I must say i was actually very surprised by Xenia's reply. First of all i expected to be ignored, or if not, to be attacked. However i will say that actually she has responded in a very fair and diplomatic fashion to me. Here's what she has said so far:
In reply to the email i posted last night
' Lillian,
If you'd like to speak to me over the phone about this, I would love to call you. Let me know where to call.
-Xenia'
to which i responded:
' I don't think that would be practical, i live in England.
I honestly have no personal vendetta against you, i was discussing you with my friend the other day and we both agreed that had we not been around for so long, and seen the drama and scandals with you involved, we would be huge fans of yours. I'll admit i love your whole aesthetic, if i had not been insulted by you i probably would have bought your entire candyfuture line.
If you look you'll see that i didn't even mention my problems with you in the pass until after the repackaging rumours came out, so please don't think i have been trying to sabotage you from the beginning.
I understand that you have to stand up for your company, so of course rebuke people saying your product is duped (i'm still not convinced about your eyeshadows, but i have seen swatches of your lipsticks and i agree that they are not just repackaged) but please don't call people, some of whom are ex-fans of yours liars.
Lillian'
and then she replied with:
'Lillian,
I'm really sorry if I offended you in any way. What I was referring to in the video is an email someone posted recently, pretending to be me, calling my customers idiots, etc. If I lashed out at you in the past, it was very reckless and rash and I hope you can forgive me for that. I am human and make mistakes, but I learn from them too. Please let me know if there's anything I can do to make this right.
-X'
So i must say in a way i am impressed because i was fully expecting to get a nasty reply. And it is nice to have finally, after many years, got an apology for what she said. However she did not address any of my concerns surrounding the video and how she was calling anyone who had made a complaint against her a liar.
I then sent this email:
'Xenia
Firstly i'd like to say thank you for replying to me, i honestly expected to be ignored and thank you for not being hostile towards me. I understand that when your business is being called into disrepute it is hard to keep your emotions out of it. I guess that's what the 'asshole' thing was about but, pathetic as it might sound, it did hurt me deeply and because of the implications (that my Mum was stupid for trusting you) i have found it quite relevant to the new rumours surrounding your eyeshadows and your customer service. When you buy from a small company (as i did several times from your clothing line) trust is a very important factor and my trust was lost with those comments.
I am now being insulted by someone on your blog. I understand if you have to delete the comment i posted in reply but really if you could i would like you to keep it up. I didn't say anything insulting about you in it, i just wanted to point out that is is ridiculous to say that the reason i might have a grudge at you is simply because you are thinner than me. Again i would like to point out that, while i may well have a grudge against you because i was hurt by your comments in the past, i did not say anything about you until after people began discussing your customer service and problems with your products. I did not dredge this up myself to create dama, i just shared my own opinions and experiences when people were starting to wonder.
Again i am sorry that things have got so ugly (i think some of the things that have been said about you are awful and shameful) , but people need to know the truth and i'm still not convinced about your eyeshadows, having seen exact duplicates and also some replies from you claiming that the wholesale companies are competitors trying to duplicate what is popular. If you do repackage some products it would not be fatal to just admit it, in fact I and a lot of others would gain a lot of respect for you. As you are a small company just starting up it would be completely understandable. There's nothing wrong with admitting a mistake and moving on. However the huge problem with the video you made is that you are claiming that anyone who has a complaint against you is a liar. I've heard from many people who were fans of yours, bought products and then discovered that they already owned them, purchased from other companies. Even if you are somehow creating the exact same colours as these companies yourself, and not simply repackaging, that still means they are not in any way unique.
In the name of fairness i have not tried any of your products and can only go by what i have seen on other blogs (and i have seen photos where the colours look absolutely identical) i do not have the money to purchase to try for myself. However i do think that it is well within my rights to write my own opinions on my blog without fear of being attacked or called a 'hater'. I also found it unfair as now i, who have had a legitimate reason to doubt your company, have been lumped in with people who are pretending to be you or simply insulting you on things that have nothing to do with the product. I have completely stayed out of the name calling and in fact have been appalled by some of the comments made about you.
I hope that in the future you begin to make your own unique products and that there will be some exciting new things to see, but i know that I, and many others because of this drama, would be very hesitant to purchase from you no matter how brilliant your products become.
Lillian'
I'll keep you posted if i get a reply. I must say that at the moment i am actually feeling a lot less hostile towards her, perhaps simply because i finally got an apology and because she seems less objectionable in comparison with the girl who said i was just jealous and fat!
fat? wow
ReplyDeletesome people, don't let them get you down, I love your curves. :)
I'm glad you got a reply.
And I agree, you havn't really said anything that bad or possibly untrue about Lime Crime, and you have stayed away from the drama more than alot of blogs, so good for you.
Zoe
Thanks for keeping us all updated on this. There is something really fishy about her replies, to be honest.
ReplyDelete"What I was referring to in the video is an email someone posted recently, pretending to be me, calling my customers idiots, etc.:"
To be honest that sounds like she is making that part up. But whatever, I'll keep my mouth shut, I don't know anything about this situation, just going by gut instinct.
wow im just as shocked as you are to have recieved replies. Maybe it was because of ur pleasant manner. Or (hopefully) she has come to undersatnd that ignoring emails and comments is just going to make this situation worse.
ReplyDeleteIm also really happy she finally appologised to you.
xx
Zoe:
ReplyDeleteThank you very much. I was a bit upset about that girls comments at first, but now i can just laugh at how silly it all is!
And thank you for your compliment.
Kelly:
Actually someone did pretend to be her and said nasty things about her fans. I was actually taken in and believed it was her because it was a really weird comment.
You can see it here:
http://www.lipsticksandlightsabers.com/2009/10/xenis-speaks-u-guise.html
I'm pleasantly surprised that she was nice to me, but i'm not surprised that she didnt actually address my questions about her company.
Angie:
I was very surprised too! But she hasn't replied to my last one.
It was really nice to finally get an apology, even thought she probably wasn't being sincere.
Lillian, you're lovely. And people get bullied for X number of reasons. I was bullied for being too thin and too smart (the latter I found very flattering). And whether she's being sincere or not, I'm actually quite surprised that Xenia took time to apologize to you.
ReplyDeleteJust ignore the stupid comments. Because us smart people KNOW you're beautiful in every way!
I came across DoeDeere's blog a couple of months ago, and I was instantly taken by her aesthetics and sense of playfulness. I became a team candy future member and have remained one, despite reading many horrible things which I won't reiterate in their entirety because you all know of them: emails from Doe, "imbecile" comments allegedly from Doe, stuff about her music industry alleged disaster, repackaging drama etc.
ReplyDeleteYet, despite knowing all this, I ordered make-up from her yesterday...and I'm very excited to be receiving it.
To address to TBK repackaging crap: yes, it is certainly cheaper to buy raw ingredients than it is to buy packaged things... I do believe the LimeCrime sources their ingredients from companies such as these that sell in bulk. I am buying LimeCrime because I do not want to buy loads of mica and mix it up myself. It is more convenient to buy pre-made stuff. I'll use the analogy of a bakery: sure, you can buy flour, water, eggs etc. and make 20 pastries for cheaper than you can buy 2 pastries, but if you don't want to cook, you pay the extra for someone else to cook for you!
Price: I am not fully aware of the cost of make-up in the USA, but in Australia (where I live) any reasonable mid-range brand lipstick is around $AU15-$AU20 - similar to the LimeCrime price. As for eyeshadows, it's a similar story here: even with the US$>AU$ exchange rate, her prices are normal for a mid-range product.
As for the hurtful alleged comments/scamming: Perhaps these things are true, I believe that they are probably based in truth but have been taken out of context/embellished. Nonetheless, if they occurred I will not defend her past actions because they sound nasty. However, I do try to have an optimistic view of people and I think that perhaps when she was starting out, she was younger and did not have such a strong sense of right/wrong in money dealings. I like to think that perhaps she has changed and learnt from her mistakes, as,unlike in the past, there has not been any solid evidence for her ill-dealing in the past year (to my knowledge!)
Finally, with regards to the nasty comment you received from another reader on Doe's blog... they are obviously a bitter troll however it isn't really Doe's fault. Although, she should delete the comment if it is still there IMO.
Bisous, Alana
Saila:
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your comment. And yes, people who are bullies will always find a reason to pick on people.
I was surprised too! But it still just doesn't actually answer anything.
Ekerplay:
i'm afraid you've got the wrong idea about the problem with the TKB. If she was buying her ingredients from there, mixing them and then selling them there would be absolutely no problem, that's what all mineral makeup companies do. The problem is that she is just buying mica powders from TKB and putting them in pots. No mixing of colours, no other ingredients, nothing.
So it would be like in your analogy a baker buying some flour and reselling it for a lot more money, while claiming they'd made it a special unique blend themselves.
The price of her eyeshadows isn't really the problem, it's the fact you can buy the EXACT same thing for $1.50 from TKB and actually recieve more.
To reiterrate, what TKB sell for $1.50 as an ingredient Xenia puts in jars and sells for $12.
I would agree with you about the past being in the past, but the fact is she's playing shady games again so i think it's relevant to show that she has scammed people out of money in the past. If there were no complaints about her makeup i would never have brought up what was said about my Mum.
And i don't blame Doe at all for the comment her fan said, i just wrote about it because it was so ludicrous. And also because in Xenia's video arguing against the allegations she says that people are spreading lies, and i found it objectible that she was claiming that i, and anyone else with a complaint about her product is lying.
But anyway i'm not here to try and convince everyone. If you are happy to buy her product for $12 even though you can get it for $1.50 then that's your business, i, and the others who are discussing this drama just want people to know all the facts first.
A lot of people have bought from her, believing her eyedusts to be unique and then discovered they already own them and i don't want that to happen again.
However i would agree with you that i do love her aesthetics, i told her as much :)
Thanks for writing back. I will admit I am not a make-up expert, but I have the impression that she is not simply repackaging the mica. From the video she posted, it seemed to me that:
ReplyDelete*She buys various mica colours from TKB or wherever.
*She mixes some of those colours to create other colours.
*The other colours she creates resemble other colours that are already sold
*She sells the colours that she mixes, other people compare them to colours that you can buy pre-mixed, and she is accused of repackaging.
Is this correct? This is how I have understood it but I am will not claim to know much more than an average consumer.
If this is the case, I may purchase from TKB in the future, but it is hardly Xenia's responsibility to run around telling people that you can buy similar colours to what she is mixing up at other places. This is the job of consumers to do research and decide for ourselves. I do not believe she is being deceptive if the situation is as I described above.
ReplyDeleteEkerplay:
ReplyDeleteThat is what her video implies, but because her colours are identical to tkb wholesale colours (with no colour mixing) we think that she is just buying from them and putting them in pots.
So if we go back to your baker analogy it would be like someone buying a big bag of flour for $1.50, adding nothing to it, not mixing it or doing anything at all to it, then putting it into smaller pots (from one TKB Sample for $1.50 you get enough for about 3 10 gram jars which is what Lime Crime sells) then selling each pot for $12 and saying she's made the flour herself.
One of the biggest giveaways to this is that her primary colours (red, blue, yellow) are identical to the wholesale micas primary colours. You cannot make a primary colour. If she was doing anything to make her shadows different the primary colours would be slightly darker, lighter, more glittery etc. But they are identical. So as she is claiming that she makes these colours herself i don't see how she cannot be lying.
If she is doing any colour mixing at all then we are mistaken and she isn't doing anything wrong. However if she is doing what we believe she is, while i would never think she should tell people you can buy the same stuff she sells for cheaper (because that would just be stupid) but she should stop lying and saying she invented these colours herself.
However this is all about her eyeshadows, i have absolutely no insight into her lipsticks and am now in fact sure that they are not repackaged.
So to explain again what she is accused of doing (there is lots of evidence for it, and i'm doing my own research) is:
*She buys various colours from TKB or another wholesaler
*she takes the colours and without mixing them at all puts them into the pots.
*she sells these small pots for over 1000X the price she paid originally.
*she sells these claiming she mixed the colours herself
*fans of hers bought her colours and found they were IDENTICAL to colours they had already bought either from TKB or from another makeup company who admit the colours are just repackaged.
If she is making her own colours i don't understand how every single one would come out the same as a wholesale colour, which is why i and the others keep asking her for an explanation.
In itself there is nothing wrong with repackaging. If people would rather buy from her as it comes in a prettier jar or want to just give her money because they are a fan then that's absolutely fine. The problem is that she claims she makes them herself and they are unique colours, which has led to many of her customers being ripped off and buying something they already own.
Again i am happy to discuss sensibly with someone from the other side of the argument and i hope i can be helpful :)
Thanks for explaining the situation to me. I am waiting for my order to arrive, and I ordered circus girl - yellow, mermaid - turquoise, the plain black eyeshadow and Great Pink Planet lipstick. Either way, I'm not to worried about the money I already spent - I needed make-up, and if I bought it offline it would have been more expensive so i'm fine with having spent the money I did.
ReplyDeleteI looked at the TKB website and from looking at the pictures and comparing them to LC's, LC did look different to me but I suppose that is a question of photoshop. Comparing the pictures on LC to the TKB website, LC looked lighter and more shimmer-y/glitter-y so I'm really not sure what to think anymore.
I guess in the future I will order eyeshadow from TKB if it's cheaper and genuinely is the same - i'm not 100% convinced of this yet. I have this thing that, if i'm going to spend money, i'd rather spend a bit more and get exactly what I want. Would you post a link to the website that has already done some swatch testing so I can look again for myself? Of course, if they are the same, my business will go to the place that is better for me.
Just to clarify what I meant by my first paragraph: I don't usually shop online, especially not for make-up, so as far as I'm concerned buying LimeCrime already saved me money and buying from TKB would save me more money if the products are indeed the same. Either way, I'm spending less than I was going to anyway so I'm happy.
ReplyDelete