WAIT... KYLIE COSMETICS IS NOT FEMALE EMPOWERING AT ALL
Kylie Jenner was born into stardom through her family's reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians. With the media attention, Jenner faced backlash for her appearance, which was caused by her lips getting bigger through the years. When Jenner denied having lip fillers in May 2015, she used the bad press to launch her cosmetic brand Kylie Cosmetics (then named Kylie Lip Kits), in which she sold out her lip kits in under a minute (OMG who remembers that moment!). On the website of Kylie Cosmetics, Jenner shares that she loves ‘that make-up can make you feel confident and beautiful’ and that she wants to ‘share that feeling’.
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With this message, it can be concluded that the goal of Kylie Cosmetics is to make you feel comfortable and beautiful.
Director of the Women's Research Institute of Nevada, Rebecca Gill, explained in 2008 that products sold with the message of providing confidence and self-esteem use female empowerment.
Feminist pioneer Susan Brownmiller explains that the main reason that women are willing to wear makeup is that the beauty industry manipulates consumers into thinking that their products are needed to achieve the ‘conventional standards of femininity that insures social acceptance’. These studies on empowerment and the beauty industry conclude that the beauty industry is a culprit of beauty standards... but Kylie Cosmetics on the other hand seems to want others to feel 'comfortable' and 'beautiful'. So is this because the brand really is female empowering? Or is the brand manipulating its consumers with its female-empowering message to sell the products?
Let's find out how Miss billionaire Kylie Jenner sells her products...
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KEY
There are different doors we can open when talking about female empowerment and the beauty industry. That’s why I want to tell you the key elements in which I framed my research:
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1. Since a form of female empowerment is conveyed by Kylie Cosmetics, this research is conducted from a female-empowering point of view
2. I analyzed the Instagram posts of Kylie Cosmetics for this research. Other social media platforms and the personal page of Kylie Jenner are not included.
3. interviews were conducted to discover how the audience perceives the ideas supported by Kylie Cosmetics and how the audience integrates the female-empowering messages into their personal lives.
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KUESTION
The question I want to answer is: In what way does Kylie Cosmetics empower its audience while advocating female-empowering messages on Instagram?
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KLARIFICATION
The first step to understand how Kylie Cosmetics empowers its audience is to understand how the brand defines female empowerment (there are a lot, and I mean A LOT of different forms of female empowerment!). Kylie Kristen Jenner, CEO, and face of the brand Kylie Cosmetics proclaimed herself a feminist in an interview with Glamour in the United Kingdom, saying, ‘I do consider myself a feminist… I make my own money… and I feel like I’m an inspiration for a lot of young girls who want to stand on their own.’
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Glamour, 2017
With this statement, it seems like Kylie is pointing out that there should be no difference between men and women, which implies that women have the same income and social position as men. Jenner seems to define feminism as financial freedom. So logically thinking, since she is the face and CEO of Kylie Cosmetics, this is also the viewpoint
of Kylie Cosmetics when it comes to female empowerment.
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Critics
Some criticize Jenner for harming female empowerment. The Kardashian-Jenners are viewed as negative feminine stereotypes for flaunting luxury items on social media, shamelessly posing naked, and offering nothing of value other than sexually attractive bodies. Research shows that these actions contribute to porn culture, self-objectification, and narcissism in the young generation, and hurt feminist movements.
Jenner for example got media attention when her lips visually looked fuller, while the young entrepreneur denied having lip fillers at first. After admitting to using fillers, the demand for lip augmentation grew with 43 percent. Nonetheless, Kylie Jenner feeling confident is also a form of postfeminism. Postmodern researcher McIntosh states that postfeminism advocates making females the subject of their own experience, discovering, and understanding their true selves based on females' experiences. In this case, Jenner's activities can be viewed as an expression of a woman's ownership of her body. That´s why this point of view on feminism will also be considered for Kylie Cosmetics.
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Kylie Jenner, before and after
Kylie Cosmetics and female empowerment
There are different types of feminism found in the content of Kylie Cosmetics: celebrity feminism, entrepreneurial feminism, individual feminism, lipstick feminism, ecological feminism, intersectional feminism, and commodity feminism.
What does the audience think of these messages?
To understand how the audience of Kylie Cosmetics interprets these messages, and to see if it really empowers them, I decided to ask them myself. I conducted 12 interviews with different people such as Kylie Cosmetics ambassadors, Kylie Cosmetics users, and non-users, and people with different pronouns (he/him, them/they, and she/her).
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Celebrity feminism is advocated by the brand by acknowledging present gender disparities. Making Kylie Jenner the face of the brand results in Jenner building a connection with the audience. This leads to the audience supporting Jenner, rather than being empowered. The same applies to individual feminism, which Kylie Cosmetics advocates by calling Kylie Jenner a Boss babe, which should be perceived as an example for others to empower themselves but results in the audience supporting Jenner.
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Ecological feminism is not even recognized by the audience. Intersectional feminism on the other hand is communicated by the brand, but in an exclusive form, excluding different body and skin types. Nonbinary audiences have a positive attitude towards Kylie Cosmetics since the brand works with nonbinary models, whilst not all other makeup brands do. Nevertheless, this research shows that Kylie Cosmetics manipulates its audience into thinking makeup is needed to be beautiful.
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Lipstick feminism empowers the audience to wear makeup and feel good with makeup on. This opinion is in line with how Jenner takes ownership of her own beauty. This research shows that lipstick feminism is used to sell the beauty products of Kylie Cosmetics, which diminishes the sincerity of the messages. Nonetheless, the audience does not seem to recognize the selling narrative of the brand. On the other hand, the audience believes that wearing no makeup should also be empowering, and should also make one feel good.
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Finally, entrepreneurial feminism inspires the (female) audience of Kylie Cosmetics to become confident and not be afraid to start a business as a woman by showing her successes as an entrepreneur. Interestingly, this is in line with how Jenner portrays herself as a feminist (female entrepreneur/financial freedom). Nevertheless, Jenner portrays a perfect image of a female entrepreneur, linking entrepreneurship to certain physical attributes, which can be misleading.
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