The internet has a strange fascination with Kylie Jenner's lips. We all remember the #KylieJennerChallenge when people were doing all kinds of crazy things to try to plump their lips - and got all kinds of crazy injuries in the process.And while one would think the obsession with getting lips like Kylie's would be good for a brand that is aimed at helping people plump their lips, it actually turned out to be exactly the opposite.
Fullips Lip Enhancers' founder Linda Gomez released a statement saying that Kylie Jenner's lips actually hurt her brand, badly. She founded the company back in 2009 and things were going very well, until, as she explains, they got hit with "an unexpected sucker punch that knocked us on our butts."
"The media decides this is all somehow connected to my company and the stories and pictures of this horrible challenge go viral. The media suggests that I started my company to capitalize on the Kylie Jenner Challenge, I did not," she writes. "My patent was filed in 2009, 6 years before Kylie's lips were even a thing. Nevertheless, people start assuming we are somehow connected to all of this and that our product can do to people's lips what a shot glass can. The negative press does to our sales what a shot glass does to someone's lips... it demolishes them."
"Instead of getting to tell people about our fun little beauty tool that has helped thousands around the world, we now have to spend that time trying to distinguish and disassociate ourselves from that nonsense," she continued.
She also says that the obsession with Kylie's lips and people trying to find a DIY way to get the look created an insurgence of knockoffs, which she warns could potentially even be dangerous.
For what it's worth, Kylie recently admitted that she got temporary lip fillers.