Everything You Need to Know About Drag Queen-Favorite Sugarpill Cosmetics
By Devon Abelman. Photos: Courtesy of Instagram.
At Allure, we can't get enough of two things: beauty brands that celebrate makeup being genderless and binging watching RuPaul's Drag Race. If you were to make a venn diagram of these two subjects, you'd find Sugarpill Cosmetics in the middle. The Los Angeles-based company creates unapologetically colorful makeup for everyone. However, its biggest fans are drag queens. If you follow Drag Race alums like Trixie Mattel or Katya on Instagram, you might have seen the hilarious ladies showing off their favorite Sugarpill products of the moment.
Before Sugarpill became the cruelty-free company behind the vibrant shadows and glittery lipsticks on every drag queen's face, its founder, Amy Doan, was a party girl with a DIY clothing line. Back in 2003, Shrinkle was the fashion version of Sugarpill's technicolor punk aesthetic. "Everything was super colorful, short, and ultra feminine with lots of lace, bows, and frills," Doan tells Allure. These days, Doan is better known as Shrinkle, and the clothing line lives on in Sugarpill Cosmetics, which launched in 2010. We caught up with Doan and Kim Chi, who appeared on the eighth season of Drag Race, to learn more about how the makeup brand came to be a go-to for drag queens. You might even learn some hacks, too.
Sugarpill was born out of necessity.
Back when Shrinkle was just Doan's clothing line and not her social media persona, she would model her own designs. To match her frilly vintage slips and colored fishnets, Doan beat her face with supebright theater makeup. Performers at the underground drag clubs she frequented taught her their tricks of the trade, including their favorite products and techniques. Doan became known for her rainbow looks, and people began asking her where to buy all the colorful products on her face. "At the time, vivid makeup in a high quality, pigmented formula was very difficult to find," she says. "When I realized the demand, I decided to make it more accessible by offering it alongside my clothing." The makeup sold out instantly, and Doan constantly had to trek to the nearest theater supply store to restock. She quickly became tired of the cosmetics she was selling. "I began to wish for control over the makeup’s quality, packaging, brand image, and the products and colors offered," she explains. "That's when I thought it would be fun to start my own brand!"
Its first product was a little bit rebellious.
On Valentine's Day of 2010, Sugarpill started off with a blue eye shadow called Afterparty. "I was obsessed with bright turquoise eyeshadow all throughout high school and college," Doan explains. "The fact that teen magazines of the '90s warned good girls to stay away from bright blue eyeshadow and hot pink lips to avoid looking like bimbos and strippers made the colors even more appealing to me." Unfortunately, Afterparty has since been discontinued, but the bright turquoise eye shadow called Kim Chi is a great alternative. You can see it in action below on Doan herself.
Sugarpill's ties to the drag community run deeper than its fanbase.
Speaking of Kim Chi, it's no coincidence that the pressed eye shadow shares a name with the Chicago-based performer. After Kim Chi was named the runner up of the eighth season of Drag Race and became known for her stunning, anime-inspired makeup, Sugarpill launched a brand-new doughnut-scented liquid lipstick and the matte blue eye shadow. "Now, I use the eye shadow almost every single time I'm in drag," Kim Chi tells Allure.
Kim Chi was a longtime Sugarpill fan before teaming up with her friend Amy. She first found out about its colorful products through Instagram. Several other queens and makeup artists she follows were tagging Sugarpill in their posts. "I was always curious to try it," she says. "Then, one of my friends, Porcelain [who's also a drag queen], came to Chicago for a gig, and I tried some of her Sugarpill shadows and really liked them." Doan was a fan of Kim Chi, too. She actually heard of her from Porcelain. So basically, you can thank her for this power duo.
Sugarpill's cult-favorite product is its most low-key
Early last year, Sugarpill ventured into the realm of liquid lipstick for the first time. The debut shade, Trinket, quickly became a best seller. There's even a four-per-person limit on it. Kim Chi loves it, too. The matte rose flecked with gold is surprisingly outside of Doan's comfort zone, though. "As someone who pretty much wore exclusively bright colors her entire makeup-wearing life, I wanted to step into the world of neutral shades," she says. "But in a market oversaturated with neutrals, I wanted it to be a completely unique and exciting shade that you couldn't find anywhere else." To do so, she combined two different finishes: matte and metallic. Together, they create an everyday shade that is far from other neutral lipstick shades in your makeup bag right now. Trust.
Sugarpill secretly sells highlighters.
According to Doan, the secret to highlighters that no one knows is they're just shimmery eye shadows. They even have identical formulas and ingredients. "While we don't officially make 'highlighters,' many of our eyeshadows double as the most amazing ones," she says. She suggests trying Diamond Eyes (a true white flecked with glitter), Frostine (a frosty lavender), Ice Angel (a silvery white with a blue shift), and Kitten Parade (a peach with a gold sheen). Kim Chi has her own recommendations, too. The first shadow she ever used, Tako (a matte true white), works as an illuminator on fair skin tones, too.
Turns out, Kim Chi is actually the queen of Sugarpill product hacks. The matte hot pink Dollipop Pressed Eyeshadow doubles as a blush in her beauty routine. She also likes to set satin lipsticks with a complementary Pressed Eyeshadow shade. As for Sugarpill's Loose Eyeshadows, Kim Chi brushes them over liquid lipstick to give a matte one a fun metallic finish. Her all-time fave, Lumi, "gives any color a holographic, iridescent quality," she says. That sounds like a pretty spot-on Unicorn Tears dupe if you ask us. You can shop all these products mentioned on sugarpill.com.
Although Doan says having a rabid drag queen fan base was never her intention, much of the bold makeup she has created for Sugarpill was inspired by drag queen. Plus, they perfectly fulfill the qualifications that drag queens look for when shopping for makeup: dramatic, pigmented, and long-wearing. Of course, she's grateful for all the inevitable love for her products. "My love for drag has pretty much come full circle," she says. "Now, I'm making stuff for the people who taught me everything I know about beauty, acceptance, and individuality."
This story originally appeared on Allure.
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