Throughout the 2024 Paris Olympics, the world’s biggest brands bet on athlete partnerships to call beauty to the forefront of sports. Ahead of the curve nevertheless, Glossier staked their claim with USA’s WNBA well before the trend, because the division’s first-ever beauty partner back in 2020.

Now, the 2 are teaming up for a campaign in celebration of three latest Glossier Lip Gloss shades—bronze, brown, and pink—marking them as the most recent athlete-approved must-haves on and off the court.

“The WNBA and Glossier are leading the conversation across the intersection of beauty and sports,” Glossier’s VP of product development Emily Trillaud tells ESSENCE. “We wish to vary how the world thinks about beauty and champion female empowerment.” With Black women in sports often kept in a box, long-lasting athlete-proof makeup products are bridging the gap between the sport, beauty, and those playing. 

“As athletes, we get seen as a method on the court,” Connecticut Suns center Brionna Jones—who stars within the brand’s gloss campaign— says. “I remember Glossier being aligned when people felt like we didn’t really have much to offer to popular culture or beauty,” Seattle Storm point guard Skylar Diggins-Smith—also appearing within the campaign— adds, calling the brand new Lip Gloss “symbolic.” “The WNBA is at its brightest moment right away.” 

Expanding into more light-catching shades, Glossier first launched their signature Lip Gloss in 2017. Then, they introduced two everlasting gloss shades in “red” and “holographic.” Now, “almost 4 years later—we’re thrilled to increase our family of gloss colours once more by adding these three latest shades,” Trillaud says, giving classic ‘90s makeup a gloss-ier finish.

“As you would possibly imagine, we like an incredible gloss at Glossier, and given our brand’s name, there was immense pressure to deliver an ideal formula,” she says. Landing on an opulent formula enriched with vitamin E and jojoba oil, the brand new Lip Gloss maintains the identical sheer shine from previous colours, except with added glitter in the brand new bronze and pink shades.

“They’re beautiful when worn solo for a sheer shine, but they may boost more pigmented products when layered on top,” she says, with the brown shade remaining shimmer-free. “We’ve been obsessive about penciling a little bit of Lip Line underneath these for a neutral look with slightly extra polish.”