How Kim Kardashian failed to sell her beauty look – and the celebrity brands that succeeded

Telegraph

16-04-2025

Utter the name 'Beau Domaine', and you are likely to be met with blank stares. Its owner, Brad Pitt, may be a household name, but the skincare brand launched by the actor in 2023 has failed to set the world on fire. Or even the bathroom shelf.
In this, he is in good – albeit surprising – company. Like Pitt, Kim Kardashian isn't over-familiar with under-achievement. At the age of 44, the world's most successful reality television star helms a multitude of business ventures, the most vibrant of which is Skims, the shapewear brand that achieved a £3 billion valuation four years after launching in 2019. As she has been a billionaire since 2021 with more than 700 international trademarks, 'failure' isn't really in Kim's lexicon. Until now.
While it would be overstating things to say that her beauty range, the perplexingly named 'SKKN by Kim', has failed, it's certainly underperforming. Launched in partnership with Coty in 2022, it's been hit by a slew of criticisms, with customers complaining that it's overpriced (a lipstick is £28), derivative of other brands (the pink packaging is a cliché) and of questionable quality (on Reddit, users complain that the £90 'Night Oil' clogs their pores). While the packaging would certainly look sleek on your bathroom shelf, many claim it's a case of form over function, difficult to use and less sustainable than Kardashian claims, leading to allegations of greenwashing.
But Kardashian is nothing if not a mistress of reinvention. If at first you don't succeed? You try again – by dint of a judicious rebrand. Last month, an announcement went out on Skkn's Instagram page saying that it had been acquired by Skims, adding that fans should 'follow @skims for updates while we work to create something new'.
The move comes as no surprise to beauty watchers: it's long been known that Kardashian was unhappy with elements of her Coty partnership, and wanted to regain full control of the brand (under the Coty deal, she owned 80 per cent). Coty, in turn, was rumoured not to be happy with her, believing she was remiss in promoting the range, being overly focused on the success of Skims. Given that Coty had spent £150 million acquiring a 20 per cent stake in 2021, the beauty giant's feelings were, perhaps, understandable.
While attaining full ownership makes sense, it puts Kardashian in the position of having to analyse closely what went wrong, and shoulder the entire responsibility for righting it. As hers is the face that has defined the social media definition of 'beauty' over the past decade, Skkn's success should have been guaranteed. That it wasn't has left Kardashian with a red face that has nothing to do with the over-application of blush.
For the respected international make-up artist Caroline Barnes, Kardashian's main issue is that she was too slow off the mark, not least having been beaten to the punch by her half-sister, whose Kylie Cosmetics range, launched in 2015, achieved huge success in a similar niche, particularly with its cult Lip Kits. 'A lot of the people that followed Kim back in the day have grown up and evolved,' notes Barnes. 'They either don't want that style of make-up any more, or they can't carry it off, so it's not of interest to them. Also, similar colour palettes are available now on the high street, in great textures and at great terms. Skkn doesn't feel new. By contrast, Skims was completely groundbreaking in terms of its colours and its shapewear, and the fact that whatever age you are, you can still aspire to have an hourglass figure like Kim's. The rules for how you paint your face are very different.'
Besides, a new set of rules is in vogue, ones that adhere more to notions of 'clean beauty' and natural, glowing skin than heavy-handed contouring. In 2025, the celebrity brands that most resonate with customers tend to abide by these decrees. Launched in 2022, Hailey Bieber 's Rhode has enjoyed huge success by placing an emphasis on healthy skin, while Selena Gomez's Rare Beauty, launched in 2020 (2022 in the UK), has been praised for its light and nourishing formulations. It's currently valued at £1.5 billion, and a tube of its Soft Pinch Liquid Blush sells every four seconds.
But Kardashian also has to reckon with Rihanna, 37, the bestselling female recording artist of the 21st century, who has shown herself to be every bit as astute a businesswoman as Kim. 'The biggest success story in celebrity make-up brands by far is Fenty,' says the make-up artist Alex Babsky, whose clients include Jodie Comer, Salma Hayek and Florence Pugh. 'It really made an impact by landing as a complete, fully formed make-up range, and genuinely offered something new with its richly pigmented products that worked for all skin tones and an extended shade range that has since become the industry standard. There is very little that's truly new or innovative in make-up, so in an already crowded market, a celebrity make-up brand invariably becomes an exercise in simply presenting familiar products in a way which most speaks to a particular celebrity's fans.'
Many would say that Kim's products are, indeed, over-familiar – largely because they bear resemblance to those of her original make-up artist, Mario Dedivanovic. Launched in 2020, his brand, Makeup by Mario, was the culmination of 20 years of knowledge and expertise of the sort that his most famous client could never emulate. 'Mario launched an incredible range,' says Barnes. 'If you wanted to copy that Kim Kardashian look, those would be the products that you would have gone for initially.'
As for what Kardashian should do to make Skkn a success, bringing it under the umbrella of the successful Skims range is a good start. Rather than putting her name to derivative products, she should capitalise on Skims' existing strengths, and look for synergy between the two brands. 'No one needs yet another glam beauty brand with a gazillion shades of lipstick and a vast eye shadow palette,' notes The Telegraph 's beauty director, Sonia Haria. 'If I were Kim, I'd align her beauty range to Skims in a very obvious, intentional way. She should create 'shapewear for the face' – lifting skincare packed with firming peptides, sculpting tools for sharper cheek bones, contouring make-up that's like Pilates for the face. She should also drop the existing name and call it Skims Beauty, so that customers can buy a sculpting serum and skin tool at the same time as they're buying their multipack of shaping knickers.'
With the global beauty market projected to be worth more than £512 billion in 2025, Kim has a lot to play for. Let's see how her plan shapes up.