7 MAJOR Beauty Launches That Nearly Broke The Internet

You could argue that the term “breaking the internet” has become so overused, it’s lost all meaning. After all, the internet is a very complex series of interconnected tubes, and a new lipstick or naked celebrity is not going to break it — but that doesn’t mean an epic beauty launch can’t still put a dent in the public conscious.

That's what happens when a brand garners enough buzz on social media: When a product drops, it does, in fact, crash websites and clog up phone lines. Hundreds of thousands of units are sold, tens of millions of dollars are grossed, and you get to brag that you were one of the few people to get your hands on Too Faced’s Papa Don’t Peach blush before it became part of the brand’s permanent collection.

We can’t say in good faith that any of these launches really and truly broke the internet. This is not Y2K all over again. But maybe — just maybe! — they succeeded in putting a hairline fracture in the World Wide Web, if only for a blip in time.