The jersey is the most visible part of Lashify’s partnership with the Portland Fire. The more revealing part is the space players return to when the cameras are gone.
Inside the Kaiser Permanente Performance Center, the Lashify Lounge gives Fire players a place for downtime and team connection. Its presence puts the beauty brand within the environment surrounding their work, alongside the preparation, recovery, and everyday routines that rarely receive the same attention as competition. [3]
That is what makes this partnership worth examining. Lashify has a public-facing role as the Fire’s marquee jersey sponsor, but its agreement also extends into athlete preparation, fan experiences, and beauty-content and loyalty programming. Announced in April 2026, the relationship has received fresh attention through a recent Forbes feature exploring its physical integration and player perspective. [1, 2]
For beauty brands considering women’s sports, this offers a useful next step in the conversation. There is an audience to reach. There are also people, places, and occasions to understand before deciding how to reach it.
A Place in the Day, Not Just the Picture
Beauty has a familiar connection to moments of public visibility. Media day, an arrival photograph, an interview, or a personal appearance can all involve preparation that sits outside an athlete’s training program but remains part of her professional life.
Lashify’s integration acknowledges that surrounding experience. The Fire’s facility guide notes that the company supplied products for media day, while the partnership announcement describes an athlete-exclusive glam and preparation space. [1, 3]
The distinction is practical. A product encountered in a relevant routine can mean something different from a product presented through an advertisement. It gives the athlete an opportunity to decide whether it belongs in her life, and gives the brand an opportunity to learn from that use.
In the Forbes reporting, Nika Mühl discusses being listened to and the importance of players’ shared space. Founder Sahara Lotti describes learning about player routines and preferences. Those accounts offer an insight into the relationship’s intended value: the experience should begin with the women using it. [2]
This is also where beauty brands need judgment. Some athletes enjoy elaborate preparation; others prefer a minimal routine. Products, preferences, and needs vary. A credible partnership makes room for those differences and allows participation to remain a choice.
The opportunity is to support an existing part of the athlete’s world. Its relevance comes from understanding that world closely enough to contribute something welcome.
The Commercial Audience Beyond the Court
That athlete connection matters because the audience watching her has commercial significance of its own.
Nielsen reported 46 billion minutes of U.S. women’s sports viewing in 2025 across the sports covered by its analysis. The figure establishes substantial attention, but the case for beauty brands becomes more interesting when we consider the people behind it. [4]
In a July 2024 analysis, Nielsen reported that 74% of global women’s sports fans were their household’s chief income earner. That describes earning responsibility rather than affluence, yet it places these fans within the economic life of their households. [6]
Parity and SurveyMonkey’s 2025 U.S. research adds a more direct category signal. Among women who watch women’s sports, 36% said health-and-beauty sponsorship made them more likely to consider buying from the category’s sponsors. The report also found that one in five women’s sports fans had purchased products or services because of sponsorship support. [5]
Those findings describe consideration and self-reported purchases, respectively. They suggest a commercially receptive audience without establishing a universal spending profile. The survey covered 2,385 U.S. adults, with fan-specific findings drawn from subgroups.
For a beauty founder, the implication is promising: sports fandom can provide a context in which consumers notice the brand and give its products consideration. The strategic work is to understand which fans, which category needs, and which experiences make that attention useful.
A brand selling through local retailers may value a different team relationship from one pursuing national ecommerce growth. A product requiring education may benefit from demonstration, while a familiar product may lend itself to convenient discovery at an event. Audience size is only the beginning of that decision.
Beauty Is Building a More Substantial Presence
Lashify’s approach belongs to a broader set of beauty partnerships that connect athlete experience with public engagement.
Sephora’s relationship with Unrivaled is the closest comparison. Its initial integration included a Glam Room, player makeup support, and a tunnel experience. In December 2025, the partners expanded their agreement to arena naming rights, alongside further player support, fan programming, and retail-linked access. [7]
The expansion shows how a relationship can develop across several settings. Preparation gives the brand a role with players. Storytelling makes parts of that relationship visible. Fan experiences and retail connections create opportunities for the audience to participate.
Sephora’s Golden State Valkyries agreement adds another dimension. Alongside performance-center naming rights and player content, the April 2025 announcement included an in-arena kiosk offering beauty products for purchase. [8] That places a potential shopping occasion within the fan’s game-day experience.
In soccer, e.l.f.’s March 2026 announcement outlined the second-year expansion of its NWSL partnership through additional markets, athlete collaborations, and matchday experiences. [9] It illustrates the value of continuity: a brand can develop a recognizable presence through a calendar of activity rather than a single campaign moment.
These are different approaches, with different purposes and resource requirements. Their common thread is a beauty relationship with room to extend beyond one appearance. Continued and expanded investment demonstrates commitment, although the reviewed announcements do not publish quantified sponsorship returns. They provide models to study, rather than financial outcomes another brand can assume it will reproduce.
Turning a Sponsorship Into a Relationship
The interesting strategic feature of Lashify’s agreement is the connection between its private and public settings.
The player space serves one audience. The jersey serves another. The fan arrival experience and loyalty programming provide additional opportunities for participation. Each can help the relationship become more recognizable, but each needs its own reason to exist.
For a brand entering the sector, that begins with defining the contribution. A preparation space needs products people want, reliable upkeep, and a way to respond to feedback. A fan experience needs to give visitors something worth their time. Content needs a story an athlete is comfortable telling and an audience has reason to follow.
The commercial path should be equally considered. If discovery is the objective, the brand needs to understand whether fans remember it and why. If trial is the priority, it needs an experience that helps people evaluate the product. If purchase is the goal, availability and follow-up have to connect with the audience’s actual shopping behavior.
This is where partnership strategy becomes operational. Rights fees are only part of the commitment. Staffing, product supply, maintenance, content, and evaluation require resources too. A focused experience delivered consistently can offer more value than an ambitious launch that becomes difficult to sustain.
Athletes also need a voice as the relationship evolves. Their feedback can help a brand understand what works in practice, while clear permissions establish how any resulting images, testimonials, or stories may be used. Trust depends in part on respecting the distinction between providing something useful and requesting promotional participation.
These are recommendations for brands considering their own entry, rather than a description of Lashify’s internal operations. Public documentation establishes the partnership’s elements; it does not disclose its commercial terms or sales results.
Build Something People Want to Return To
The next opportunity for beauty in women’s sports may lie in becoming a welcome part of experiences people already care about.
For the athlete, that might be a preparation ritual or a comfortable space between demanding parts of her day. For the fan, it could be a product discovered through someone she follows, an enjoyable game-day experience, or a convenient opportunity to try something new.
Lashify’s Portland Fire partnership brings those possibilities into view. Its value as a case study is the specificity of its presence: a brand entering an environment, learning its routines, and connecting several forms of engagement around it.
Beauty companies considering women’s sports should take that specificity seriously. The right opportunity will emerge from the fit between the brand’s expertise, the athlete’s preferences, and the audience’s interests. Research can help identify the potential. Thoughtful execution is what gives people a reason to keep engaging.
The most compelling question for a brand is therefore how it can become useful enough to be welcomed, recognizable enough to be remembered, and relevant enough to earn consideration when the customer is ready to buy.
Continue the Conversation
Beauty, Brain & Brawn Consulting helps beauty and lifestyle brands assess opportunities in women’s sports, clarify positioning, and develop partnership and activation strategies. To discuss the right entry point for your brand, connect through BeautyBrainBrawn.com.
Volume 2 of Beauty, Brain & Brawn Magazine will explore opportunities for brands to watch across women’s sports, including the intersections shaping athlete identity, beauty, fashion, and business.
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Sources and Reporting Note
This article combines public partnership documentation, attributed reporting, and original strategic analysis. Beauty, Brain & Brawn Magazine did not independently tour the facility or interview the participants for this article. Statements about partnership design and measurement are editorial recommendations. No commercial outcome is inferred from the existence of the sponsorship.
- Portland Fire, “Lashify Named Marquee Jersey and Official Eyelash Partner of the Portland Fire,” April 13, 2026. Original announcement.
- Tiana Randall / Forbes, “Lashify Partners With Portland Fire To Create A New Kind Of Space For Women Athletes.” Yahoo syndication, timestamp October 1, 2026, 03:43 UTC. That timestamp identifies the syndicated publication; the original Forbes publication date was not independently confirmed.
- Portland Fire, “Kaiser Permanente Performance Center HQ,” undated, accessed October 3, 2026. Official facility guide.
- Nielsen, “46 Billion Minutes of Women’s Sports were Consumed in 2025,” March 5, 2026. Original release. U.S. aggregate viewing minutes for the specified sports in calendar 2025; not a beauty-consumer survey or sponsorship-effectiveness measure.
- Parity / SurveyMonkey, U.S. Women’s Sports 2025: Give the Fans What They Want, June 12, 2025. Original report. Online poll of 2,385 U.S. adults aged 18+, April 8–11, 2025, weighted for age, race, sex, education, and geography. Figures cited concern respondent subgroups and reported consideration or purchases, rather than transaction-level attribution.
- Nielsen, “What’s next for women’s sports: Fueling growth by proving value,” July 2024. Original analysis. Household-earner finding concerns global women’s sports fans; the public article does not provide sample size or fieldwork dates for that figure.
- Sephora / Unrivaled, “Unrivaled And Sephora U.S. Announce Arena Naming Rights Deal In An Expansion Of Existing Partnership,” December 4, 2025. Original announcement.
- Golden State Valkyries, “Golden State Valkyries Announce Groundbreaking Founding Partnership With Sephora U.S.,” April 9, 2025. Original announcement.
- e.l.f. Beauty / NWSL, “e.l.f. Takes Over the NWSL with New Talent, New Cities and New Partnerships to Connect with Fans in 2026,” March 13, 2026. Original announcement.
