The inaugural quarterly index from Net Influencer and ThoughtLeaders ranks brands by the share of voice they earn inside “Get Ready With Me” videos. The brand that led share of voice this quarter is a shopping app that never appears on camera, and the brands that led last quarter are already ceding ground to a single retailer.

LTK, the app creators use to turn their product recommendations into shoppable links, led share of voice in “Get Ready With Me” content on YouTube in Q1 2026, outranking every cosmetics brand in the format. That is the headline finding of the inaugural GRWM Index, a quarterly benchmark from creator economy publication Net Influencer, built in partnership with creator intelligence firm ThoughtLeaders.

The index ranks brands by the total views their appearances earned across long-form GRWM videos, the fast-growing format in which creators get dressed and do their makeup on camera while talking through the products they use. LTK led with a 5.0% share of voice, followed by beauty retailer Sephora at 2.7% and Maybelline at 1.3%.

That a shopping app sits at the top of the share of voice ranking is the quarter’s most telling result. LTK appears in the description beneath these videos, never on screen, because creators add its links to earn a commission when viewers buy. Its share of voice lead reflects how much of the format now runs on creators’ own storefronts rather than on brand-funded placements.

The GRWM format is overwhelmingly earned or affiliate driven rather than paid. Nearly 90% of brand appearances in the index carried no paid-promotion disclosure, meaning creators reached for those products on their own. Share of voice here accrues to the products creators genuinely choose, which is not something a media plan can manufacture. It also leaves the format almost entirely uncontested by paid spend, so a brand willing to back the right creators can move its share of voice here in a way it no longer can in channels everyone already buys.

Prestige slips, the retailer gains

The brands that led share of voice a quarter earlier all lost ground at once. Huda Beauty, the share of voice leader in Q4 2025, fell to sixth as its views dropped 68%. Rare Beauty fell 52%. Much of the attention they shed went to Sephora, which more than tripled its views quarter over quarter to take second place overall. A retailer that carries everyone is becoming the name creators credit most on camera, a shift that should concern any brand watching its share of voice migrate to the store that sells it.

Other findings from the quarter

Two budget brands surged on unpaid creator enthusiasm: CoverGirl roughly tripled its presence quarter over quarter and Essence climbed sharply, both almost entirely from creators choosing them unprompted. Share of voice in this format is no longer the preserve of prestige and indie labels.

Among the shopping apps, a challenger to LTK is gaining fast. ShopMy more than tripled its appearances in a single quarter, evidence that the tools creators use to monetize are still unsettled. Any brand treating LTK as the only platform that matters in this format is working with an incomplete picture.

The format also showed early signs of spilling beyond beauty. A bedding brand and a luxury fashion label each reached the top tier on the strength of a single viral “get ready with us” routine video, suggesting GRWM is widening from the makeup mirror into broader lifestyle and fashion content.

What brands should watch

The opening quarter establishes the questions the next index will answer. Whether the prestige brands that slipped can reclaim their share of voice, or whether retailers and creators’ own shopping tools keep absorbing it, will define the format in 2026. So will the contest among the shopping apps, which now command more share of voice in beauty GRWM than most of the brands they help sell.

The GRWM Index is based on brand mentions detected across 1,658 qualifying long-form YouTube “Get Ready With Me” videos published in Q1 2026 and 2,208 in Q4 2025. Brands are ranked by the actual views their appearances earned, counted once per video. Shopping apps are tracked alongside product brands and labeled as such, and one-off viral spikes from outside beauty are flagged and held out of the headline ranking. The full report ranks the top 50 brands, details every quarter-over-quarter move, breaks out the paid-versus-earned split for each, and examines how the format’s affiliate infrastructure shapes which brands get seen.

[Get the full Q1 2026 GRWM Index]

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