How about some barebackstage lip gloss, packed with ultra-fine diamond pearls for a wet-shine disco beam finish? Or will it be Tantric, a deep sensual brown collection of beauty products?
This skin and beauty range is not for the faint-hearted, nor the old-hearted. Put on your platform heels, leathers and pink feather boas, and get ready for a lifestyle of glitter, gloss and glee, for on the counter top is India’s first ever queer-led line of make-up products.
Kitty Su Beauty, helmed by the LaLiT hotel group that is noted for its LGBTQIA+ activism (the brand name itself comes from the hotel’s pan-Indian night clubs known for their gay events calendar) is marketed towards drag queens primarily, though, frankly, everyone’s invited. It has even been conceptualised by a drag performer no less, ‘Hash Brownie’ aka Reggie Sandhu, who, of course, quips: “Kitty Su is make-up born from queer culture, but made for anyone who wants to play with who they are. Queer-led doesn’t mean queer-exclusive. Genderless doesn’t mean personality-less. And beauty doesn’t need permission.”
But why a makeup line for the gay community? Hash Brownie says there is a real gap. “Beauty has borrowed endlessly from queer and drag culture, but rarely built products with queer artists at the centre of the conversation,” she said, adding, “Being queer has influenced how these products were imagined — from the intensity of the pigments and the shade selection to how they feel on the face and perform through long nights.”
The beauty line—it presently includes lip gloss and lip shine products to start with but will expand soon—came about from a chance ‘makeover’ encounter. A few years ago, Hash Brownie was at a shindig where they did a styling makeover for French entrepreneur Cyril Feuillebois, himself no stranger to the beauty business and the husband of LaLiT hotels scion Keshav Suri. As it turned out, Cyril’s makeover had a striking resemblance to how his mother looked when she was 30.
The result? An indelible memory in Cyril’s mind, or as Hash Brownie quipped, “An unofficial audition for Kitty Su Beauty!”
Two years later, Cyril invited Hash Brownie to lunch, where the idea of an LGBT-oriented cosmetics line and its potential germinated into a strategy. Cut to last month, the group announced the launch of Kitty Su Beauty, with products available on e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Flipkart, as well as on its own website.
While Keshav Suri and Cyril are the founders, Hash Brownie is the co-creator who formulates the products, and she is in no rush.
“A lot of (make-up) brands tell you how to look. Kitty Su is more interested in asking: who do you feel like becoming tonight?… We are born out of…worlds where make-up has to do more than simply look good in a mirror. It has to transform, survive, perform and make a statement.” Hence a collection the brand touts as being built around ‘colour, transformation and versatility.”
“Our immediate focus is on building Kitty Su Beauty's core product universe through colour cosmetics, performance-driven formulas and discovery-led formats, while continuing to grow our community through creators, artists, drag performers and people who genuinely live in the brand's world,” she added.
