Kylie Jenner attends the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 09, 2020 in Beverly Hills, California.
Kylie Jenner is recalling the difficulties of starting a makeup line from scratch.
In a conversation with Jennifer Lawrence for Interview magazine, Jenner said that "proving people wrong" was the "biggest challenge" she faced when she launched Kylie Cosmetics in 2015.
The 26-year-old mom of two admitted that even her mom, Kris Jenner, doubted her venture at first.
"Proving people wrong was a challenge, but so was building it from the ground up," the beauty mogul shared. "It was me and my mom, and we never made a makeup line. We didn't know where to start. We didn't have anyone helping us."
"My mom thought I was going to be stuck with lip kits in my garage for the rest of my life," Jenner added, referring to her now iconic Kylie Lip Kits.
The "Kardashians" star revealed that they had initially ordered the minimum 5,000 for each of her first three lip kits, which comprises a liquid lipstick and lip liner.
"And she [Kris] was like, 'You better be ready, Kylie, because you might have a lot of lip kits in your garage for the rest of your life, so you better love these colors,'" she recalled.
Fortunately for Jenner, Kylie Lip Kits, eventually rebranded as Kylie Cosmetics, saw massive success upon release, with the products selling out in under a minute. This allowed the young entrepreneur to build a business empire from their triumph.
(Photo : Getty Images/Rick Kern)Kylie Jenner visits Houston Ulta Beauty to promote the exclusive launch of Kylie Cosmetics with the beauty retailer, starting this month on November 18, 2018 in Houston, Texas.
"And then it broke in two seconds, and that's when we were like, 'Okay, how do we do this? How do we make these faster and better?'" the reality star recalled.
Following the successful launch, Jenner said she and Kris personally visited various cosmetic factories in California, noting that identifying the "best" manufacturer for their products proved "difficult."
As she was building a business in the public eye, Jenner felt that making mistakes wasn't an option for her. However, she didn't view it negatively.
"We were a new company, so growing in front of a lot of people was hard. You don't have room to make mistakes," she shared. "But it wasn't a bad thing. It was so successful, and it was the best time of my life."
Jenner began working on her makeup line at 17 years old in 2014. As per Forbes, she used around $250,000 earned from modeling to commission an external company to create the initial batch of 15,000 lip kits.
"I said, 'I'm ready to put up my own money. I don't want to do it with anyone else,'" the model told Forbes.
Within a year and a half, Jenner's brand saw $420 million in sales, exhibiting a remarkable 25% growth in just one year, as reported by Fashion Network.
Since then, Kylie Cosmetics has developed into one of the industry's most successful celebrity-owned beauty companies. Yet, Jenner's journey didn't end there as she delved into the skincare and fashion industries as well.
In 2019, Jenner launched Kylie Skin, which quickly became a top-selling skincare brand in the U.S., according to a press release from Coty, which bought a stake in Kylie Cosmetics that year.
She also launched Kylie Swim in 2021, which received crtiicism for its products' quality, Business Insider reported.
This November, Jenner debuted Khy, an accessibly priced clothing label.
