Just in time for the cozy, chilly months, NYX launched a cool brown beauty staple: its Suede Matte Lip Liner in OG Brew. If it sounds familiar, it’s because the new lip liner is a reimagining of its original formula for the consumer-favorite Cold Brew. So when OG Brew hit shelves on January 3, it sold out in five hours. And fans of the beauty essential have one particular person to thank for its return: Paloma Sanchez.
Since September 2024, the beauty content creator has been grieving the loss of her favorite lip liner. At the time, she, like countless consumers, took to TikTok to share that something was up with the cosmetic staple. Cold Brew’s formula update shifted the color tone and texture of the original cool-brown color and creamy finish. And the Mexican creator hilariously (and very seriously) never got over the switch-up. For more than a year, she lamented the formula change, testing hundreds of luxury and drug-store lip liners in an attempt to replace her beloved original Cold Brew, but she never quite found any product that matched it.
“When I set out to find my ideal lip liner, I discovered Cold Brew and it immediately stood out. I loved how it looked on my complexion and how effortlessly it worked with so many different lip products. It was also affordable without sacrificing performance, which made it even more special,” Sanchez tells Refinery29 Somos. “Cold Brew was genuinely one of the only lip liners I used, so when I repurchased it, I immediately knew something had changed.”
Sanchez noticed that the texture of the lip liner was drier and the shade had a tint of warm orange. So she did what 20-somethings are increasingly doing when a product doesn’t quite meet their expectations: she shared her thoughts online. Except, she had an audience of hundreds of thousands — and many of them felt the same.
“I made the video out of pure sadness and frustration after realizing a product I truly loved had changed so drastically,” she says. “As someone who is very passionate about product development, I had a genuine curiosity about why such a staple, affordable product would be altered in such a way.”
Her first video, Part 1 of now 28 attempts of finding a dupe of NYX’s Cold Brew, went up on TikTok on September 28, 2024 and has more than 190,800 likes and hundreds of comments from folks who echoed her calls for NYX to bring back the original formula.
“I did not expect the reaction it received. I was simply sharing an honest emotional response, and it clearly resonated with people,” Sanchez says.
The humorous episodic videos eventually got the attention of Tracy Allen, NYX Professional Makeup’s Director of Global Product Development. “We always strive to bring you the very best,” Allen tells Somos. “Sometimes, our products need a little update, whether it’s because certain ingredients are banned or discontinued, or we’ve moved to a new manufacturing home. While we aim for perfection, unfortunately, these updates can occasionally lead to slight variations in shade or texture.”
But as Sanchez’s dupe-search videos went viral, Allen’s team noticed that not everyone was a fan of some of the changes, and they tuned in to Sanchez’s year-long series to hear what she and her audience missed about the original lip liner. A year later, in 2025, Allen and her team invited Sanchez to work with them on a new product launch: the OG Brew. Sanchez headed to the NYX Professional Makeup headquarters in El Segundo, California, with the tiny remains of her original Cold Brew lip liner and worked with product developers to carefully test and assess various swatches until landing on a shade she loved.
That lip liner, OG Cold Brew, is out now, and if you ask the girls on TikTok, Sanchez and NYX delivered. “NYX Cold Brew is so back,” one creator said. “Everyone, let’s go say thank you to Paloma,” another added.
The collaboration is the latest in a growing trend of brands responding to creator feedback on specific beauty formulas. In May of 2025, Beauty Crop Cosmetics teamed up with creator Aisha Asunramu to co-design a lip kit after the latter voiced a need for shades tailored to deeper tones. Later that year, Tower 28 worked with TikToker Toni Bravo to co-create two high-pigment powder blush shades after the creator also stressed the need for shades for people with deeper skin tones.
It’s clear that beauty brands don’t just hear social media feedback, some of them also listen, even inviting everyday experts (the consumers!) into their headquarters to create products their shoppers actually want.
“We love our community. At NYX, your voice truly matters to us, which is why we are constantly referencing your social media content and reviews throughout our development process to create products you’ll love,” Allen tells Somos. “When Paloma called out a visible discrepancy in her favorite shade, we jumped at the chance to listen to her feedback and make things right.”
And now, beauty lovers can shop both NYX’s OG Brew and Cold Brew lip liners.
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