Reality star and beauty mogul Kylie Jenner made big bucks with her lipstick company. With the coronavirus pandemic, people are buying fewer lip products due to wearing face masks and working from home. Kylie is known for big, over-lined lips which started a trend that led the young model to earn big bucks from. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, sales will be affected. Another thing that is worrying is Kylie’s reputation and her billionaire status that was stripped by Forbes.
At the age of 21, Forbes previously named Kylie the world’s youngest self-made billionaire last year. She was stripped of the title because the magazine claimed that the Kylie Cosmetics founder misrepresented sales of her products. In 2015, Kylie launched the brand selling US$29 “lip kits”. The lip kits include a pencil to outline the lips and matt liquid lipstick to fill the colour in. Kylie sold 51 per cent of the company to Coty in November. Coty is the parent company of CoverGirl and Rimmel and it purchased Kylie Cosmetics for US$600 million. Kylie Cosmetics was valued as a whole at US$1.2 billion.
According to Coty, Kylie Cosmetics’ revenue in the 12 months leading up to the purchase was US$177 million, sending a strong signal that it may have overpaid. Apparently, the amount was far from the US$360 million for 2018 that representatives for the reality-TV star and Kris Jenner, her momager reportedly shared with Forbes when the magazine was assessing Kylie’s net worth. Forbes reported on 29 May that “a more realistic accounting of her fortune puts it at just under US$900 million.”
In response, Kylie went on Twitter to dismiss the article and said that it had “a number of inaccurate statements.” Netizens wonder if Kylie is billionaire or not and according to her, it does not matter. Coty has good reason to worry about the sales of lipstick during the pandemic. Face masks are a requirement so there is no point to wear lipstick when donning masks. Since most people are working from home, there is also no reason to wear lipstick at home. /TISG