First Woman With Lips, Revealed

In a year where many have given up on makeup, opting to spend big on skincare instead of traditional cosmetics unseen behind face masks, Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Lisa Rinna has decided to get into the beauty game. According to Page Six, the QVC queen has leased a Rinna Cosmetics lipstick, lip liner, and lip gloss line, just in time for the holidays. “I’m the lip pioneer,” she stated in the press release, perhaps intentionally throwing shade at Kylie Jenner and Kim Kardashian-West in just four words. “My new line embodies everything that I’ve ever known and learned in my life, whether I’ve been on camera or off. Rinna Beauty is me, and I’m so gratified to now share that with people interested in makeup, style and looking and feeling their very best.”

That’s all fine, but I’m stuck on the “lip pioneer” line. Does Rinna… self-identify as the first woman with lips? Or the first white woman? Or the first person to be known for her lips (again… what)? I’d really appreciate some clarification here, but I’m not sure there is any. After all, she is choosing to release a lipstick line when I haven’t seen most people’s mouths in 10 months. Not only that, but she’s choosing to do so while the cosmetics industry, like most industries, is really suffering: As I noted last week while digging into the reported collapse of Beauty YouTuber Jeffree Star’s collapsing empire, by August 2020, all beauty sales had decreased by 25 percent in a six-month window, compared to the same time frame last year, according to VOX. The covid-19 global health pandemic has really only been kind to Jeff “Scrooge McDuck” Bezos’s bottomless coffers, and those pumping money into Amazon are not buying lipstick in bulk. Unless, you know, she throws in a few rolls of toilet paper. But hey, she’s the “lip pioneer,” may she can pioneer her way into sales.