Kylie Jenner Lip Kit
Confession: I'm so old that when I first saw pictures of these lip kits being passed round on Twitter and Instagram I immediately thought Kylie Minogue had a range coming out. No. It's a Kardashian, or a Jenner I should say, but definitely not a 90's pop goddess. I don't watch the Kardashians, but I follow most of them on Snapchat, so that counts right, kids? Right?! I definitely felt old ordering these, and a little foolish considering there were no inclusive customs perks and low international shipping like you get with Sephora, in fact I'd heard stories of fellow UK beauty bloggers and vloggers being slapped with customs charges of up to £60, ouch! The lip kits are $29 for a matte liquid lipstick and a matching liner, so it's not a bargain buy - it's not an easy one either as they only go on sale once a fortnight or so, and sell out within minutes each time. To find out when they'll next be up you have to pay $3 a month for the Kylie Jenner app (hmm), or just do what most people do and listen out for shrieks of "IT'S HAPPENING!!!" on social media.
I'd kind of made my mind up to not partake in the lip kits, despite them being one of 2016's hottest beauty buys, when I happened to be up late one night and the online bellows started - tweets everywhere screeching that the lip kits were in stock again. I don't know what came over me, some kind of competitive spirit forced me to try and get some. I managed all but one, Exposed - a beautiful nude - sold out quicker than I could get the other shades into my basket. I bought five, and have spent ages a.) waiting for them to arrive, and b.) praying the the customs charges wouldn't be so bad. Woop! They were non-existent! Sorry to be so smug about it, I know some people have been hit with charges every time they've ordered from the site, but I'm one of the lucky ones to get away with it. They arrived in a cute black box (above) with a postcard on top, a message from Kylie on the back thanking me for making her even richer.
I'm really impressed with the design. I usually throw makeup boxes away with no sentiment, but these are so cute. The tubes are well-made heavy duty plastic, let down by a slightly messy applicator. The formula for both lip liner pencil and lipstick is fantastic, delivering highly pigmented colour without drying. The red one (Mary Jo K) is probably the best matte red I've ever had, it's such a tricky colour to wear totally matte, but this one doesn't dry lips at all - I forgot I was wearing it at times. My favourite colour is Posie K, an adorable deep pink with a mauve undertone, and Koko K and Candy K are also pinks, though Candy K has a slightly nude vibe. 22 is the only one that I'm a bit taken aback with, as in - not finding it to be like any pictures I've seen of it online. I thought it was a vivid orange, but mine is an orangey-terracotta brown. Maybe I have a bad one? I still kinda like it. What's great about all of them is that, unlike some matte liquids you only need one coat, and they stay put for a long time whilst feeling soft. I did use a tiny bit of lip balm as a base, so maybe this helped me have zero cracking.
Also - they smell of parma violet sweets, or those stickers you used to scratch to get a vanilla-eque scent. Wow, I'm really sounding old now. In summary, these are fantastic liquid lipsticks in terms of colours and quality. I'm not sure they're worth the charges if you live outside the US, nor are they worth the stress of actually trying to order them. Kylie was looking at shop premises on Snapchat recently (see, I DO keep up with the Kardashians), so this could spell an end to the online frenzy for US customers, and maybe Kylie's people could look into stocking their wares at Selfridges or somewhere in the UK. Off to dance to some Kylie now, the original one.