The 10 hashtags that (really) drive sales on TikTok Shop K-beauty, hairtok, and viral fragrances generate $670 million in the beauty industry

There was a time, about as distant as a 2012 YouTube tutorial, when buying a lipg loss meant leaving the video, the room, the house, getting on some form of transport, reaching the nearest perfumery, hoping they had exactly the shade we desired, and finally paying physically at the register before returning, satisfied, to our bedroom. Today, on TikTok Shop, desire is a straight line with far fewer steps: viewing, impulse, purchase. No detours, no second thoughts. The finger scrolls, the cart fills up, we enter our credit card details. End of the story. Or rather, the beginning of a new grammar of consumption. By 2025, this grammar reached an almost embarrassing level of maturity, with over 70 million beauty products sold in the United Kingdom, making the platform second only to the giants of e-commerce. But the most interesting data point is not quantitative, it’s semantic. The language that sells is no longer that of polished campaigns, but that of hashtags. Ten of them, to be precise, capable of generating over $670 million in sales in twelve months. Ten keywords reported by WWD that don’t simply describe the product, they activate it.

Hashtags as the infrastructure of desire

In the pre-social world, marketing built narratives. In the world of TikTok Shop, it builds shortcuts. Hashtags act like cognitive road signs, shortening the distance between a latent need and an immediate solution. Writing #skincare today doesn’t mean “skin care.” It means entering a continuous flow of tests, testimonials, micro-reviews, and “before and after” results that transform the doubt of adding a product to our beauty routine into desire, urgency, and ultimately purchase. It’s no surprise, then, that according to Charm.io, #skincare is the undisputed king, generating about $142 million in sales in a year. Its symbolic product is the Dr. Melaxin Peel Shot Glow Rice Ampoule Duo, which has become almost a visual mantra in feeds thanks to its mix of rice-derived ingredients and chemical exfoliants like AHA and BHA to remove blackheads, purify pores, and prevent acne. Why such success? Because skincare isn’t just a hashtag, it’s a mental category. Within it coexist pop dermatology, aspirational aesthetics, and a distinctly contemporary obsession with skin as a social interface. Right behind it, #koreanskincare ($96.5 million) and #skincareroutine ($56.9 million) refine the conversation. The former promises innovation and exotic rituality, the latter offers structure, method, discipline. The cross-category star? The Medicube Glass Glow Skincare Set, appearing everywhere like a luxury cameo in every viral clip. Together, they show that consumers don’t just buy products, they buy systems of meaning, neatly packaged in colorful bottles.

The gentle dictatorship of K-beauty

If there is an empire on this map, it’s K-beauty. No longer niche, no longer a trend, it’s now the dominant architecture of skincare discourse. The numbers make that clear. Hashtags like #Medicube ($58.2 million) and #DrMelaxin ($48.1 million) show that branding has moved beyond its traditional form to become the platform’s native language. People no longer search for “a cream”, they search for a specific name, already validated by the community, already performed in front of the camera. The Medicube Glass Glow set becomes a kind of totemic object, present across multiple hashtags (skincare, routine, brand), as if the algorithm itself had chosen it as the symbol of a new aesthetic: luminous, layered, hyper-cared-for skin. Repetition doesn’t bore, it reassures. Seriality builds myth. Each video is a minimal variation on a known script, and it is precisely this repetition that creates trust. And on TikTok, trust is hard currency. The more creators talk about a product, the more its sales grow.

Make-up, fragrance, and hair: the return of the wow effect

If skincare dominates in narrative depth, #makeup, with its $78.5 million, thrives on immediacy. The Tarte Colored Clay CC Undereye Corrector is a perfect example: a few seconds, a before-and-after, and the product is already in the cart. In the fragrance world, things become more sophisticated. Hashtags like #perfume ($54.6 million) and #perfumetiktok ($45.2 million) sell something that cannot be transmitted through a screen. And yet, they work. The bestseller Honey Oud by Bellavita Luxury cannot be smelled, nor can it enchant the senses with its notes of agarwood, saffron, rose, and vanilla. It achieves virality and sales through evocative descriptions, sensory storytelling, and almost theatrical reactions to each spray. Then there’s the dynamic realm of #hairtok ($48.3 million), alongside the broader #hair ($45.7 million). Here, content is technical, almost instructional. The Wavytalk Blowout Boost VIP Volume Festival Bundle becomes the star of videos that resemble tutorials, dominating because it demonstrates, step by step, a replicable result. The outcome is tangible, repeatable, and therefore sellable.

Community, reputazione e caos controllato

Il vero punto, però, è un altro. Su TikTok Shop il controllo aziendale è un’illusione ben confezionata. I commenti, i thread, le micro-community creano ecosistemi paralleli in cui la reputazione si costruisce o si distrugge in tempo reale. Gli hashtag più redditizi funzionano come poli gravitazionali che aggregano contenuti, opinioni, esperienze. Dentro #skincare o #hairtok convivono entusiasmo e critica, hype e fact-checking. È un caos produttivo, dove ogni video può rafforzare o incrinare la fiducia. Perché ogni contenuto contribuisce ad alimentare la conversazione, e ogni conversazione aumenta la probabilità di conversione. Il risultato è una forma di social commerce in cui l’utente non è più spettatore passivo, ma parte attiva di un sistema di validazione collettiva. E ogni acquisto diventa, implicitamente, anche un atto di partecipazione. Così, nonostante l’apparente anarchia, i numeri restano solidi. O forse proprio grazie a essa. Perché la percezione di autenticità unita al sentirsi protagonisti dello storytelling, anche quando costruito ad arte, può trasformare lo spettatore in acquirente.

The new luxury is relevance

What do these ten hashtags teach us? That contemporary luxury is no longer (just) about price or formulation, it’s about algorithmic relevance. Being visible within #skincare or #koreanskincare is worth more than a traditional campaign. In the feed, the new shopping mall, hashtags are neon signs. Some attract more than others. And some, particularly the ten reported by WWD, convert attention into revenue with surgical precision. The result is an ecosystem where content and commerce collapse into the same gesture. Watching means desiring. Desiring means buying. Welcome to the era of the hashtag economy, where ten words are enough to move hundreds of millions, and to rewrite, with almost ironic lightness, the rules of beauty.

Top 10 most profitable TikTok Shop hashtags in the U.S. (last 12 months, Charm.io)

1. #skincare: $141.9 million. Best product: Dr. Melaxin Peel Shot Glow Rice Ampoule Duo, $33
2. #koreanskincare: $96.5 million. Best product: Medicube Affordable Glass Glow Skincare Set, $91
3. #makeup: $78.5 million. Best product: Tarte Colored Clay CC Undereye Corrector, $32
4. #Medicube: $58.2 million. Best product: Medicube Affordable Glass Glow Skincare Set, $91
5. #skincareroutine: $56.9 million. Best product: Medicube Affordable Glass Glow Skincare Set, $91
6. #perfume: $54.6 million. Best product: Bellavita Luxury Honey Oud Eau De Parfum, $25
7. #Hairtok: $48.3 million. Best product: Wavytalk Blowout Boost VIP Volume Festival Bundle, $43
8. #DrMelaxin: $48.1 million. Best product: Dr. Melaxin Peel Shot Glow Rice Ampoule Duo, $33
9. #hair: $45.7 million. Best product: Wavytalk Blowout Boost VIP Volume Festival Bundle, $43
10. #PerfumeTikTok: $45.2 million. Best product: Bellavita Luxury Honey Oud Eau De Parfum, $25