BK Beauty Doubles Down on TikTok Shop

We’ve followed the growth of BK Beauty since its launch seven years ago. Paul Jauregui co-founded the direct-to-consumer cosmetics brand in Austin, Texas, with his wife, Lisa. I’ve interviewed him multiple times since then.

The company had hit $1 million in first-year revenue when we first spoke in 2020. Then in 2023, Paul shared the business’s early wins with TikTok Shop, a new marketplace.

The potential U.S. ban of TikTok in 2025 contributed to BK Beauty moving away. But the hiatus was short-lived.

In this latest conversation, Paul addresses the company’s return to the platform, success with Ulta Beauty, and more.

Our entire audio is embedded below. The transcript is edited for clarity and length.

Eric Bandholz: What do you do?

Paul Jauregui: In 2019 my wife and I started BK Beauty, a provider of makeup and accessories. We grew quickly out of the gate and have continued to expand distribution, add new products, and double down on the creator ecosystem, which built our business.

We were one of the first merchants on TikTok Shop, in August 2023. We’ve seen the full life cycle of the platform — the good, the bad, and the ugly. TikTok Shop was a huge inflection point for our brand.

The first 18 months were TikTok Shop’s golden age. And in 2025, with the potential TikTok ban, we didn’t know if it would survive.

And at the same time, the platform became pay-to-play, unlike the golden age when organic conversions were through the roof. We then pulled back.

After that, however, conversions on our other channels slowed. So in 2026, we’re refocused on TikTok Shop. It’s a core discovery engine for our brand. In our experience, what happens there carries across all other channels. We’re rebuilding our TikTok Shop exposure now.

Bandholz: Pay-to-play in what regard?

Jauregui: GMV Max is TikTok’s ad product. Without investing in GMV Max, our customer acquisition would likely go nowhere. But the fees rack up.

GMV Max requires heavy content penetration for the ads to perform. The more creative it has to draw from, the more efficient GMV Max should be.

Beyond ad spend, we’re dealing with the cost of product sampling and creator retention. Before our rebuild, we were sending creators maybe 200 product samples per month. We’ve increased that to roughly 1,000.

We’re mostly known for our makeup brushes and tools. Thankfully, they’re not consumable. We can sample those items once, and creators can talk about them over time.

Our biggest challenge now is that the top TikTok creators already have our products. It does not benefit us to keep sending the same products to the same people.

The final pay-to-play challenge is selling commissions.

We’re five months into our rebuild within TikTok Shop. It’s going well, but we’re still learning.

Bandholz: How do you select creators?

Jauregui: We classify creators by volume. This is what TikTok suggests. Not all creators are the same. Some drive a lot of GMV for the brand. Others produce much less, but in the aggregate it’s significant.

TikTok breaks it down by levels: L1 through L7. An L3 is somewhere in the middle: a creator who generates, on average, $25,000 in monthly GMV across all brands. L7s are the top producers. But L3 and above are the folks to reach and retain.

Bandholz: Tell us about other channels, such as Ulta.

Jauregui: We launched on the Ulta Beauty Marketplace and Nordstrom Marketplace last December. Ulta is a curated marketplace. Sellers can apply to join, but ultimately, Ulta invites you. And it’s been great.

Over the years, we have developed a lot of creator relationships and a great deal of coverage. But we experienced a couple of blackout periods annually when people weren’t talking about us. Those periods were largely around tentpole events, such as Ulta’s “21 Days of Beauty” event, the company’s big annual sale. Another was the annual Nordstrom Anniversary Sale.

Both diverted share of voice to their event. And we weren’t relevant because we weren’t on those marketplaces.

We focused initially on Ulta Beauty Marketplace. With Ulta, one of those tentpole moments was March this year. We were featured as a premium placement on Ulta’s 21 Days of Beauty home page.

In return, we agreed to provide a compelling offer — 50% off a specific item for one day. That prompted the creator community to talk about us.

Within 24 hours, we sold over 20,000 units, the top-selling SKU on Ulta.com that day.

Bandholz: How does Ulta fit into your channel breakdown?

Jauregui: Our branded site, BKBeauty.com, is about 50% of revenue. TikTok Shop and Amazon are about 20% each, with Ulta roughly 10%.

We’ve considered developing a wholesale channel, but it’s a different set of muscles than our direct-to-consumer model. Ulta would be our first wholesale interest if we explored that option. But we’re cautious. No one else knows our brand, business, and customers better than us.

Bandholz: Where can people follow you, reach out to you, support you?

Jauregui: Our site is BKbeauty.com. I’m on X and LinkedIn.