I have never bought a Kylie Lip Kit. And granted, this is because the shipping for a Kylie Lip Kit costs one million dollars, and also because I didn’t actually want one, and I did it: I lived through 2016 without spending money on a product I think Kat Von D makes a little bit better. (Shocking, I know. Feel free to get up and cool down after such a hot take.)
Which is fine. Nobody cares. We are all going to survive this revelation. But what about this one: I think I might be here for Kim Kardashian’s makeup line. Or at least part of it.
Contouring is not for me. I say this because I am lazy and because the only times I’ve tried to contour, things have gone very wrong very quickly and I never truly return from it unscathed. Which is a problem: 1) I am a 32-year-old woman who doesn’t know how to do a basic cosmetic task 99.9% of the population has somehow perfected, and 2) Kim’s newest venture deals primarily with contouring and highlight.
Tomorrow, KKW will drop contour/highlighting kits via KKWBeauty, which run for $48 USD each, and is estimated to bring in a whopping $14.4 million in a matter of minutes (according to People). From there, she plans to expand the business, and I also plan to justify buying products I could pick up at Shoppers for a lot less. And I’ve made peace with it: I am the worst. Also: I will buy most celebrity collabs because I am the worst. My best friend once picked up something belonging to a capsule collection and said, “I am exactly who they are marketing to.” And I had to agree.
I don’t want to be this way. I didn’t want to get psyched about Urban Decay’s limited-edition nineties collection that prompted me to buy a new blue lipstick despite me having the type of skin tone that makes said blue shade morph my look into “corpse-like” and/or “dead for 40 years.” I didn’t want to spring for a Kim Kardashian West-inspired Charlotte Tilbury lipstick that is best described as “nude,” but better described as “Anne, you can’t wear that shade, you’re too pale it looks very bad.” I didn’t want to do any of it — but here we are.
I have very few vices left. I don’t drink anymore, I don’t do drugs, I quit smoking, and I’ve limited my caffeine intake to about 29248 cups of coffee per day instead of the typical trillion. I don’t even drink Red Bull (because I will morph into Michael Scott on Pretzel Day.) Last night I went to bed at 11:30 and thought, “Oh wow! That’s pretty late!” So what I’m saying is, maybe I just want to buy the fancy celebrity-sanctioned and limited edition makeup because I work hard and I deserve something ridiculous. Maybe I just want to buy a highlighter I will wear one time before realizing all highlighter makes my cheeks look incredibly round because I have an Irish-Lithuanian face that ensures I will, at least 50% of the time, look like a cherub. Maybe I would like to make some ridiculous choices that I can in no way justify to anybody who isn’t me, a person who googled “Urban Decay nineties” for like, 45 minutes last week.
So to like-minded souls I say: join me. What’s the matter with us buying the makeup we 100% don’t need and will likely not use? What’s the matter with us telling ourselves that we are just like Kim Kardashian West despite the fact that some of us (hello) are currently wearing mom jeans and an old baseball t-shirt from 1983? What’s wrong with reliving our youth with nostalgia-centric makeup lines that are in no way flattering to our faces and skin tones? Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I am who I am. You are who you are. And clearly we aren’t alone because Kim K-W is a goddamn millionaire a million times over, and it’s not like all of us pooled our savings together to buy out the line.
Which is what I will choose to remember going forward: I am not the problem, I am part of the problem. And that is how I will begin all my conversations when I put on that Charlotte Tilbury Kim K-W lipstick colour and am asked, “Hey, are you okay? Your lips are the same shade as your face.”
