Celebrities are everywhere these days – it seems you can’t move without seeing an LA starlet, a Kardashian, a Jenner, or a member of the latest E drama series adorning magazines and billboards. We live in a true celebrity age, but this brings with it a lot of scope for advertisements.

The IT thing at the moment is the celebrity cosmetic kit. We have the Kylie Jenner lip kits, we have KKW contouring kits, thanks to big sister Kim, and we have lines from Jessica Alba, Salma Hayak, Miranda Kerr, the list goes on.

But, the big question is, is it just a name, or is it worth the hype?

With Christmas just around the corner, we are seeing more and more new releases in the cosmetic world, and a huge amount of them have a celebrity name attached to them. Of course, this name helps sell the product, but it’s become more of a common scenario for the celebrity to actually have a creative hand in the development.

Celebrities now understand that reputation is important, and that means if they are caught selling a product with their name on, and they have no hand in its actual development at all, they’re going to get a bad rep. This is not something they want. All of this adds up to good news for consumers.

Let’s look at Kylie Jenner as a shining example. The youngest of the Kardashian/Jenner clan is a cosmetic mogul, and her lip kits have sold more units around the world than anyone could have ever imagined. You could argue that in terms of business, Kylie is more successful than any of her older siblings. Is that because she put her name to the product and nothing more? Actually no. Jenner herself has a large hand in the development of the product, and whilst she isn’t going to be seen donning protective gloves and actually producing the product, she develops the colours, comes up with the ideas, explains her vision, etc.

This is often the case with many cosmetic lines these days, and isn’t simply a way to sell extra units, by throwing a name against an otherwise rather sub-standard product. What you do need to look out for however is fakes.

There were many fake Kylie lip kits doing the rounds online, and these were found to contain harmful ingredients, which caused swelling and irritation to those who used them. For this reason, it’s never a good idea to go fake, and always better to pay that little bit extra, even if it is going to be lining the celeb’s pocket, a little more than it is already lined!

So, this Christmas, when you look towards buying your friend or family member the latest cosmetics on the market, do you go for the celeb version, or do you avoid it? It’s personal choice at the end of the day, but nowadays, you can generally place the celeb versions up there with the big named brands – whether you like the idea or not.