Not since the great Tati Westbrook and James Charles cancellation of May 2019, has the Youtuber beauty community been in such a flutter.
It involves a woman named Jaclyn Hill, 29, who created a makeup line by the name of Jaclyn Cosmetics.
At first the lipsticks sold out within a day, but then customers began complaining about the formula. Some were “hairy”, others contained gritty, plastic balls, others contained “black dots”.
Cue: scandal, horror and two 10+ minute videos from Hill herself, all of which accumulated in yesterday’s 19-minute non-apology apology video, which *surprise, surprise* did not impress fans.
But first, here’s an approximate timeline of events to get your head around the whole situation…
– May 23: Two months ago, the high-profile, 5.9 million subscriber-strong beauty Youtuber, announced she would be launching her own makeup line, titled Jaclyn Cosmetics. Cue excited announcement video and lots of hype.
– June 7 – 12: Her products were not well received. Customers complained of hairy and potentially mouldy lipsticks, with some finding plastic balls and “black dots” embedded in the formula. Others accused Hill of selling ‘expired products,’ and complained that the texture of the lipsticks were gritty, grainy, and otherwise unpleasant to use.
Combating the negative feedback, Hill created a 14-minute video titled ‘My Lipsticks’. As one astute commenter noted… “Hoodie. Unstyled hair. No makeup. The Youtuber’s apology starter pack”.
According to the Youtuber, the ‘black dots’ were a result of formula oxidation, and the ‘hairs’ on the lipstick were from the quality control gloves worn by the workers producing the lipsticks.
“Please know that this is NOT hair! My factory used brand new white gloves to do quality control and they shed all over my product! We switched to rubber gloves two days ago and will make sure this never happens again,” she followed up on her now defunct Twitter.
Hill also says all customers who received a faulty lipsticks would be refunded their money, and given a new lipstick.
- June 28: The controversy continues and Hill deletes her personal Instagram and Twitter accounts, both which hold follower counts in the millions. Her 'Jaclyn Cosmetics' business accounts are still active.
- July 25: After nearly a month of social media silence, Hill posts a 19-minute 'Where I've Been' video, and fans are not impressed. To be fair, it did take her a whole nine minutes before she say the words, 'I'm sorry'.
She starts the video by saying, "This video might be the biggest mistake of my entire career, but that's okay," and fans are not been impressed.
Watch a Jaclyn Hill (kind of) apologise for faulty lipsticks:
Some other notable moments include...
Her musings on business:
And now you're up to date on the drama.
*collapses from exhaustion*
Long story short... for the love of makeup, please quality check your products before they go to market. PLEASE.
Are you up to date with the Jaclyn Cosmetics drama? Tell us what you think in a comment below.
Top Comments
I guess this is what happens when you have no business qualifications and think that, just because you put a makeup tutorial on YouTube, you are capable of running a successful cosmetic business.
How does it take NINETEEN minutes to say “I’m sorry my product wasn’t up to the standards it should have been, these are the steps we’ve taken to remedy the problem, here’s how to get a refund, we’ll do better next time”? I guess these YouTube people all just thrive on the drama, right? I mean, I’d never heard of this woman or the other two who were fighting, until their issues popped up in the media. Any publicity, right?
Somehow these beauty blogger feuds still seem more like news than the never ending Logies saga though...
"How does it take NINETEEN minutes to say “I’m sorry my product wasn’t up to the standards it should have been"
Maybe a hair was caught in her teeth and was feeling a bit distracted?