Beauty Takes to the Starting Block for the 2024 Paris Olympics and Paralympics

PARIS — The 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games will allow beauty players to flex their muscles like never before.

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A confluence of reasons feed into this.

The Games , running Friday to Aug. 11 and Aug. 28 to Sept. 8, respectively, mark the first time that gender parity — the same number of female and male athletes participating on the playing field — will be achieved. That advances women in sport at a time when female athletes are becoming beauty’s superstars.

They have enormous clout. Sales generated by women’s elite sports is expected to surpass $1 billion for the first time in 2024, according to Deloitte predictions.

The Paris Games are also expected to be the largest in-person sporting event since the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, making them a major marketing moment.

“Brands that are going to get the most out of these opportunities are those that are able to connect in a really meaningful way with people and stand out from the crowd,” said Ellie Thorpe, global director at Kantar BrandZ, explaining such strategy builds consumer relationships for the long term.

As a result, official sponsorship of brands and teams has ramped up. Earlier this month, Glossier revealed it is the USA women’s basketball team’s first beauty partner, for instance.

And Olay’s new Cleansing Melts became the official facial cleanser for Team USA, with five athletes — track-and-field stars Sha’Carri Richardson and Athing Mu; soccer player Rose Lavelle; sport climber Natalia Grossman, and gymnastics gold medalist-turned-commentator Laurie Hernandez — fronting the product.

Concurrently, the International Olympics Commission loosened its rules disallowing the individual athletes’ endorsement of brands during the Games, greatly multiplying the tie-in possibilities. The shift in ruling will likely lead to more direct social media interaction among athletes, brands and fans over social platforms during the Games, underlined Thorpe in a recent report.

Olympian Suni Lee joined forces with Kiss to front the nail brand’s new at-home curing system, called the Salon X-tend Starter Kit.

Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast of all time, has begun began a two-year ambassadorship with K18, the Unilever-owned hair care brand. Her kick-off campaign highlights the importance of inner strength.

The focus on wellness in the sports arena also keeps deepening, as it does among the general public.

“ As seen with the rise of women athletes endorsing beauty brands like England rugby player Holly Aitchison for Clinique, opportunities offered within women’s sports go beyond sportswear, from beauty to food and nutrition, health and tech/appliances,” said Marguerite Le Rolland, head of apparel and footwear at Euromonitor International.

“Women are taking a pragmatic approach to their mental and physical health, and are focusing on smarter ways to optimize their health and enhance how they look without multi-step regimes and invasive procedures,” she continued.

An athlete’s link to a brand must make true sense, however.

“Brand fit is really important — so balancing the consistency of your brand positioning with a really authentic and relevant message,” said Thorpe. “That’s the challenge. But for personal care in particular, those brands actually fit really well in this space.”

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LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton is a premium partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and some of its beauty-related brands have gotten involved, too. Fenty Beauty by Rihanna announced last week that it is a premium partner of the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The brand posted on Instagram a photo of the superstar walking hand-in-hand with a Fenty lip gloss in front of the Eiffel Tower spangled with Olympic rings.

As part of its core focus on inclusivity and diversity, Fenty will give makeup kits to 600 volunteers, aged 18 to 21, who are awarding athletes medals. This will include Eaze Drop’lit and Foundation, Gloss Bomb Universal Lip Luminizer and Invisimatte Setting Powder, according to the brand.

The volunteers are also to be offered tutorials, via a QR code, on how to make themselves up for the event, as well as access to the brand’s makeup artists.

Fenty, according to Thorpe, is “very well differentiated. It stands for something quite unique in the minds of consumers. If they’re able to really amplify that message on a global stage, that’s a real sign that they’re starting to build that salience with people. They’re starting to amplify their message, build longer-term brand equity.”

LVMH’s premium beauty retailer Sephora is a partner of the Olympic Torch relay, which debuted in the southern French city of Marseille on May 8 and offered activations for the public on the relay route, as well as at group locations along the itinerary and at stops. In four cities, for instance, Sephora operated pop-ups where people could get free makeup and learn about beauty from Sephora’s teams.

Sephora president and chief executive officer Guillaume Motte will be in a torch relay Tuesday in Versailles, France.

“One of the biggest sources of pride from a team point of view is the selection of 50 of our team members across France who have been able to carry the torch,” Motte said. “This was very exciting for [them] and for the stores that were close to where the torch was actually being carried.”

The partnership resonates with Sephora for numerous reasons.

“We wanted to highlight athletes and their talent,” he said, calling them true ambassadors of beauty and diversity. “They’re also so inspiring in terms of performance.”

Sephora wanted, too, to showcase its internal talents and savoir-faire — especially related to its makeup artists.

“Our teams are going to do the makeup on the podium, which is going to be installed on Trocadéro, which celebrates all the medal winners,” Motte said.

Further, Sephora is French, and the torch relay is a celebration of France.

“Being a partner of the torch relay is also a tribute to our roots,” said Motte, adding: “It’s a great opportunity for us to reinforce our purpose and our values, because they are very close to what sport can bring.”

Sephora’s stated mission is to champion a world of inspiration and inclusion, where everyone can celebrate their beauty. That chimes with the Olympic and Paralympic Games’ ethos.

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