Featuring: Kitty
Summary
Kitty takes a maximalist approach to make-up, drawing inspiration from Japanese beauty styles and the Gyaru aesthetic. From bold white eye make-up and exaggerated shapes to rainbow-coloured lips, her routine is built around experimentation and self-expression. But finding products in the colours she wants isn’t always easy, leaving a clear opportunity for brands to move beyond neutral palettes and embrace more unconventional shades.
Meet Kitty: A Maximalist Approach to Make-Up
Kitty describes her make-up routine as complex, with multiple steps used to create a colourful, highly distinctive look.
Inspired by Japanese make-up styles, she favours a maximalist aesthetic built around bold colour, sharp shapes and techniques designed to visually enlarge the eyes.
Pull quote: “It is very maximalist because it’s a lot of fun colours, a lot of sharp shapes.”
Searching for Colour Beyond Beige and Brown
One of Kitty’s biggest frustrations is the lack of strong, pure colours available from mainstream make-up brands.
She uses MAC single eyeshadows to create the white detailing around her eyes but would like to see a much broader spectrum of shades across the category.
Rather than another collection of beige, brown and neutral tones, she wants brands to embrace colour in almost every shade of the rainbow.
Pull quote: “A lot of brands don’t do pure colours anymore. There’s a lot of just beiges and browns.”
Japanese Beauty Inspires Her Look
Kitty’s make-up is strongly influenced by Japanese aesthetics.
A key element is the exaggerated eye shape, with make-up used to create a drooping effect and make the eyes appear larger.
Combined with vivid colours and graphic shapes, the result is intentionally maximalist rather than natural or understated.
For Kitty, make-up is about creativity and having fun rather than following conventional beauty rules
Experimentation Replaces Tutorials
When she was younger, Kitty regularly watched make-up tutorials.
Today, she is more confident developing her own techniques and experimenting with products in unconventional ways.
She enjoys applying products in places or for purposes they were not necessarily designed for, allowing her to create something individual rather than simply recreating an existing look.
Pull quote: “I really like to experiment with products, putting them in places they’re not normally supposed to be.”
Virtual Try-On Can’t Replace the Store
Despite the growing role of beauty technology, virtual try-on does not appeal to Kitty.
She strongly prefers discovering and purchasing make-up in-store, where she can physically test a product before buying.
She wants to assess:
- Colour
- Texture
- How the product feels
- How it looks on her skin
- How she expects it to wear
For Kitty, digital technology cannot replicate the tactile experience of physically testing make-up.
Pull quote: “I’d rather try it on in person, see how the colour looks, see the texture and the wear of it.”
Shopping Habits: Always In-Store
Kitty is unequivocal about where she buys her make-up: in-store.
Being able to experiment with a product before committing to a purchase is essential, particularly when buying the unconventional shades that form such an important part of her look.
The physical beauty counter therefore remains central to both discovery and conversion.
What She Wants From Make-Up
Kitty’s dream product is a colourful lip kit that moves far beyond conventional reds, pinks and nudes.
She imagines matching lipstick and lip liner sets available in bold shades including:
- Blue
- Green
- Yellow
- Purple
- Other rainbow-inspired colours
The lipstick and liner would be exactly the same shade and presented in playful packaging inspired by a box of crayons.
Pull quote: “I’d love for there to be a lip kit where you had a lipstick and a lip liner, but they were the same colour.”
Currently, Kitty finds genuinely unusual lipstick shades so difficult to source that she sometimes turns to face paint or cosmetic paint instead.
Bringing Play Back to Colour Cosmetics
Kitty’s make-up routine highlights an opportunity for colour cosmetics brands to serve consumers who feel underserved by the industry’s focus on wearable neutrals.
For highly creative make-up users, a larger shade range isn’t simply about offering more variations of conventional colours. It’s about providing access to genuinely unconventional pigments and formats that encourage experimentation.
From pure white eye colour to matching blue, green or yellow lip products, Kitty wants colour cosmetics to feel creative, expressive and fun.
Key Takeaways for NPD
- Maximalist consumers are looking for bolder colour options beyond traditional neutral palettes.
- Japanese make-up aesthetics continue to influence highly creative beauty consumers.
- Physical stores remain important for shoppers who want to test colour, texture and wear before purchasing.
- Virtual try-on may not replace tactile product discovery for experimental make-up users.
- Matching lipsticks and liners in unconventional colours represent a potential gap in the colour cosmetics market.
- Playful packaging can reinforce the creativity and self-expression consumers associate with bold make-up.
