Save me from myself!! ...not…

Just a little note to all the folks who comment, email, or tweet to me telling me that this or that company, from whom I purchase product, repackages/resells some of their products:

You’re not telling me anything I hadn’t figured out, on my own, over a year ago (and then confirmed just under a year ago). And yet I still will buy from these various companies if they have something that I like. For me, it’s not about buying “artisanal” or “original”. It’s about “what do I want” versus “what I don’t already have and can’t find elsewhere for a lower price”.

I’m fairly new at using mineral makeup. Some may believe that since I’ve only really been using this stuff since late 2007 that I’m less informed than some, and might not be aware of some companies alleged business practices. This is not the case. Yes, I’ve only been buying since late 2007…but while I’m not a cosmetic chemist, I do know a bit about online MMU vendors.

In 2007, I first started buying Bare Escentuals. Nice stuff, but pricey. I hit Ebay to see if I could get some of this stuff below retail. I found several folks selling BE, bought from the most trustworthy-looking ones that had the best deals, and began building my BE collection. At the same time, I also started buying from indie MMU retailers who had shops on Ebay. The first was a company called Simply Naturals that was selling a good quantity of loose-powder mineral makeup for super low prices. I was overjoyed to find some exact duplicates from hard-to-find BE colors (Blaze = Beautiful Lisa, Gypsy = Here Kitty) as well as some other colors that looked gorgeous.

At around the same time (spring 2008), I began frequenting the QVC beauty forums. People were raving about a company called TSS, so I headed over and checked them out…and bought. Then I found some beauty blogs and forums and saw folks posting looks using products from Pure Luxe, so I checked their inventory as well. Some of the PL stuff looked like stuff I’d seen at other places, some looked nearly as pricey as Aromaleigh - a company which I’d found on the internet but left behind as being a bit too costly - but PL would be giving me more product for my money, and they had some duochrome colors that I hadn’t truly seen anywhere. I put together a sample order, got it, was pleased with 85% of the samples I’d ordered, only found one outright duplicate to colors I already had in my collection (I’d suspected based on the description of Supernova, but decided to give it a shot anyway) and bought the colors I liked in fullsize.

Dateline: fall 2008. I found other makeup blogs, started following them, and through them (and through the forums I frequented) found links to additional mineral makeup companies. I looked over the inventories of Taylor Made Minerals, MAD Minerals, Silk Naturals, Fusion of Color, Everyday Minerals, Meow Cosmetics, Morgana Minerals, Archetype Cosmetics, and Fyrinnae. I was unimpressed with the first four, as their colors either did not seem that different from things I already had in my inventory; and the latter three companies’ websites were a bitch and a quarter to navigate and read, so I wasn’t compelled to try and figure out which colors I might want versus what I already had in my collection. I eventually did purchase various product samples from Everyday Minerals and Meow Cosmetics, and found a few eyecolors from each…but mostly had success with correctors, blushers, all-over face colors, and foundation (huzzah for Meow Cosmetics’ foundation..! but that’s another writeup altogether.)

Dateline: late winter 2009. Shortly after I put up this site, intending to catalogue similarities between the brands I had (kind of a “if you have…then you don’t need…” guide, or a way for folks to get that hard-to-find color even if it’s been discontinued by the original manufacturer) I discovered TKB Trading. I noticed that some of the color names, even some of the images on TKB were the exact same as the ones used on Simply Naturals. This confirmed my tentative guess that they were repackaging some of their pigments…but, I reasoned, at less than $2 a jar, I got what I paid for: a color I liked, not something necessarily breathtakingly original, but colors that I liked and used. I was able to think back to the inventories of some of the other MMU sites that I’d looked over and conclude that they were probably reselling or repackaging at least some of their inventory. I continued to buy from TSS, Pure Luxe, Everyday Minerals, Meow Cosmetics…and Simply Naturals. I also started buying from Aromaleigh in February 2009 - spurred because they were selling their older 10-gram-jar inventory at deeply discounted prices (to make way for their smaller jars with lowered prices), and I snagged a few colors and was able to try them out. I also found out about their weekly sales, and began strategizing when to buy what I wanted from their inventory at the lowest prices I could.

Dateline: mid-autumn 2009: the whole Mineral Makeup Mutiny thing takes off, the witchhunts ensue, and I start getting the occasional helpful emails and tweets from folks saying, “You know that **** repacks some of their stuff, right?” or even once - though only once - “Why do you buy from *****? You’re encouraging people who try and rip off the consumer!!! Are you trying to take business away from the truly creative vendors?!??” The truly creative vendors, like the ones endorsed by the Mineral Makeup Mutiny - which at one time also included Archetype Cosmetics, who doesn’t fulfill customers’ orders for months, doesn’t answer emails, and leaves many customers without the ability to get their money back from Paypal because they wait to file a dispute until it’s too late? If “truly creative” means “people who do not resell at all, in any form”, that still doesn’t mean that they’re a company worthy of my - or anyone else’s - patronage. Further, any “truly creative” vendor who has solid marketing methods and a solid business plan will not be going hungry. Another, more sensible argument against buying from non-value-add resellers is that consumers will buy products from Vendor A and only realize that they’re similar or the same as products from Vendor B when these products arrive on their doorstep. This can be a valid argument since when buying things from internet-only storefronts, people have to go on what they see on their monitor. But wait - there are some other components besides the photos of the colors. One can read the descriptions and try to decide if something is too similar to something one already has, and hey, one may then have a clue that perhaps one does not wish to buy another pot of a sheer bright blue with gold sparkle (for example). Even if someone has only just started buying mineral makeup and visits several Etsy shops, careful use of a little bit of critical thinking can help minimize the “dupe purchases”. I myself buy from two companies that repackage, or minimally alter, a portion of their products - yet I’ve inadvertently purchased more dupes and near-dupes in my personal collection that are between the indies and Bare Escentuals, than between the various indie colors that I’ve purchased or even sampled (and that’s what I wanted to find originally, was to find and document lower-cost alternatives to the various BE colors). I’m not some super-genius, that I was able to avoid having multiple dupes in my over-1,000-color collection. I don’t think my luck is better than average, to have purchased the bulk of my collection before I’d ever been to any of the mica- and pigment-wholesalers’ sites. I just take the time to look over the colors, read the descriptions, think about what I already have, and THEN make my purchases.

If you personally don’t want to buy anything from a company that resells products from anyone else ever, that’s your choice. If you personally don’t want to buy from companies that aren’t located in your area of the world (same country, same landmass, same state/province, whatever), that’s your choice. If you personally don’t want to buy from companies that aren’t 100% vegan, that’s your choice. It’s your money, you get to choose how you spend it.

And I’m going to choose how to spend mine. So quit trying to “help me” make a choice. I’ve already made it.

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