Maybelline New York has permanently altered its 35-year-old tagline, transforming the familiar phrase into Maybe. We’re born with it. Maybe. It’s Maybelline.
with the addition of full stops and a pronoun swap.
The 1991 Slogan Evolution Under Miley Cyrus
First introduced in 1991 in a commercial featuring Christy Turlington, the beauty catchphrase has received its first major permanent update. The brand launched the reimagined slogan alongside global brand ambassador Miley Cyrus as part of a new global platform called The Beauty of Infinite Possibility.
According to Maybelline global brand president Sandrine Jolly, the previous jingle carried an inherent ambiguity that functioned more like a question. The revised punctuation turns that ambiguity into a definitive declaration. Jolly noted that the change from “she” to “we” is small in language but incredibly meaningful, shifting from one woman to every woman as an invitation for each person to explore and express herself.
The ‘maybe’ is not a doubt or hesitation anymore: ‘maybe,’ period, is a statement of possibility, and that is what we want to be for women.
Sandrine Jolly, global brand president of Maybelline
Cyrus recorded a new jingle for the tagline last year and stars in a new 45-second spot where she speaks to the power of believing in infinite possibility. The Grammy Award-winning singer noted that she thinks of “Maybe.” as all doors being open, stating that while who you are is something you are born with, you can always become something you have dreamt of being by staying true to yourself.
Maybelline New York is owned by L’Oréal, the largest beauty conglomerate in the world, while Maybelline itself stands as the largest makeup brand globally, recognized for bestselling franchises like Lash Sensational Sky High mascara, Fit Me complexion products, and Super Stay Matte Ink lipsticks, with the latter selling every 10 seconds.
Critics and Social Media Users Slam Punctuation Choices
Executive beauty director Jenny Bailly remarked that the period reads as skepticism rather than potential, noting that the tone feels dismissive or sarcastic rather than confident and hopeful.
Social media users and media commentators criticized the punctuation choices. Public response ranged from eye-twitching reactions among social media users to blunt complaints regarding grammatical choices, with commenters running to find fellow critics of the misplaced periods.
Previous Attempts to Replace the Famous Jingle Failed
This is not the first time the cosmetic giant has attempted to move away from the famous jingle. The company previously swapped out the tagline for “Make It Happen” in 2015. The following year, the brand doubled down by having Cyrus record an original song incorporating the slogan while dropping the first half to work only maybe it's Maybelline
into a minute-long jingle.
Despite a long retirement, consumer research conducted by the brand revealed that 84 percent of people still recognized the original sentence, cementing it in the Mount Rushmore of beauty taglines next to phrases like easy, breezy, beautiful
and because you're worth it.
That enduring recognition prompted Maybelline to bring the catchphrase back in 2024 through campaigns featuring Gigi Hadid and Storm Reid before enlisting Cyrus.
Strategic Shifts in Consumer Perception
The brand noted that the next chapter of its tagline reflects how women see beauty today, moving away from meeting a fixed ideal toward self-expression and reinvention at every age, while aiming to address all people who love makeup.
Allen Adamson, co-founder of the brand consultancy Metaforce, noted that the phrase is too closely tied to the company’s identity to abandon entirely.
