They’re taking over the pop-world, and now Katseye have their sights set on beauty. Joining hands with Glossier for its Lip Glaze launch, the girl-group sit down with Wonderland, to discuss their collaboration with the beauty giant, and their new, “Gnarly” era.

There are few musicians who can turn a song from a flop into a bop within a matter of days. But let Katseye get their claws on a bassy beat, lyrics that reference boba tea, Tesla, and fried chikun’, and they’ll convince the internet that, yes, a bag of Takis really can be “Gnarly”. The six-piece girl group — which could equally be mistaken as IRL Bratz dolls if passed on the street — released their latest single “Gnarly” May 1st, offering fans the first snippet into their new project, BEAUTIFUL CHAOS, due for release June 27. Their sophomore album is a far cry away from the frothy and flirty lyrics which the girls bounce their hips to in Touch. If SIS (Soft is Strong, their 12-minute long debut album) had easily-replicable finger dances and milkshake-hued babydoll dresses, then “Gnarly”’s bread and butter lies in its sleazy chorus, grommet-laden micro miniskirts, and unison twerking choreography, which has the internet in a chokehold. 

But the group has been in the making for years now. After a part-trauma-bonding, part-euphoric training experience in LA, the girls were handpicked with a fine tooth comb by K-Pop conglomerate HYBE, and Geffen Records, which is responsible for the likes of Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish. After committing their lives for 2+ years to the vigorous K-Pop training procedure, Katseye was eventually formed via a painstaking, anxiety-inducing survival show courtesy of Weverse, The Debut: Dream Academy, as 120,000 dwindled down to the six that we know and love. Led by Sophia Laforteza, the group is grounded by Lara Raj’s floaty vocals, Daniela Avanzini and Megan Skiendiel’s otherworldly dance skills (which make for a healthy dosage of viral TikToks), alongside the maknae cuteness of Yoonchae Jeung (K-Pop slang for a group’s youngest member), Katseye is finished with Manon Mannerman’s can’t-take-your-eyes-off-of-her visuals. 

Fast-forward to 2025, Katseye comes equipped with an armoury of smash-hit songs – Debut and Touch sit on a healthy 82 million and 284 million Spotify streams, respectively – a load of TikTok lore and fake wigs (the girls used wigs to replicate their SIS hairstyles in an ill-attempt to cover up their rebrand, which, after a slew of leaked photos hit socials, it pretty much became an IYKYK situation). Sort of like a Gen-Z iteration of The Pussycat Dolls, Katseye has become known for their Y2K style, which caught the eye of Glossier, as the beauty brand tapped the pop-darlings for its latest lip oil release – the Glossier Lip Glaze. 

In six sumptuous shades, the Lip Glazes are set to launch at Glossier and Sephora May 20, formulated with apricot and raspberry seed oils to give a sheer-glaze finish. Leaving lips feeling equal parts nourished and plump, each Katseye member wears her own shade as a reflection of her individual vibe. In lieu of Sophia’s wet-looking lip gloss, Eyekons (Katseye’s fandom) have been on a deep dive to find her lip combo, and now, along with Sophia’s honey-like lips, the Katseye beauty regime is ready to be showcased. But it’s not just Sophia’s luscious lips that have Eyekons in a frenzy, the beauty world has seen each Katseye member have their own viral moment:  Megan’s bangs, Lara’s bindi, Daniela’s natural curls, Yoonchae’s blush. Of course, Manon’s shaven, straight brows, which has the girls laughing about to me, confessing that they’ve all been influenced to similarly shave their brows, as they chat to me from LA, on a (poorly-connected, but we persevered) Zoom call.

Riding the wave of “Gnarly”’s global success – having amassed upwards of 24 million Spotify streams in under two weeks – Katseye sits down with Wonderland to debrief on their Glossier collaboration, makeup horror stories, and the spellbindingly “Gnarly” world that’s in the works, (could we be about to witness a Beautiful Chaos Summer?). “You thought it was one flavour?” Sophia smirks, “get ready for a whole new meal!” Lara tells Wonderland. Scroll down to read the full interview:

Thank you so much for catching up with Wonderland! How are you girls today?

Katseye: We’re good!

So, I’ll ask you a quick question before we get into it, do you have a go-to beauty product that will never go off of your face after a long day of dancing?

Sophia: The Benefit pencil for your eyebrows, if I really set it on my brows, because all of us are so heavily inspired by Manon that we shaved our eyebrows (laughs). So the arch of my brow is gone, and I have to draw on my tail. I also use the Glossier Boy Brow to fill it in, and then I draw on my brow with the Benefit brow pencil. Once I set it on with setting spray, that stuff is not moving anywhere!

A huge congratulations on your new album announcement, and “Gnarly”, of course, was amazing! But obviously your partnership with Glossier as well, can you talk me through your collaboration, what drew you to these Lip Glazes, and what made you want to work with Glossier?

Lara: I think Glossier, for all of us, has always been a brand that we’ve been really attracted to. Starting from middle school i remember the Glossier lip products, everybody was clawing to get their hands on it.

Sophia: Yes! It was the Balm Dotcom

Lara: Yesss the Balm Dotcom! I remember in middle school I’d be waiting in lines in New York at the pop up just to try and get in. I feel like Glossier has always represented natural beauty, it’s all about enhancing your natural features, and then using makeup to bring out the best parts of your face, so i feel like the Lip Glaze is something that is very individual. There’s such a beautiful shade range, so there’s something for everyone. It’s such an honour to be a Glossier girl.

For sure, that really resonates with Glossier too, in that it enhances what’s already there instead of masking it. Can you guys each go through each shade that you wear and how you apply it?

Sophia: So I have the shade Chilly. It’s this really pretty light pink, I have it on right now, I only have this one on. Usually when i wear a lot of lip oils or glosses I like to put a lipstick under, and I like to get one that’s a similar shade to my lips, but better. But when they gave me this shade I was like ‘wait, this is literally perfect I don’t have to wear anything else’, and I just wear this. I love a lip gloss, I love a lip oil, it makes for a super plump, hydrated look. I feel like it’s almost become a thing of mine now, and I’ve become obsessed with this specific shade, because it feels like what we were talking about earlier, about Glossier being natural yet enhancing.

Lara: So mine is Melty: it’s super rich, brown, has a reddish tint which I love, it feels so light on your skin, but it still really gives the gloss that I want. I love a glossy lip, and I always do a brown lip liner underneath, and I overline, I absolutely love to overline.

Yoonchae: Mine is Frosty, and it’s a little purple in colour, but if you put it on the lips, it’s not really purple, it looks more like a pinky gloss, with a little purple in it. It’s so pretty, I use it a lot!

Megan: My shade is Tangy, I usually put this directly on with nothing else because it’s actually very hydrating as well, so I use it more as a tinted lip balm which is more my vibe. But the shade is very corally and bright which I like, because I don’t like putting a lot of stuff on my lips so I only really need one product which I swear by, that I can put on.

Daniela: My shade is the Icy Lip Glaze, which is kind of blue, but when you apply it, it applies more clear, so I like to take a lip liner and then take the Lip Glaze and blend it in to move around the lip liner, because I already like the colour of my lip liner, so I’ll blend it with this, to make it super glossy and creamy. 

Manon: I got Creamy on me. I think it’s the perfect colour, I apply this and I look healthy and well, and it’s very cute.

Each shade you guys have makes sense for your aesthetics too. I know you touched on it before Sophia, but your lip gloss has become quite the topic amongst Eyekons. How do these Glossier Lip Glazes compare to your signature lip gloss?

Sophia: Oh my gosh, I feel like people are always saying ‘oh, she’s gatekeeping it’ and everything, but I really feel like I’m constantly changing what gloss I’m wearing! People will make compilations on social media trying to figure out what I’m wearing, but it’s always different. I think a lot of it comes from self care, I love staying hydrated, you have to take care of your lips and everything. And I also think it’s about how much I apply, sometimes I apply such a thick layer of gloss depending on what I’m using. But I’ve realised with the Lip Glaze I don’t have to apply such a thick layer to have that sugar-coated kind of effect, it goes on so smooth. Because it’s a lip oil, it almost feels like it is skincare for my lips. I love when a gloss doesn’t feel sticky, and so gummy on your lips. But this one feels smooth and that’s what I love.

You guys are now entering your second era, which we’ve seen with some big rebrands, and you’re now feeling more “Gnarly”! A lot of that rebrand is to do with your style and image, how important is makeup and beauty for you girls? In terms of how it serves as a form of self-expression?

Lara: For me personally, but also for all of us, I feel like makeup has played a huge role in terms of defining what era we are in, and what vibe we want to give off. I think it’s really obvious the makeup shift between our SIS era and now “Gnarly” era, we’re doing a lot more bold lip styles, bolder looks, eye things with thick lashes, eyeshadow, everything! I feel like makeup is such a good tool to use to show off where you’re at in life, and what vibe you want to give off. 

Sophia: I feel like with SIS, it was the starting point for us, so we were very natural and a little more like light with our looks. Because i think we wanted to show like, this is us, these are our features. Now, with “Gnarly”’s era we’ve got to play with stage makeup, we love to do smokey eyes, we got to play with a lot of gems and stickers for our performances. I think it’s so cool to be able to grow and to build with makeup, because I remember in the beginning, when we first debuted, we were like ‘why can’t I wear this crazy thick eyeliner when I perform Touch?’ and they would tell us ‘let’s start bare, let’s start fresh’.

Lara: Yeah, almost like a blank canvas.

Sophia: Exactly, makeup is a way to show the world who we are, and now, because we’re finding our artistic image and how we want to portray ourselves, people are now starting to know who we are, at the same time as we’re starting to find ourselves. So it’s a lot of discovery too, working out what works with our features, because we’ve all had our fair share of makeup horror stories.

Any stories that you’re not wanting to see the light of day?

Lara: Umm, there are many! But I think it comes from each one of us having such different features because we’re global, so it’s like, we all have different skin colours, different eye shapes, so when we all try and fit into the exact same makeup style it just doesn’t work because we just have such different faces. It was really a trial and error process, working out our glam routine for shows, because we each need something different. So when we have a different makeup routine each, it ends up looking the same, do you know what I mean? It ends up looking cohesive, but the journey of getting there was different.

And that’s really what works with you guys, especially from watching the Glossier video, you all come from such different backgrounds and that’s highlighted through the way each of you approaches makeup. I’m curious to know, have you learnt anything about each other’s makeup routine through doing makeup together?

Sophia: I’ve learnt a lot about how I do my eye makeup from Yoonchae, I feel like I have similar features to her just because we’re more Asian, so I feel like I’ve learnt a lot – because she’s a blush girlie – so even where she places her blush, I’ve been inspired by. And then I used to try and do my eyeliner how Lara would do it, because I used to grow up watching a lot of Western films, and then I would put on brown bronzer, I used to wear gold eyeshadow and everything. I didn’t know I was a cool toned girlie, so it would look crazy on me!

What’s next in store for you guys, have you got any Beautiful Chaos-adjacent easter eggs you can tease?

Manon: There’s a lot coming, I know we’ve just dropped “Gnarly” but there’s so much fun stuff in the works, and it’s really exciting. And, I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t be the one dropping easter eggs (laughs) but there’s a lot of new flavours.

Sophia: You thought you got just one new flavour?

Lara: Get ready for a whole new meal!

Words – Freya Goodchild-Bridge