Interview with the Lipstick Queen, Poppy King [PART 1]

You all know how much I love Lipstick Queen products, so when I had the chance to chat with Poppy King, creator of the brand, I was thrilled! Poppy is an entrepreneur, author, and all-around savvy woman — both in business and in style! She started her first brand, Poppy, when she graduated from high school at age 18 in her home country of Australia. The brand became a household name, and she finally was able to create the lipsticks that she had once dreamed of wearing! Read on to hear what Poppy has to say about being an entrepreneur and dreaming up products, plus get a hint at an upcoming Lipstick Queen product!

KJ: You started your very first company right out of high school. Did you have any experience in the cosmetics industry before you created Poppy?

PK: No, none whatsoever. Basically, I just loved the experience of wearing lipstick and I really disliked all of the lipsticks that were available. I was looking for a very 1940s kind of feeling and texture and look, and you couldn’t get anything like that. I also just didn’t like the way that they were marketed either. I couldn’t stand the sort of patronizing, very corporate approach to the marketing of women’s products. I wanted something that had a little bit more of a sense of humor to it and that didn’t take itself so seriously – something a little sexier in an interesting way. I just really knew what I wanted and what was missing in the market, and that was kind of how I got into it. It was kind of like a giant school project, but that’s what entrepreneurship is, it’s doing your homework and figuring out things for yourself.

KJ: How long has Lipstick Queen been around, and how did you decide to start the brand?

PK: Just over three years. It started in Barney’s in the beginning of 2007. What actually brought me to New York from Australia, and why I closed down my first brand after 10 years was that I got a fantastic opportunity to come here and work for Estée Lauder Corporation, which involved relocating, working for them, and designing products for a brand that they used to have called Prescriptives. After having run my own business for 10 years, I was keen to see what it was like to work for a big company, and I’ve always loved New York so I was very enticed by the idea. I realized just how much I prefer the entrepreneurial side of this industry, so I decided to write my book [Confessions of a Lipstick Queen] and to restart my own lipstick brand.

KJ: Can you walk me through how you create a product, from the initial idea to naming it?

PK: It depends, but it usually starts because I feel like there is something missing in the marketplace that I want to create, or I listen to customer feedback, for example: “I’m scared to wear red.” Then I’ll create something like Medieval which is a very natural red and brings out the natural red in your lips. I always try to answer a need or solve a problem with a product. Then I just think about what it is that I’m trying to do. In that case, it was to do a red that everyone could wear, and so then I was thinking about how that kind of red stained look came from the Medieval era, and thought about calling it Medieval. I always work backwards from what I feel is the product that I want to put out there, and then I surround it with a concept that I feel is interesting, quirky and fun.

KJ: Would you ever consider expanding your line to include things other than lip products?

PK: I definitely have some inventions, but I wouldn’t do anything unless it was totally solving a problem. I wouldn’t just bring out a mascara that was the same as what’s on the market and call it ‘Poppy’ or ‘Lipstick Queen’. I certainly think that there are a few key things that are missing that could deliver product so much better than the way that it’s currently delivered. I certainly have some inventions that when I have enough money to patent I’d like to bring out, but they wouldn’t be under the brand Lipstick Queen. They’d be their own little entities.

KJ: Do you have any new products in development that you can share with us?

PK: Yes! This one is actually related to lipstick and lip gloss. I don’t know when it will be on the market yet, but I’ve come up with an invention that totally stops lipstick or gloss from getting on your teeth! So, that’s all I can say at this point, but it’s one of those products that when I thought of it, I sort of scratched my head and thought, “Why hasn’t anyone thought of this?” You sort of second guess yourself, but then you realize that probably nobody has sat around and thought about lipstick for 20 years like I have!

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my interview, where Poppy gives advice about wearing lipstick, tomorrow!