Sephora expansion alone, with further international openings planned. They are on track to exceed $200 million in revenue in 2026.
Even as wholesale becomes a larger part of the business, Malinsky stresses that Wonderskin has no intention of abandoning the infrastructure that propelled it in the first place. “We’re not losing our digital roots,” he says. “We have accepted that our identity is in our DTC. That’s what allows us to move very fast, understand what works and what doesn’t, and have direct access and dialogue with our customers on a first-party basis, which is critical in this day and age.”
Turning innovation into a moat
From the beginning, Wonderskin took an early bet that the technology behind its lip tint could become its long-term competitive advantage. Unlike a conventional lip color, its Liquid Blading technology uses a high-concentration, water-based gel to deposit pigments into the upper layer of the lips, before an activator triggers a reaction that seals the colour in. The formula was patented early on, and the brand subsequently acquired the New Jersey laboratory that developed it, bringing a core part of its product development process in-house.
That matters in a category that is no longer Wonderskin’s alone. A growing number of brands, from challenger names such as Sacheu to established beauty giants like L’Oréal, have entered the space with their own long-wear formulas. The laboratory was intended to safeguard the technology behind the hero product, but acquiring it also doubles up as a future-proofing strategy for future product development. “It was very important to keep that innovation really in-house and be able to multiply these innovation and technology moments into our R&D and new product development,” says Kalenchyts, co-founder and brand director of Wonderskin.
