Inside Maybelline’s first tagline update in 35 years

Few taglines are iconic. When one is part of the cultural lexicon, it’s hard to imagine a good reason to drop it.

That could be why, instead of an outright overhaul, Maybelline is today opting to update the brand’s 35-year-old tagline, “Maybe she’s born with it. Maybe it’s Maybelline.” The update includes mostly grammatical and pronoun tweaks to the 1991 version: it now reads: “Maybe. We’re born with it. Maybe. It’s Maybelline.”

Why change it at all? Sandrine Jolly, global brand president, Maybelline, acknowledged that the brand’s tagline is “a very strong asset as a heritage brand.” With that said, there is an “ambiguity” inherent in it, Jolly said, making it unclear whether the customer’s beauty could be their own, or if it’s due to Maybelline’s products.

The adjusted tagline is “still about self-confidence,” she said, but is aimed at focusing on “optimism and our capacity to help women to open the doors of endless possibilities.”

By changing the tagline to include “we’re born with it” and making it a separate statement, the company is looking to make clear that beauty is attributed to the person—as well as to reflect how the cultural conversation around makeup has changed. According to YouGov data, the most common reason American women wear makeup is for a “confidence boost” (49%), with 26% citing “self-expression,” and just 13% saying they wear makeup because of “societal expectation.”

“The way we evolve it is really to say, ‘You are born with something very unique, with something very special, and we will help you to stay true to yourself. But you are also born with the power of becoming…we help you with this power of ‘maybe’ and the transformation of makeup. We help you to become the one you want to be,’” Jolly said. “It can be a different stage of your life, it can be some small twist or it can be a drastic change.”

Updating the pronoun from “she” to “we” is a change aimed at broadening the brand’s customer base. The new tagline will allow the brand to “talk to every woman in the world, not only to one model of femininity, not only to one woman,” she said. “We are addressing all people who love makeup.”

The beauty brand is unveiling the updated tagline with the brand’s global ambassador, singer and actor Miley Cyrus, who just last year recorded a new jingle for the tagline. In a new 45-second spot, Cyrus explains that “maybe” is a platform built on possibility.

That spot will roll out on social media, where Maybelline will focus much of the marketing behind the new tagline this year. There are plans to build on that in 2027.

Allen Adamson, co-founder of brand consultancy Metaforce, said making an update to the tagline to reflect a changing cultural conversation around makeup makes sense.

“It’s such an iconic set of words, and so hardwired to Maybelline that they can’t walk away from it,” Adamson said. “But they have to change it a little bit, and the two changes are [to] not make it judgmental and make it a statement of confidence that women can say about themselves, and make it less of a question.”