The phone case immediately went viral after launching in February 2024. The people of the internet—namely, the beauty-obsessed demographic driving modern retail trends—couldn’t get enough, matching the silicone accessories to their favorite lip shades and eagerly anticipating new colorways. For Rhode fans, it was a way to showcase allegiance to their favorite brand and its very famous and influential founder. An accessory that seemingly came out of nowhere, it changed the beauty merch game overnight—and perhaps not in a good way, sparking an industry-wide rush to replicate its viral magic.
Now, two years later, it’s not hard to find knockoffs that don’t exactly live up to Rhode’s original creation. Online marketplaces like Temu and Shein are flooded with inexpensive dupes in every color of the rainbow, and loads of established and indie brands alike have been inspired to create their own phone case-beauty product hybrids. At best, these competitors try and replicate some of Rhode’s original viral momentum; at worst, they reheat Bieber’s successful formula into a stale, soggy mess that misses the mark entirely.
Earlier this year, Daise Beauty launched a lip balm that sticks to the back of your phone like a PopSocket, and just this past week, two major legacy brands released similar concepts. Dior started selling a mini lip balm on their website, while Charlotte Tilbury announced a mini setting powder, both of which adhere directly to the back of a mobile device. Dior’s version carries a luxury price tag of $95, whereas Tilbury’s is offered as a free gift with purchase. Meanwhile, Fenty Beauty collaborated with Casetify to create a case that holds both a tiny powder and a tiny lip gloss, resulting in a product so clunky it couldn’t possibly fit in a cute little purse, let alone someone’s pocket. There have likely been other gimmicky iterations thrust upon consumers since 2024, but none of them made enough of an impact to stick in the public consciousness.
Frankly, many consumers and industry observers have had enough of this landfill-bound, wasteful junk. Two years ago, Rhode did something novel and captured the cultural zeitgeist, but brands attempting to hitch a ride on Bieber’s coattails just to make a quick buck aren’t helping when it comes to the mounting crisis of overconsumption in the beauty industry. Instead, they are only making it worse by attempting to force a brand-new category of highly disposable products onto an already oversaturated market. Although Bieber recently told Fortune that she is not personally interested in overconsumption, she is undeniably in the business of manufacturing products and selling them to the masses, including the current six distinct colorways of her signature case.
The environmental footprint of these trends is staggering. According to Euromonitor International, almost 7.9 billion units of rigid plastic were created just for beauty and personal care products in the U.S. in 2018 alone. That astronomical figure was recorded before the massive influx of charms, custom cases, branded merchandise, and other random accessories sold by the very beauty brands that are already accumulating the bulk of the industry’s plastic waste. Furthermore, the global beauty market is expected to grow by 5 percent annually until 2030 according to projections by McKinsey & Company, meaning that the total volume of plastic packaging and accessory waste is likely even larger today. And even if an of-the-moment beauty accessory manages to end up in a municipal recycling bin, it may never actually be recycled: statistics show that only 9 percent of all plastic waste ever produced has actually been turned into something reusable.
Beyond the environmental toll, many of these hybrid items are not only superfluous and a waste of both financial resources and raw materials, but they also sound like a severe hygiene nightmare. Almost a decade ago, a widely cited study published in Time revealed that our cell phones were ten times dirtier than most public toilet seats—a statistic that has surely multiplied exponentially over the past decade as people have become even more inseparable from their miniature screens. It was around that same time that data from research firm Dscout uncovered that the average cell phone user touches their device a staggering 2,617 times per day.
Given these realities, the logic of attaching cosmetics directly to a tech device falls apart. Why, on earth, would anyone purposely stick a beauty product onto the back of a filthy, bacteria-laden device just to then jam their unwashed finger straight into a formula they are going to smear directly across their mouth or over delicate facial skin? Additionally, smartphones regularly heat up during intensive use, charging, or multitasking, and a warm, enclosed surface is hardly an ideal environment for preserving the integrity of delicate cosmetic formulas.
Describing her brief experience with the Daise stick-on balm, Allure associate social media manager Katie Gunderman noted that her amusement with the accessory was short-lived. Her initial thoughts were centered on how cute, fun, colorful, and potentially practical the concept seemed. However, after about a week of carrying her phone in her back pocket or jammed tightly into her purse, she realized the container kept sliding open and collecting pocket lint and debris along the way. After that experience, applying the product to her lips was completely out of the question.
That practical failure also begs a broader logistical question: Does no one put their phone in their pocket anymore? How are everyday consumers expected to fit an entire mini computer and a pressed powder compact into their already tight denim pockets? And while the internet’s appreciation for a strong "girl grip" is impressive, as these accessories grow bulkier and more cumbersome, one has to wonder if they are at all comfortable to hold during long phone calls or extended scrolling sessions.
Every brand ultimately contributes to the beauty industry’s waste problem, including Rhode, simply because they manufacture consumer goods that do not last forever. But at least the originators of the beauty phone case brought a level of intentionality and structural design to the product. Rhode’s silicone case is inherently more hygienic than an exposed pot of sample-sized lip balm stuck on pop socket-style, and it pairs with a full-size, refillable product. The case itself can be used across however many lip treatments a consumer actually goes through during the lifespan of their phone—and thus the lifespan of the case.
The market is currently lacking that same level of thoughtful engineering from competing brands rushing to cash in on the trend. If criticism is to be directed anywhere, it points squarely at late-stage capitalism, where virtually every aspect of modern life has been commodified. This commodification extends right down to the decorative charms hanging off handbags and the trinkets attached to handheld internet portals. Consumers have inadvertently become walking billboards for corporate entities, and when considering the sheer volume of mirror selfies featuring branded phone cases, everyday users are performing a tremendous amount of marketing legwork for free.
The current glut of phone and beauty accessories isn’t just unhygienic or visually fatiguing—it is mentally exhausting to keep up with, pointing to a dismal answer regarding the ongoing cultural discourse over whether originality is truly dead. While consumers should theoretically be free to do whatever they choose with their beauty products and continue expressing themselves through small, meaningful style choices, attaching cosmetics directly to our primary digital tethers feels counterproductive. In the end, we probably don’t need more screen time, nor do we need our makeup welded to the backs of our phones.
