Entries for Sunday November 22

Aromaleigh v1’s Not So Silent Night

• Vendor: Aromaleigh v1
• Availability: available as part of the Holiday Blast collection
• Color Range: midnight-blue sparkle
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

Aromaleigh v1’s Spiked Punch

• Vendor: Aromaleigh v1
• Availability: available as part of the Holiday Blast collection
• Color Range: ruby-red sparkle
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

Aromaleigh v1’s Re-gifted

• Vendor: Aromaleigh v1
• Availability: available as part of the Holiday Blast collection
• Color Range: deep warm rust-orange shimmer
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

Aromaleigh v1’s Cookie Party

• Vendor: Aromaleigh v1
• Availability: available as part of the Holiday Blast collection
• Color Range: medium gingerbread-brown sparkle
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

Aromaleigh v1’s Champagne Toast

• Vendor: Aromaleigh v1
• Availability: available as part of the Holiday Blast collection
• Color Range: medium warm tan shimmer
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

Aromaleigh v1’s Party Dress

• Vendor: Aromaleigh v1
• Availability: available as part of the Holiday Blast collection
• Color Range: rich pure-gold parkle
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

Aromaleigh v1’s High Heels

• Vendor: Aromaleigh v1
• Availability: available as part of the Holiday Blast collection
• Color Range: soft mauve rose sparkle
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

There are some other colors that have the same base, or a similar hue, or a similar intensity - but none have the exact same combination, nor do they have the metallic finish. I’m very glad this color came back for an encore, and I hope against hope that this does become part of the regular line.

Aromaleigh v1’s Twinkling Lights

• Vendor: Aromaleigh v1
• Availability: available as part of the Holiday Blast collection
• Color Range: evergreen with red shimmer
• Staying Power: 4 out of 4 stars
• Cost/Amount: USD$8 for 1.2 grams
• Would you purchase again: yes
• Similar shades:

This was the first color in Aromaleigh v1’s lineup that really seriously made me think about purchasing from them. In November 2008, Aromaleigh was an unknown quantity to me. Their prices were lower than “big corporate” makeup lines like BE and Make Up For Ever, but they were charging more money for less product than companies like Simply Naturals or even Pure Luxe, which were the companies I used to start my online branching-out and buying sight-unseen. The green base with the distinctive red shimmer really caught my attention. I deliberated for a few weeks, but when I finally went back to purchase, the color was gone.

Aromaleigh v1’s Holiday Blast collection

• Vendor: Aromaleigh v1
• Availability: November/December 2008; encore release (final release) in November 2009
• Availability: from the company's webstore
• Contains: 12 eye colors
• Cost/Amount: USD$8.00 for 1.2 grams. Sample baggies also available at $1.00 per baggie.
• Would you purchase again: yes

I remember first looking at these colors when I was thinking about ordering from Aromaleigh...but I'd never bought anything from them before, the prices looked high (thank goodness for the regular sales), and so I waited. And then the colors were gone. I got a jar of one through an Ebay charity auction, and hoped that they'd come back one day...which they did. And instead of ordering just one more pot of the one color I had managed to snag, I made a thorough pass through and ended up owning eight of the twelve colors.

The texture of these is, surprisingly, kind of plush. They apply with a pretty sheen, and while they do have lots of glitter and sparkle, they don't feel gritty or have lots of fallout.

Since many of these colors were made using discontinued pigments, they won't be made part of the permanent line - unlike the colors from the other Aromaleigh 2008 LE collections. I was also unable to get samples of those colors I chose not to purchase, since no samples were available.

This kit contained:

• Almost Midnight — deep violet-indigo sparkle
• Champagne Toast — medium warm tan sparkle
• Cookie Party — medium gingerbread-brown sparkle
• High Heels — soft mauve rose sparkle
• Not So Silent Night — midnight-blue sparkle
• Party Dress — rich pure-gold sparkle
• Re-Gifted — deep warm rust-orange shimmer
• Sneak a Peek — soft burgundy sparkle
• Spiked Punch — ruby-red sparkle
• Tangled Tinsel — silver sparkle
• Times Square — raisin-berry sparkle
• Twinkling Lights — evergreen with red shimmer

Entries for Friday November 13

Would it change my mind? Integrity and business ethics

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. 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.