so wanky it's illegal!
Lime Crime Makeup is a line of eyeshadow and lipstick by fashion blogger
Doe Deere (Xenia), mainly known for its strong and unusual pigments.
Recently Lime Crime's come under fire for
allegedly repackaging pigments by other companies such as
Beauty of the Earth and
TKB Trading. As
more and
more blogs post their own comparisons,
others pop up to speak about
past customer service experiences, including a post from Lillian who claims that
Xenia called her mother an "asshole" for
buying a dress of hers that was hemmed with duct/gaffer tape.
There is apparently
a long history of Xenia's shenanigans, sparked by comments on
an article on Lime Crime in the Examiner.
The comments haven't all been positive (a lot of them
have been deleted), but most damning is
a comment allegedly by Xenia calling her customers stupid for choosing her overpriced products.
This saga
inspires Lipsticks and Lightsabers to
start be part of the
Mineral Makeup Mutiny (
edit: this comment by
peonypavilion explains more) which highlights and supports companies that make their own mineral makeup. Meanwhile, there's been
some investigation into
her lipsticks, with
Xenia's post on making lipstick (as well as the later one on
making eyeshadows) attracting
strong skepticism.
Yesterday, Xenia
posted a video speaking out against the "haters", which
rubs Lilian the wrong way as she feels she's unfairly being considered a liar.
Xenia's response to her was (to Lilian's surprise) civil and composed; however, the same can't be said of Doe Deere commentor Mary, who
thinks Lilian's only got a grudge because she's fat and that
Lilian's on a power trip. (
edit: Lillian's video about her issues with Xenia.)
Edit:Xenia's entry with her video is closed to comments! (The ones already posted are still there though.)
eyeshadowsluts' posts about Lime Crime, as mentioned by
eleutheria.
Blasts from the past via
meanestbastard:
The duct tape dress (Xenia's comments have been deleted),
Where has the raffle money gone?,
"violation of copyright",
the mystery raffle winner,
her journal's gone friends-only,
relisting things that didn't sell. Oh and also
Internet & copyright law fail.
Edit 2:An insider's look at LBG drama. (The post itself is drama-free but does give some background.)
Edit 3:A lone objective voice about this whole shabang-a-bang.I'm somewhat surprised Xenia hasn't found this yet and threatened to take me down! does
otf_wank do anon comments?Edit 4:I posted a non-wanky version of this on MetaFilter (mainly to highlight the
video of Miss K/Aromaleigh making eyeshadow) and
they call shenanigans:
For the record; I've been making mineral makeup for years. I never sold it through my company, because getting FDA approval for makeup is a nightmare, and product liability insurance without FDA approval isn't going to happen. And operating in the US without product liability insurance is just stupid. That said, nobody *but* the big mineral makeup companies have gone through the FDA process, because they're the only ones that can pony up the 50k per product it takes to do so, and have the clean rooms to do manufacturing.
I can almost guarantee you that not a single one of these "boutique manufacturers" have FDA approval, or the million dollar clean labs that are required for that approval. These are folks that are buying stuff from vendors and mixing it up in coffee grinders in their kitchen, and STILL charging a 1000% markup...and you've got nobody to sue when it turns out their product hasn't been tested and came from a contaminated area of China.
All that is a lead up to this: Nobody on the market is just buying stuff from TKB (whom I love...they are a fantastic source, and their products are top-notch) and reselling it as "makeup". They may repackage and resell it as "kits" with instructions on how to make it...but nothing from TKB is "wear-ready".
This, my friends, is a marketing campaign, and nothing more. This is someone trying to stir outrage and turn it into dollars for her company. Every little vendor who sells mineral makeup does the same thing this person does. They blend it, they design colors, yadda yadda. Nobody is buying bags of chromium green and selling it the way it came from the wholesaler.
I call shenanigans, and I say this as someone who has been making mineral makeup for almost a decade. This isn't education, this isn't a movement, this is an ad campaign.