Which Winter Olympians Will Score Beauty Deals?
As Nike’s $100 hoodie-du-jour declares, “Everyone watches women’s sports.” That’s especially true at the Olympic level, where according to Nielsen ratings, events like women’s figure skating and women’s alpine skiing take top numbers in the US and the UK. Meanwhile on TikTok, the term “Olympic Snowboarding” began trending eight days ago, even though the first women’s event doesn’t start until next week. (In 2022, competitors like snowboarder Chloe Kim racked up more than 5 million TikTok views on their competition days.) Besides being a fun distraction from everything else going on, the Olympic Winter Games — which begin with the traditional Opening Ceremony in Cortina, Italy on Friday — are also a springboard for endorsement deals between brands and athletes, many of whom you’ve never heard of before the event itself. While cosmetics giants like Maybelline and Glossier have committed most of their brand bucks to the WNBA, a number of drugstore labels and niche founder-led companies are betting on Olympic wins to increase overall visibility, promote key cold-weather or sweat-resistant formulas and take advantage of the growing pop culture connection between shopping for stuff and playing to win. Of course, some major deals have already happened — not just for female athletes, but dudes, too. Native’s first-ever partnership with athletes is a co-ed deal with six members of the US bobsled team, which promotes the Procter & Gamble brand’s non-aluminium deodorant formula with the tagline, “the only metal you want touching your skin is gold.” Meanwhile, Salt + Stone — the personal care line founded by pro snowboarder Nima Jalali — signed Olympic skier Alex Hall as an ambassador… and built a 12-foot snow sculpture for the campaign in the shape of a giant deodorant stick. Venus created ads for its Gold Razor featuring gold-medal figure skating hopefuls, including Isabeau Levito and Starr Andrews. And Kim is the face of Batiste dry shampoo, which she frequently shouts out to her 1 million Instagram followers. (Helmet head comes for all of us, it seems.)Still, there’s room for last-minute endorsement deals to hit the slopes — and our screens — as the 2026 Olympic Games arrive on TVs and TikTok feeds worldwide. While athletes compete for legacy gold, brands will vie for the elusive glory of virality instead.The Pop Rock PrincessAthlete: Alysa Liu, 20Sport: Women’s Figure SkatingWinning Traits: With her emo striped hair, pierced frenulum and on-ice devotion to Lady Gaga, Liu would be an alt beauty dream for colour-drenched cosmetic lines like Urban Decay and vivid dye labels like Good Dye Young. Besides going against figure skating’s traditional ballerina-core vibes, Liu also has a compelling personal narrative: She quit skating at 16 to preserve her mental health, then returned to the ice for a stunning comeback at the 2025 World Championships. ROI Indicator: Besides her 330,000 Instagram fans, Liu is regularly cited on Reddit as an inspiration for out-of-the-box female athletes. A common refrain from former skaters and ballerinas: “Alyssa Liu healed me.”Liu's grungy take on the traditional ballerina figure skater vibe aligns well with Urban Decay's archive of brand faces. (Instagram) The Bobsled BombshellAthlete: Kaysha Love, 28Sport: Women’s Bobsled RacingWinning Traits: A child gymnastics champ turned high school and college track star, Love didn’t even start bobsledding until she was 23, thanks to the encouragement of her former University of Nevada Las Vegas running coach. Because of her unique experience as a sprinter and her lifelong love of sports competitions, Love excelled early. By 2025, she had a gold medal at the Lake Placid World Championships. She’s part of Native’s Olympic deodorant campaign, but her long, streaming hair would be ideal for a scrunchie and barrette company like Goody or Kitsch, especially in tandem with her frequent bobsledding partner Azaria Hill, who often wears her luscious tresses naturally curly. ROI Indicator: Besides being part of a super-cute love story (her fiancé, Hunter Powell, is also an Olympic bobsledder), the Utah native is currently a face of Skim’s Team USA line. Is there a better indicator of future viral success than Kim K’s stamp of approval? Love was the 2025 women’s monobob world champion. (Instagram) The Whirl Next DoorAthlete: Erin Jackson, 33Sport: Women’s Speed SkatingWinning Traits: She’s the first Black woman to win an individual gold medal at the winter Olympics (in 2022) and a former roller derby champ who didn’t switch to ice skating until she turned 25. A natural on camera, Jackson has an easy charm when letting crews follow her through a basic leg workout or a fitting session for her Ralph Lauren team outfit. With the winning smile of a high school president, the Florida native could easily sell toothpaste, lip balm or muscle balm — after all, she’s aiming to break (another) world record on the ice. ROI Indicator: Jackson is emerging as an early press darling in the games, with recent features in USA Today, Time and Bustle, and sponsored content with Hershey’s that puts her front and centre with paid social media. Jackson is already winning plenty of press attention, having won big at 2022's games. (instagram) The Quad GodAthlete: Ilia Malinin, 21Sport: Men’s Figure SkatingWinning Traits: The only known skater to land a quadruple Axel in an official competition, this 21-year-old was called “The Man Who Broke Physics” in The Atlantic. He’s also a bit impish during promotional stints: Instead of a “get ready with me” segment for Team USA’s TikTok, he told the camera “get ready without me,” winked and walked away, then came back in his full Ralph Lauren uniform. And he has a fan in NHL legend Alex Ovechkin, who gifted the Virginia native a pair of his ice hockey laces to wear during his Olympic skate programs.ROI Indicator: Malinin’s swirling textile costumes look like Rodarte archival pieces and he’s got a cat named Miu Miu. L’Oréal should give him a seat at the Italian’s label’s Paris show if they can manage it — he’d be a hoot skating around in one of the Spring 2026 aprons. Malinin lands so many quadruple jumps, he's been nicknamed "the quad god." (Instagram) The Cool MomAthlete: Kaillie Humphries, 40Sport: Women’s Bobsled RacingWinning Traits: As an “elder millennial,” this sledding star is one of the oldest athletes at this year’s Olympic games. Unafraid of signature style, Humphries sports a half-shaved head and bright red lipstick in competition. Longevity-focused beauty brands like OneSkin and Laura Geller might want to pay close attention here, along with brands that have an inherently Millennial customer base like Tatcha and Covergirl.ROI Indicator: Along with her teammate Elena Meyers Taylor, 41, Humphries is being touted by NBC as an example of “Mom Strength,” branding the working parent as a new type of Olympic archetype — one sure to get more camera time on broadcast TV and outlets like the New York Times. Humphries' reputation as a "working parent" Olympian with a bold signature style makes her an attractive prospect, particularly for makeup and skincare brands. (Instagram) The Sleeper Social Media InfluencerAthlete: Giorgia Birkeland, 23Sport: Women’s Speed SkatingWinning Traits: An Italian-born American, this Minnesota-raised athlete is competing in her second Olympics, this time in her mother’s home country. (She’s said that her cousins are coming to watch her skate during the games.) Her dual ties could give her an edge with Italian media, amplifying her presence both home and abroad. ROI Indicator: Birkeland has a very modest following on Instagram — less than 3,000 followers — but she boasts an astonishing 62 percent engagement rate on IG Reels, according to Keywords Everywhere. That means Birkeland’s videos are seen as much as an account with 93,000 followers and a typical 3 percent engagement rate. Wild. Birkeland's high engagement rate could be easily amplified over the course of the games. (Instagram) The Rainbow ElsaAthlete: Amber Glenn, 26Sport: Women’s Figure SkatingWinning Traits: As the first openly queer woman to win the US Women’s Figure Skating Championships, Glenn has taken bows wearing the rainbow flag after whirling through her program with the pointed, effortless glide of Frozen’s Elsa, whom she resembles thanks to her serpentine blonde braids and sharp-like-a-blade black eyeliner. Like the Disney heroine, Glenn has also fought inner demons, taking time off from the sport in her teens to deal with depression and an eating disorder, before returning to the ice and winning three consecutive national titles. Though she has a sponsorship deal with the lotion brand Amlactin, she could also align nicely with a “bedroom eyes” brand like Charlotte Tilbury, or with Kérastase’s blonde protection products.ROI Indicator: Vera Wang is among her million-plus social media fans, and has proven to be a rapt supporter, commenting on nearly all of the 26-year-old’s posts. Could a costume collaboration be in their future?Glenn's social media reach is already considerable. (Instagram) The Straight ShooterAthlete: Cayla Barnes, 27Sport: Women’s HockeyWinning Traits: A two-time Olympic medalist, Barnes was once the youngest ice hockey member of Team USA at age 19. Nearly a decade later, the defence player returns to the games as a seasoned veteran who plays pro for the Seattle Torrent. With her shiny brown ponytail in a Gen-Z middle part, multiple ear piercings and a face reminiscent of the rising actress Ariana Greenblatt, Barnes would be an easy fit with youth-oriented skincare-to-makeup brands like Summer Fridays and Tower 28 — especially since Barnes is often pictured in the type of hoodies that these brands make as merch. ROI Indicator: Much like beauty brands sponsoring entire WNBA teams, all of Team USA’s female hockey players would be incredible beauty ambassadors for the right skincare or makeup brand. But Barnes might be a fun breakout talent because she boasts the goodwill of hockey fans and the industry power of CAA, where she’s a client in their sports division. (Fellow player Hilary Knight, with her 200,000 Instagram followers, already seems pretty busy with her very own Chipotle burrito!) Barnes' personal style would translate well to a youth-focused brand. (Instagram) The Triplet ThreatAthletes: Helaina, Henniyah and Henri IV Rivers, 18Sport: Alpine SkiingWinning Traits: Born to a Jamaican mother in Brooklyn, these triplets began racing at the age of five and trained in the Catskill mountains of New York, where they also became the first Black triplets to earn the rank of Eagle Scout. While all three are competitive racers, Henri IV is the only sibling hitting the slopes for this year’s Olympics, but Henniyah and Helaina vowed to continue training for the 2030 races in France so all three siblings could qualify together. ROI Indicator: With their matching snowsuits by Spyder in Jamaica’s signature green, black and yellow colours, the triplets are already a formidable sight both on and off the slopes. They’re also keenly aware of how visible they are as Black teens in a winter sport, and post tutorials about racing technique and winter haircare for their nascent social media account. A brand could easily give their instructions a video glow-up for TikTok or Reels and cast the triplets in starring roles. While only one of the Rivers triplets is competing in 2026, they already have a budding social media presence. (Instagram) The Ski QueensAthletes: Eileen Gu, 22, Mikaela Shiffrin, 30, and Lindsey Vonn, 41 Sports: Alpine Skiing and Freestyle SkiingWinning Traits: They’re captivating, jaw-droppingly talented, and publicly adored. Gu is already a Louis Vuitton ambassador with a Tiffany campaign. Shiffrin wears a Barilla pasta beanie while racing that could double as a Kith collaboration. Vonn is a longtime face of Under Armour who also has deals with Redbull and Rolex. So why aren’t the Olympics three most visible women fronting any skincare or makeup campaigns? It’s either an oversight on the industry’s part or a calculated move as the athletes move into pivotal new stages of their careers. Sometimes, you just have to focus on being the GOAT and save a mascara campaign for April.Gu has already landed covers including Time and Vogue Hong Kong. (Instagram) Sign up to The Business of Beauty newsletter, your complimentary, must-read source for the day’s most important beauty and wellness news and analysis.
