Happy Tuesday to America’s most prolific jack of all trades, Kim Kardashian: reality TV star, underwear designer, Balenciaga model, and now, dermatological expert.
Keeping Up‘s main character is joining forces with multinational cosmetics company Coty Inc. to launch a skincare line, SKKN by Kim.
According to Business of Fashion, the new venture is part of the influencer’s relaunch of KKW Beauty, which announced last summer that it will return with a “more modern, elevated, sustainable brand and experience.”
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In 2020, Coty acquired a 20 percent stake in KKW Beauty, which will shift away from color cosmetics and focus more on skincare, a product category that Coty is doubling down on.
“It’s really going to be the year of skincare at Coty,” said Sue Y. Nabi, the conglomerate’s chief executive.
KKW Beauty’s evolving strategy reflects a larger cultural shift away from time-consuming makeup trends such contouring and baking — practices that the Kardashians helped popularize, ushering in the reign of “Instagram Face” — and a move towards more natural-looking beauty.
Indeed, brand mainstays such as body foundation and contour sticks feel outdated set against today’s beauty landscape, which focuses more on accentuating features instead of concealing and re-engineering them via strategic shading and clever optical illusions.
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SKKN by Kim, slated to launch sometime this summer, also points to the Kardashians’ (plural) growing empire. Kylie Baby, Poosh, 818 Tequila, Good American, SKIMS, and Kylie Skin comprise an incomplete yet astonishingly expansive list of the family’s ventures.
Speaking of Kylie Skin — the brand, also owned by Coty, was panned by critics upon launch for touting a glorified version of St. Ives’ Apricot Scrub, a product reviled by dermatologists and skincare experts.
The announcement of SKKN by Kim, and Coty’s increasing investment in skincare, opens the door for a Kylie Skin revamp — or perhaps a total shutdown of the brand, which could very well pose competition to the elder Kardashian.
