POPPY KING
LESSONS OF A LIPSTICK QUEEN
FINDIGN AND DEVELOPING THE GREAT IDEA THAT CAN CHANGE YOUR LIFE
by Poppy King
Ever since she started her multi-million dollar lipstick business at the age of 18, Poppy King has been asked one question over and over again: “How in the world did you do it?”
What began as a whimsical idea for Poppy—“I wish I could bring out my own line of lipsticks”—developed into her career, her life, and her guiding passion.
When she was a teenager growing up in Melbourne, Australia in the 1980s, she could never find a lipstick that suited her unique look. So…after graduating from high school, she decided to develop her own line. With some street market research and a manufacturer found in the yellow pages, Poppy King launched Poppy Industries. The line took off like wildfire, and by the time she was 19, she was the founder of a multi-million company and had sold her product to Barneys. In 1995 she was named one of the “Global Leaders of the New Millennium” by Time magazine.
All because she decided to act on her idea of creating the perfect lipstick for herself…
With her new book, LESSONS OF A LIPSTICK QUEEN: Finding and Developing the Great Idea that Can Change Your Life (Atria Books: $23.00; May 6, 2008) Poppy King has taken everything that she has ever learned and plotted it out to show readers how they too can have what it takes to find, explore, and make any idea happen. The trick is actually pretty simple—good planning mixed with self-belief.
Witty, personal, and utterly frank, LESSONS OF A LIPSTICK QUEEN is packed with interesting sidebars and boxes that detail all of the lessons Poppy experienced during her amazing career. Readers will learn the low-down gritty about everything it takes to bring an idea to fruition. The chapters cover a wide range of topics—from fantasizing about an intriguing idea and taking the leap to explore its potential, to financing your endeavor and keeping your marketing approach simple and real.
Poppy is a talented writer, and her thoughts move smoothly into the written word. In LESSONS OF A LIPSTICK QUEEN she vividly illustrates the excitement of living her dream by deftly intertwining her true life story to highlight her points. Nothing is off-limits for her. She details her highs (selling her line to Barneys at the age of 19) and her lows (her first photo shoot and the devastating collapse of her business partnership)—and everything in between.
Poppy believes that being entrepreneurial in the 21st century is a necessity, and with LESSONS OF A LIPSTICK QUEEN, she shows just how to do it.