‘I was fighting for my life’: Poppy King’s lipstick comeback

“I unfortunately got COVID in March 2020 in New York. I was an early adopter,” she says.

“There isn’t an easy way of saying this. I was fighting for my life. There were times when I felt that the Grim Reaper was in the room.”

At that moment, King decided her next move would have meaning that lasted longer than a gentle swipe on the mouth.

“The only thing left after all these years in business that felt meaningful to me was coming back and manufacturing in Australia.

“Everything I’ll be doing globally will be coming exported out of Australia. I had to earn that Young Australian of the Year award and give back, right?”

Australia is the launchpad for the new range, starting with the metallic matte red lipstick, Original Sin. Diving deeply into nostalgia, King will have a pop-up store from September 19 to 25 on Chapel Street, South Yarra, where her lipsticks were first stocked in Bettina Liano’s boutique.

In the store, King hopes to reconnect with her original customers.

“Some of these women had their first kiss with a Poppy lipstick. Some of them have daughters now called Poppy because of those lipsticks.”

Capturing the attention of those daughters in a beauty market crowded with products from reality-TV and rock stars, influencers and fashion designers is King’s fresh challenge. “I’m not using algorithms,” she says. Poppy King Lipstick’s fledgling Instagram account currently features lo-fi photos of customers wearing Original Sin.

“Generation Z is pretty much my spirit animal because what they are looking for is authenticity. I’m doing an authenticity campaign and let’s see what comes from that,” she says.

Another change since the ’90s are the potential profits of an Australian beauty business. Melbourne-born Aesop’s sold in April to L’Oréal for $US2.53 billion ($3.95 billion) and Japan’s Kao Corporation’s purchased fake tan brand Bondi Sands last month for an estimated $450 million cash deal.

For the time being, King, who confesses to be being better at entrepreneurship than business, is ignoring future pay days. “It’s going to sound really silly, but joy is my goal,” she says.

“Something difficult happened to me when I was 17, which I’ve never really talked about, that sent me into the world of my imagination. In the world of my imagination, I was going to start a lipstick company.

“So the first time around, it was definitely going into the world of the imagination. This time is about joy.”

Part of that joy is realising that you don’t have to be a princess or a villain in your own fairytale.

“As a child, I thought people might see me as a princess with these big eyes or a witch with my strong nose. Surreptitiously playing dress-ups with red lipstick I realised I don’t have to be either.”

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