It’s nearly impossible to get your hands on Kylie Jenner’s infamous lip kits. They sell out within minutes of being posted and Kylie simply can’t make products fast enough to keep up with the demand. I luckily snagged Khloé K during one of the restocks, and I’ve been dying for Candy K, but after hearing what beauty blogger Stephanie Nicole had to say about Kylie’s shady business practices, I think I better reconsider.
Stephanie Nicole is known for her honest reviews, and when she originally reviewed Kylie’s lip kits four months ago, she really liked them. She even ranked Kylie’s lip kits as the sixth best matte lipstick out of 27 brands. But when Kylie reformulated (or as she said, “improved”) her liquid lipstick formula in April, Stephanie reviewed them again and she was not impressed.
“The ingredients [in the new Candy K] are different, so we’re going to see if it’s better or worse,” she says in the video. Upon closer investigation, it’s not only the ingredients that are different but the color as well.
The new Candy K is a completely different shade than the original, which is mildly annoying. Stephanie goes on to say that the newer formula is thinner and more watery than the first, which was creamy and mousse-y. Stephanie dug deeper into the inconsistencies and discovered that the NEW Kylie’s lip kits (remember, the original formula was great, and if you purchased yours before April you have the original) have the exact same formula as ColourPop’s liquid lipsticks… which cost only $6 per tube.
“The ingredients from this Candy K and the ColourPop Clueless Ultra Matte Liquid Lipstick are identical,” says Stephanie in her video. “The ColourPop one does have a few other ingredients in there, which are filler products, but every single thing that’s in these Kylie Jenner lipsticks are in the ColourPop ones.”
For those who don’t know, ColourPop is an affordable online makeup brand. Everything on their site is cheap AF — matte lipsticks are $6, eyeshadows, lipliners, and eyebrow pencils are $5, and nearly everything is great quality. As a makeup junkie, I own a ton of ColourPop and really enjoy their products, but if I had known I would be paying $29 for a ColourPop lip product with Kylie’s name slapped across it, I wouldn’t have bought her lip kit in the first place.
Stephanie breaks down exactly how much you save in her video.
That’s a lot of money that could be spent at the bars, on a new shirt, or a few days worth of Starbucks runs. Stephanie has a simple reason for where all that extra money is going when you purchase a Kylie Jenner lip kit vs a ColouPop liquid lipstick. “The company has to pay Kylie Jenner because her name is on it. The extra money is not going for product development or better ingredients,” says Stephanie. “All she is doing is basically lending her name out to a brand that knows that no matter what it is, people will wait in line for this. So when they saw the huge response, they cut some corners, and took a good formula and made it cheap.”
Kylie has responded to claims that her formula is just ColourPop’s formula repackaged and she maintains that she has her own lab, Spatz laboratories, manufactures her product. A quick Google search tells you that Spatz laboratory is located 308 feet from ColourPop’s lab, so she’s not lying, but you can’t be naive enough to think that the neighbors aren’t sharing secrets. Yes, that means ColourPop is part of the shady-ness of it all, but if I’m paying $6 for a bomb ass lip product that holds up for eight hours, I don’t care.
So if you’re one of those people who couldn’t get your hands on Kylie’s liquid lip products before they sold out, count your blessings and head over to ColourPop’s website instead. Same formula, same great wear time, more colors, and a heck of a whole lot cheaper. .
[via Allure]
Image via YouTube