In the expanse of celebrity-endorsed beauty brands, only a few have witnessed a meteoric rise as fast as Kylie Cosmetics. Kylie Cosmetics was founded by Kylie Jenner, who is actually the youngest among the Jenner siblings, in the year 2015. Their maiden launch was lip kits that eventually garnered the attention of beauty enthusiasts irrespective of their age all over the world.
Their iconic matte liquid lipsticks create a boom and beauty standard in the cosmetic world, which ultimately leads to viral trends like #kyliejennerchallenge and massive social media attention. Kylie Jenner’s massive social media followers and the brand’s direct consumer production approach paved the way for its successful reign. And in less than no time, Kylie Cosmetics turned into a million-dollar empire.
But things started hitting rock bottom for Kylie Cosmetics after 2019. The intensifying competition, failed rebranding, and negative controversies against Kylie Jenner took a toll on Kylie Cosmetics. Instead of focusing on consumer preferences, the brand went for aesthetic designs and packaging for the products. The huge fall in sales during the time of rebranding and lack of innovative products and formulas also intrigued the consumers.
Natural cosmetic product trend, which represented a new quality over quantity consumer preference that didn’t particularly match Kylie Cosmetics’ original aesthetic. As per reports, 60% of consumers reportedly stated that they had only ever made one purchase from the company, which may depict how the quality was below expectations and it didn’t encourage making multiple buys.
The latter reason for the brand’s demise was the partial acquisition of the ownership stake in Kylie Cosmetics that Kylie sold to the huge cosmetics firm Coty Inc. for an unbelievably high sum. Such a step brought financial growth for the brand but simultaneously led to a loss of interest among consumers and began to harbor rumors surrounding the brand and its identity. Even though Kylie was putting all her might to make her new venture Khy a huge hit by releasing swimwear, it was unable to compete with the level of celebrity endorsements and also had reported cases of much dissatisfaction among its customers all over the world. But she also experimented with vegan leather coats, which is an appreciable seal in today’s sustainable practices all over the world.
Will Khy be the platform from which Kylie will launch her new business ventures? The failure of Kylie Cosmetics serves as a good example before us, showing that celebrity-ness just can’t make a brand successful without incorporating diversity and inclusivity. Every brand needs to be reliable and affordable rather than setting unjustifiable standards for the customers. We should see if Kylie will be able to give an answer to all this criticism through her new apparel venture.