Kylie Jenner Turned Her Lip Insecurity Into The Insecurity of Millions… and Then Made it Profitable.

*this article is from my 2021 vault*

In the Keeping Up With The Kardashians reunion show that aired in June 2021, Kylie Jenner confessed to Andy Cohen and millions of viewers that she was not always insecure about her lips.

Jenner explained, “I had really small lips, and I didn’t ever think about it until I had one of my first kisses.”

Notably, only after a boy commented on her small lips did Jenner develop an insecurity that left her feeling “unkissable.” Jenner divulged, “I had an insecurity because this guy said something to me one time.”

At first glance, this story is incredibly relatable. How many girls have felt bad about their bodies because of a stupid comment made by a boy?

Hearing Jenner discuss that her fascination with makeup started from a traumatizing event made me sympathize with her. That was, of course, until I realized that her coping mechanism resulted in inflicting that same pain onto millions of young girls and women.

In reaction to this formative event, Jenner doubled down on conforming to someone else’s beauty ideal and elected to mask her thin lips with makeup by “overlining” her lips and, later, getting filler injections.

In doing so, Jenner was both actively held captive by the beauty standard and simultaneously perpetuating, and propelling, this narrow ideal.

However, it was seemingly not enough for Jenner to “overcome” her insecurity in private. On social media, Jenner positioned her drastically transformed lips as the signature feature of her public persona. Her followers were both envious of and mystified by her new pout.

Leveraging the cultural fixation on her lips, Jenner then created her makeup brand in 2015, Kylie Cosmetics, with lip products at its epicenter.

Jenner claimed, with Kylie Cosmetics, that she was filling a gap in the makeup industry by creating lip liners and lipsticks in the same shade, but I’d argue that she wasn’t filling a need as much as she was creating one.

Through her makeup brand, Jenner sold the illusion that her Lip Kits were the miracle products that made her lips look so much bigger and better than before.

You couldn’t buy Jenner’s lips, but you could buy the next best thing: the products that made them, allegedly, look “so good”. And people bought it up.

In order to stir up demand for Kylie Cosmetics, Jenner turned her biggest physical insecurity into the insecurity of others by making girls feel that their natural, thin lips were undesirable.

Not only did Jenner embody this messaging within her personal brand, but the Kylie Cosmetics’ website and marketing materials also exclusively featured women with full lips. The message was clear: full lips were sexy and desirable.

But, by excluding any representation of thin lips in the brand’s visual identity and imagery, Kylie Cosmetics was also feeding the idea that thin lips were therefore unsexy and undesirable.

Following Jenner’s blueprint, young girls everywhere wanted a fuller pout. Thin lips were not only something to be ashamed of but now, with the help of Kylie Cosmetics, was also something one should actively seek to change.

Between her social media presence and makeup business, Jenner nearly single-handedly relegated thin lips as a feature of which to be self-conscious.

After all, insecurity sells.

In fact, insecurity sells so well that Jenner was allegedly the youngest self-made billionaire due to the volume of makeup she sold from Kylie Cosmetics. Although this title was highly contested and later removed, one thing remains true: Kylie Cosmetics was a huge success.

Jenner’s decision to exploit insecurity for her capital gain proved exceptionally lucrative. But, it is incredibly disappointing that Jenner would choose to exploit lip insecurity given her own experience with feeling ugly compared to someone else’s lip ideal.

As a personality and businesswoman, Jenner has negatively impacted the self-esteem of girls and women worldwide by contributing to, and leading, unrealistic beauty standards and fueling insecurity exploitation.

Simply put: Kylie Jenner became insecure about her lips because of a boy, and we became insecure about our lips because of Kylie Jenner.