Rosie Huntington-Whiteley’s New Beauty Brand Helps Her Manage Adult Acne

Rosie Huntington-Whiteley is best known for her fashion aesthetic, but beyond a perfected mirror-selfie stance and an enviable Bottega collection, her business passion is actually fashion and accessories' next of kin: beauty.

Her love of glossy editorial coupled with the long hours spent in the makeup chair inspired Huntington-Whiteley to launch Rose Inc., her personally-curated beauty website, back in 2018. Since then, the model-turned-brand-founder has been quietly lab-formulating her dream collection of beauty products to live under the Rose Inc. umbrella — and it's finally here.

For Huntington-Whiteley, the decision to become yet another celebrity launching a beauty company, was not entirely her own — but a byproduct of what her followers were asking for. "Whenever I share anything beauty-related across my platforms, it got so much engagement," Huntington-Whiteley explained to Refinery29 in a recent Zoom interview. "I wanted an opportunity to connect with that audience and community. So, I set out to see if I could bring them a product line."

In terms of exact products, Huntington-Whiteley worked alongside Rose Inc CEO Caroline Hadfield to develop a "modern beauty brand" modelled after ready-to-wear fashion. "Instead of launching 50 products, I wanted a tight edit," she explains of the first 6-piece collection, which will be followed by new innovations in upcoming seasons. "I feel like that's the modern way of launching a brand in 2021 — we're actually calling the first drop our 'Modern Essentials' collection. Plus, it allows us to get each product right."

The Rose Inc. Modern Essentials collection includes Huntington-Whiteley's everyday must-haves, including two skin-care products designed specifically to help clear and prevent adult acne. "I've had acne-prone skin my entire adult life, so I've been on a quest since the age of about 16 to figure out how to manage that," Huntington-Whiteley explains. "Over the years, I've built out my own research, but these are the two skin-care products give me the most instant results: an AHA toner and then a beautiful hydrating serum-meets-primer."

As for the makeup, there are four different products (and two brushes). "We have a cream blush, a lip product, a brow gel, and a does-it-all concealer," Huntington-Whiteley adds, crediting the concealer as her favourite product in the line. "Since we locked the formula down, I have not been using any foundation. It has a chubby doe foot, so I dot mine all over my face where I want coverage. Then I use our brush to just blend. It has this lovely blurring effect, but it leaves the skin looking like your own skin, but with this velvet luminosity."