In less than a month, Hello Kitty will be coming to Sephora with a exclusive new cosmetics line that is reported to be huge, says Coco Perez.
New Hello Kitty items will include lip gloss, perfume, eyeshadow, a set of brushes, a compact mirror and countless others. An exact release date has not been announced yet, but products are expected to run from $5 nail art to $55 fragrances.
The ubiquitous white cat with her little red bow is a fictional character created by Japanese company Sanrio, and she has become an international icon of kawaii ("cute" in Japanese) culture. Already Hello Kitty graces thousands of products worldwide, everything from toys to airplanes – and even her own branded MasterCard.
The Hello Kitty brand earns Sanrio billions of dollars a year, though her popularity is beginning to wane, and sales have been dropping for the past decade. Since 2002, she has no longer ranked as the most popular character in Japan, falling into third place behind Anpanman and Pokémon.
Still, Hello Kitty has been going strong since 1975, when she was first introduced in Japan. In 1976, her products hit North American shores. Since then, she’s had several of her own television series, and even has her own theme park, Sanrio Puroland, in Tokyo.