Beauty lovers will ‘die’ at Liquid Death and E.l.f. Cosmetics’ newest drop

“You’re going to die,” E.l.f. Cosmetics CMO Kory Marchisotto said as she opened a coffin-shaped, velvet-lined package containing five mini Liquid Death cans.

She cracked open one of the cans and shook out the newest version of E.l.f.’s Squeeze Me Balms: the E.l.f. X Liquid Death Lip Embalms. The lip balms, inspired by the beverage brand’s Severed Lime, Killer Cola, Doctor Death, Rest in Peach and Sweet Reaper flavors, are an ode to one of the most “die hard” sectors of the beauty community: metal heads.

“They cover their entire faces in black and white — they have to live through lights and sweating, and then they’ve got to get it off,” Marchisotto explained. “It’s a lot of work to get it on, it’s a lot of work to get it off. Who knows makeup better than those who coat their entire face?”

Starting this Wednesday, the limited-edition “Lip Embalms” are available for purchase on the E.l.f. Cosmetics website and TikTok Shop. The launch was announced today with a musical commercial featuring Glothar, the metal head character first introduced during E.l.f. and Liquid Death’s successful 2024 “Corpse Paint” collaboration, which notably sold out in just 45 minutes.

“Putting these two brands together made magic at the intersection of bold and what [VP of creative at Liquid Death] Andy Pearson calls the ‘normalization of the bizarre,’” Marchisotto said, humming the campaign’s metal-inspired jingle mid-interview.

The entire E.l.f. X Liquid Death Lip Embalms campaign was managed in-house. From E.l.f. Cosmetics’ Soooo Many Dicks 2024 campaign to Liquid Death’s Kegs for Pregs project this March, featuring media personality and content creator Kylie Kelce, neither brand is new to the disruptive marketing approach.

Months after E.l.f. became the first brand to integrate in-stream shopping into Twitch livestreams, the beauty brand and Liquid Death created a Liquid Death-themed obstacle course game on Roblox to accompany the Lip Embalms launch. The game begins on the Mountain Water level and ends on the Sweet Reaper Iced Tea level.

“Signals on Roblox continue to tell us to lean in — we have a 96% brand approval rating, and we’re seeing some of the most success from taking our real-world activations into the Roblox experience,” Marchisotto explained.

“We’re leaning into the platform we built and adding a new dimension, from the lens of this death-defying obstacle course that’s very much true to the Liquid Death brand,” Marchisotto said. “Both brands get this incredible, fun, bizarre and entertaining collaboration; and on the professional side, our teams lift each other to higher ground.”

This story first appeared on PRWeek U.S.