L’Oréal’s CeraVe was growing by double digits before the pandemic, a trend that accelerated massively when people staring at their faces on Zoom started paying closer attention to skin care. Yet even against comparisons to those big gains, the skincare brand is still growing like crazy.

Sales soared 34% in the second quarter through June 4 compared with the year-earlier period, bettering a 23% pace the prior year and following 34% to 37% gains each of the prior three quarters, according to Circana data from Evercore ISI.

Behind that growth are dermatologist recommendations delivered directly to patients or on social media. The brand more recently combined experts with other star TikTok creators, a strategy that helped land it at the top of several Gen Z rankings, including the “2022 Gen Z State of Beauty Report” from Gen Z media company Kyra.

“For each of our tentpole campaigns we bring together the internet’s favorite dermatologists and Zach King, one of the world’s top creators, to create magical videos that delight consumers,” said Adam Kornblum, global senior VP and head of digital marketing for CeraVe. “We also lean into dermatology conferences by turning them into content factories.”

CeraVe ranked as L’Oréal’s second-most advertised brand in the U.S. in 2022, behind flagship L’Oréal Paris, according to measured-media spending data from Vivvix, including paid social data from Pathmatics, reported in Ad Age Leading National Advertisers 2023. U.S. measured-media spending on CeraVe surged 44% to $117 million in 2022.

The brand also spent more than $50 million on TV the year ended June 18, according to iSpot.tv, more than triple the $14 million spent five years earlier.

Tom Allison, co-founder of CeraVe, who stayed with the brand following its 2017 acquisition by L’Oréal and is now senior VP of global professional marketing, credits “a combination of factors” for the brand's success. But wherever it plays, he said CeraVe marketing is always about its roots in dermatology and ceramides, the active skin-restoring and protecting ingredient in all products.

And that message keeps getting through.