The brand launched in 2015 and is still best known for its US$29 “lip kits”, which come with a pencil to outline one’s lips bigger than they are and then a matt liquid lipstick to fill them in.

In November, Jenner sold 51 per cent of the company to Coty, the parent of CoverGirl and Rimmel, for US$600 million. That deal valued Kylie Cosmetics as a whole at US$1.2 billion.

Coty said that Kylie Cosmetics’ revenue in the 12 months leading up to the purchase was US$177 million, sending a strong signal that it may have overpaid. 

Not only that, but the figure was also a far cry from the US$360 million for 2018 that representatives for the reality-TV star and Kris Jenner, her mother and manager (“momager,” as she’s known), reportedly passed along to Forbes when it was trying to assess the younger Jenner’s net worth.

Based on updated figures, “a more realistic accounting of her personal fortune puts it at just under US$900 million,” Forbes reported on May 29. Jenner tweeted that the article contained “a number of inaccurate statements” and dismissed its relevance.

Fans and critics can have fun continuing to debate whether Jenner is a billionaire, or even “self-made” at that. She’s right that it doesn’t matter all that much (except maybe to Forbes).

However, Coty and its peers that pursued the Kylie pout trend do have a separate but related problem to worry about: the future of lipstick sales in the age of coronavirus.

According to a McKinsey report citing Stackline data, lip care and colour sales on Amazon dropped 15 per cent in the four weeks ending on April 11 from the year before. Mass-market make-up sales dropped 46 per cent on a rolling four-week basis by mid-April and 26 per cent by mid-May, according to Information Resources.

Euromonitor International estimates that the US lip product market specifically will shrink 6.5 per cent this year to US$3.59 billion – Coty has an almost 5 per cent share. 

It’s not just that lipstick is naturally taking a larger hit than eyeliner or mascara, which aren’t obscured by most masks. The social media-driven obsession with full, painted on lips was one of the top make-up fads in recent years, so lipstick has been at the very centre of make-up businesses.

Even now, a lipstick product is splashed across the top of Revlon’s homepage. Companies such as Coty and Revlon will have to shift gears and fast, which has never been easy for them to do. And what do you do when the trend is to go without make-up and spend more time at home?

Coty is betting on Kylie’s direct-to-consumer sales and skincare products, which have been more resilient during the pandemic. Even so, it’s hard to imagine that will take off the way Jenner’s lip kits did. After all, it’s her lips that she’s known for.

Coty replaced its CEO on Monday in conjunction with a deal involving KKR that sent the company’s shares up 21 per cent (though they’re still near a record low). The private equity firm bought 60 per cent of Coty’s Wella professional hair dye business, a beauty category that is likely to recover more quickly as salons reopen.

Lipstick demand will come back eventually, too, but Coty may have overestimated the staying power of the Jenner lip fad – even without the pandemic. Knowing the Kardashian-Jenner clan, they’ll come up with something new in no time.