The Kylie Jenner pop-up shop at Topshop was literally *everything* — and I'm not even a Kylie fanatic. The shop was well-organized, staff was friendly, product was plentiful, and they served me cake!
I also didn't have to wait hours to get inside, get pushed and shoved, or have any products snatched out of my hand — a common experience at Kardashian-Jenner pop-up shops.
Congrats to Kylizzle for a smooth Topshop collaboration. There was just one problem with the Kylie Cosmetics products I bought.
Absolutely NOTHING I bought worked for my deep skin tone, even though I chose the most melanin-friendly makeup products available in the store.
First, I tried the Brown Sugar lip kit — one that a Black female Topshop employee helped me seek out.
Brown Sugar ($29, Kylie Cosmetics) is, per Jenner herself a nude shade specifically designed for women of color. "I really wanted to create the perfect nude for deeper skin tones," Kylie said when this color launched.
I don't have a favorite nude lip color at this time, so the Topshop associate helped me hunt down the darkest lip kit we could find. I wanted a true NUDE brown, with no other colors involved. Brown Sugar is currently the darkest brown on the Kylie Cosmetics website — save Love Bite, which is actually a purple-brown.
This is Jenner's bestie, singer Justine Skye, wearing Brown Sugar.
Want a little tea? Give this photo a few more passes. This Brown Sugar shade actually matches the parts of Justine Skye's skin that have been highlighted — like underneath her eyes just above her cheeks and such.
She's also under supreme lighting, and who knows what the editing situation was like. I'd be curious to see what this shade would look like on Justine Skye if she were standing right in front of me.
But this is what Brown Sugar looks like on *me*.
No editing. No creative lighting.
No and never.
Brown Sugar is NOT a nude match for my skin tone in this life or the next. It's about four shades lighter than my complexion with a peach undertone that I did not care for.
With a dark brown liner, I could *maybe* make it work as just another golden shade in my makeup bag, but that's not what I was aiming for. I wanted a nude lipstick for my deep skin tone — not a peach.
I even tried to save the look by throwing a little gloss on top of it.
My Fenty Beauty Gloss Bomb ($18, Sephora) hasn't been with me all that long, but has already saved a few matte lip colors that *nearly* went wrong.
But no. The Brown Sugar Lip Kit is still a nude fail for my deep skin tone.
Sigh.
But at least I have my Chocolate Cherry Kylighter, right!?
I swatched this in the store, and it looked cute, right? Wrong!
This is how Chocolate Cherry turned out for me IRL.
Swatches don't always tell the whole story, and this Kylighter is a perfect example. I really loved the Chocolate Cherry Kylighter ($22, Kylie Cosmetics) when I swatched it in the store. It appears to have a rose gold/bronze type of finish that I thought would blend beautifully.
In its pan and as a single streak on my hand, the Kylighter looks like a bronze-ish gold with a slight pink undertone. When blended on my skin, it was way too light on my complexion.
I was going for a blinding look — but not like this.
So basically? If you're a Kylie Cosmetics fan with a deepercomplexion — no nudes available for you!
It's so unfortunate, especially considering the popularity of Kylie's line. Women of color want great Lip Kits, too!
Get it together, Kylie Cosmetics.
You can totally do better than this.
