Sparklecrack Central: Would it change my mind? Integrity and business ethics

Would it change my mind? Integrity and business ethics

Posted by Laughing Muse on Friday, November 13, 2009 at 10:55 AM in Miscellaneous • 289 views
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Bare Escentuals, eyeshadow, Lime Crime, Make Up For Ever, marketing, private label, repackaging, resellers, retailer review, Simply Naturals

This is a followup to another entry on my site, and a part of the indie-MMU repackaging kerfuffle.

Another web site is running another piece on Lime Crime, one of the makeup companies that consumers have recently cited as having several colors that are so very reminiscent of colored micas available from wholesalers (as in, when swatched side by side people can't tell the difference.) After a few of us stated, in the comments, what we found so particularly disagreeable about Lime Crime's behavior in this incident (seeming integrity, lack thereof), the person who wrote this follow-up interview asked us a hypothetical question:

"So let’s say for the sake of argument, Doe Deere says you know what you guys, I may have exaggerated when first marketing my product and for that I apologize from the bottom of my heart. What then? Would that change anyone’s mind?"^*

I’m going to assume (perhaps incorrectly) that “change anyone’s mind” refers to buying the products / supporting the company: If Xenia/Doe Deere apologizes for trying to mislead consumers, would I ever consider buying products from her?

Possibly…but probably not. Price is also a factor - but even if she slashed prices, the unethical conduct would be a huge barrier to my ever trying anything from them.

Let’s set aside the morals-and-ethics issue for a moment and look at the products^†: we’ve got loose mineral powders (colored micas) for $12 for about 2 grams. That’s more than I’d get if I bought Bare Escentuals retail ($13 for .57 grams), and it costs less than Make Up For Ever’s Star Powders and has a similar quantity ($19 for 2.5 grams). However…I can go to my nearby boutiques and look at, and test, both BE and MUFE. I can’t do that with Lime Crime. If I have a problem with BE or MUFE, I know I can take it back to my local boutique or contact the manufacturer and they’ll work to rectify the problem. Again - can’t do that with Lime Crime, as the site clearly stated that no refunds are offered. I also know the quality of both BE and MUFE, and while both brands have their share of marketing “happy talk” surrounding them, to my knowledge neither company has made statements in the recent past (at least since 2007) that have been so very close to lying as some of the things DD has said on her blog, on videos, and in “interviews” like the one posted on the Examiner^‡. So based on ease of access, cost, and customer service, I would say that Lime Crime is about as good a deal as buying from BE and MUFE. I now only buy BE on Ebay, so that I don’t have to pay the ginormous retail costs; and MUFE has products that are superior to BE so for the few items I buy from them, I don’t mind paying the higher prices. I would not buy from any other MMU company that charged more than $10 for 2 grams of product…and even then, it’s iffy whether I’d buy from them or not. One of the reasons I started buying mineral makeup from smaller online companies was to save money. If I can’t save money, I might as well buy from a brand like MUFE or BE where I can see the items in the store before making my purchase (and know that I’ll be able to make returns, if necessary.)

I can say that if Xenia/Doe Deere had apologized, or had announced something to the effect that she was going to start replacing the repackaged products with truly original items, or even said “I go and look to find what I think are the best products to resell, but I don’t make them myself”, I might have not continued to warn people away from doing business with a company that lie to its customers. I doubt that I would have bought anything from LC at the current price point, because I can find better-quality products that cost less money elsewhere (The SheSpace, Meow Cosmetics, Everyday Minerals, the list goes on.) It’s about getting the best value - and for me, Lime Crime is currently not the “best value”, not in terms of cost nor quality. The owner’s less-than-honest behavior in this incident just firms up my decision not to buy from Lime Crime. Even if the prices were cut in half, I would have to see a change in behavior and conduct from Xenia/Doe Deere before I felt comfortable buying from, or recommending that anyone else buy from, or even letting a friend buy from, Lime Crime.

Xenia/Doe Deere might decide that she’s got a following, she’s got a product, now she’s going to build that product line up well and sell people a truly quality product that’s worth what they’re being asked to pay. She might also decide to lower her markup from “obscene” to “profitable”, state that they’re bought from manufacturers, and that she’s reselling these products because she believes in them. If either of those scenarios were to happen, the company might not be in such bad odor with me (and with many other bloggers and consumers and former customers). But based on the behavior I’ve seen from Lime Crime during this incident, and the things I’ve personally tested, I’m not going to be quick to forgive or forget Xenia/Doe Deere’s behavior nor give positive recommendations to them or their products. Xenia/Doe Deere appears to be trying to sell her makeup based partially, or even largely, on the force of her persona/personality. Problem there is, by providing a product that is readily available elsewhere at such a high price, and then by attempting to convince people that no, she’s really making everything herself, she’s the victim here, she’s not lying, and pay no attention to the private-label company behind the curtain…she’s not acting like any kind of person I’d want to be.

EDIT: When I first started buying mineral makeup online, I bought from Simply Naturals. Their product was inexpensive - and if some of it wasn’t very pigmented, I figured “hey, you’re paying less than $2 a jar for it, you’re getting what you pay for”. At one point I asked about some eyeshadows that had been listed as “coming soon” for quite some time, and was told that they were waiting for an ingredient to come from Egypt. Several months later I found TKB Trading…and recognized a few shadow names in the “Colored Mica” section, and a lot of photography. I was somewhat less than thrilled, and started looking for match-ups. In the process, I found several colors from Simply Naturals that don’t have an exact correspondent on the TKB Trading site - so it’s quite possible that Simply Naturals does mix some of their own pigments/colors, but also sells some things straight from the wholesaler as-is (Pluot, Magic, Mars, Earth, Venus, Neptune, the Fantasy colors, the Pearl colors, the Lollipop/Pop colors…). The repackaging discovery one of the reasons I haven’t bought much else from Simply Naturals. The other reason is…I’d pretty thorougly picked over their entire selection and already bought the colors I wanted. Simply Naturals and Lime Crime did the same thing, in that they both repackaged and marked up. Simply Naturals marked up on a much smaller scale ($2 for 1.5 grams versus $12 for 2 grams) and didn’t have the cult following that Lime Crime did. And the Simply Naturals site is “down for restocking/revamping” until December 1. Perhaps they are going to purge all the direct-resells from their product line - who knows? We’ll find out.

^† I can’t currently doublecheck the other products and prices because the site is down. Could mean that the site itself is down, but it also might be a server problem with the company where Lime Crime Makeup’s site is hosted.
^‡ Hey - does anyone want to post articles to the web where lots of others will read them, thinking that the articles are published by a newspaper? You can sign up for free and start submitting articles, just like PRWire and (to an extent) About.com. The “Examiner” is a good PR outlet, just not “reputable journalism”.
^* Judging by the tone and by the article title “The Straight Dope, from Doe Deere”, I don’t know if this person is truly trying to be balanced, or is inadvertently being used as another mouthpiece for Doe Deere. For this person’s sake, I hope it’s not the latter. I know how very displeased I would be if I were trying to be evenhanded and was instead used as a PR puppet.

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On 02/01 at 10:55 PM, StarlightLace said:

Hi,LiAnn! I was over here perusing your site,when I found this article and your others about “repackaged pigments”, and want to know if you will ever purchase again from PureLuxe Cosmetics. The reason I ask, is because I saw on a couple other blogger’s sites, namely AL’s, about the “kerfuffle” as you like to call it. It seems that the owner of PureLuxe demanded that some photos be removed from the Mineral Makeup Mutiny website, insisting that if they weren’t removed, she would file a lawsuit,etc,etc…anyway, I wanted to ask your opinion,because I know you’ve bought from PureLuxe before, and just because someone demands that a photo be removed ( was it her intellectual property?) Then I could understand why she would become irked in being associated with a site that is outing all the MMU companies. I did notice that Pure Luxe is not listed on the MMM site,and a whole lot of other sites are. But still,just because you want a photo removed,(that might belong to you) does not mean that you repackage pigments. So in all fairness, does anyone really know wether the owner repackages at PureLuxe? All I know is that she was upset over a photo. And also keep in mind,when this whole hulabaloo started, I kind of just ignored most of it anyway, since I have been mostly loyal to BE and TSS.No need for me to worry about repackaged pigments, if I don’t buy from alot of different companies. BTW,thanks for the heads up about Silk Naturals. I was considering ordering from them,but now maybe not so much. NOw, I am off, later, I will research the MMM site, for more info. Thanks! Sorry for the long post!

On 02/02 at 09:41 AM, Laughing Muse said:

I do not follow or endorse the MMM. I think it started from a good idea, similar to one that I had for my own site - let people know where similar/dupe colors can be found to minimize their chances of buying dupes, or to let them find a dupe for that much-loved hard-to-find or discontinued color - but I don’t think that all MMU companies that aren’t 100% “artisanal” should be avoided. I care if I’m getting bad value (outrageously high markup/high prices), or if a company outright lies about their product (like LC’s claims of originality)...or even engages in more than a bit of puffery (BE’s latest about “happibelle” infused products, or even its SPF implications.) Think about it: when you buy something at a store like Costco, are you buying something that you think is original? No, you’re buying something there because it’s something you need or want, and Costco has good prices. That’s the same way I, personally, approach makeup. I want good quality, I want something I’ll enjoy, and I want to not pay a huge price if something similar is available at a lower cost.

I have bought from Pure Luxe, and will do so again in the future if I see colors that appeal to me. I think some of their pigments are repackaged (Auras, Bubblegum Colors, Heavy Metalz) and some are not. I’ve had one color from PL that I ended up tossing because it was just too light, but I like the others I’ve gotten.

Simply Naturals (not Silk Naturals) is another company that I have found to be repackaging many of their loose-powder colors (have found many TKB loose-micas repackaged); but again, I’ll buy from them again if a color catches my eye. You definitely get what you pay for there - $2 for a filled-to-the-brim 5-gram sifterless jar? That’s nearly as much as you’d pay for a sample from TKB, and you’d get about the same amount of product, so SN isn’t making a whole lot of money…and the end consumer isn’t paying much, either. Some of their colors, I can’t find exact duplicates on the various wholesalers’ sites I’ve looked at, suggesting that while they repackage quite a few colors, there are several that they mix themselves. (And they outer-seal their jars, so no leakage in transit. That was my single biggest gripe with TSS, that I kept getting jar leakage unless I was a royal PITA and asked them to tape down the individual lids.)

I some issues with Aleigh over the whole MMM/PL photo-re-use kerfuffle. Aleigh’s owner has become quite upset, in the past (and justifiably so), with people in little startup shops on Etsy using her photos from her website. That is misrepresentation (because it’s doubtful that those sellers’ pigments look like that), but also copyright theft (because Aleigh took, or paid to have taken, those photos of their products.) Then, she goes and does the same thing to the owner of PL, reusing artwork from the PL site - and in such a way that implies that PL is a reseller. That is, in my opinion, not adult behavior. I have a hard time believing that she wasn’t 100% aware of what she was doing. She could have asked the owner of TKB if she could re-use TKB’s “pop” graphic for purposes of illustration. She could have made a collage, she could have used a stock photo…but no, she does this instead. This builds an association in peoples’ minds that PL is a repackager of all their products (which I don’t believe to be the case)...but additionally, considering Aleigh’s owner’s own experience with people reusing her site artwork and copy, it’s also incredibly childish.

Buy from whom you want to buy, because of decisions you make. If you decide that you only want to buy from companies that create 100% of their own mineral makeup, then do that. If you want to buy from a mixture of known repackagers and “artisanal”, then do that. But buy for your own reasons. Make your own decisions. And re-examine them constantly.

On 02/02 at 09:44 AM, Laughing Muse said:

I kept running out of room on that comment…suggesting that it needs its own post, anyway. :D

On 02/02 at 03:21 PM, StarlightLace said:

Thanks for clearing that up for me. It seems like there’s a bit of paranoia out there,with regards to who does and who doesn’t. I agree it’s a good idea to be informed about what your buying,and to me it also makes sense to get the best deal for what your paying.