Lip disservice! Some fans of YouTube beauty influencer Jaclyn Hill are not exactly, well, liking the new Jaclyn Cosmetics lipsticks they received in the mail after her recent launch. In fact, some customers have called out their long-awaited products online for being defective, while others have said they’ve found foreign objects in their bullets including hair.
Hill — who currently boasts over 5.9 million YouTube channel followers and 6.2 million Instagram followers — launched 20 neutral shades of vegan Jaclyn Cosmetics lipstick on May 30. “I am so emotional and I am so excited,” she said in a YouTube announcement she posted on May 23.
About a week later, the internet was flooded with complaints of damage. The trouble started on Twitter, of course, with makeup fans and reviewers posting pictures in which their new $18 lipsticks were clearly lumpy, had fuzz on them, contained tiny bubbles, were crumbling or were melted.
The ick factor reached fever pitch when fellow beauty influencer RawBeautyKristi posted a nearly hour-long review on YouTube in which she examined the entire collection of hues she had purchased.
Though she had assumed some of the reviewers were simply giving Hill a hard time, she realized that was not the case when she opened her package — and put some of the tubes under a microscope. “Drama in the beauty community is so rare that I can’t even believe this is happening, but here we are,” she told her viewers. She also pre-apologized for her review in which she called many of the items “bothersome,” writing in the intro: “I am sorry for all the negativity.”
Meanwhile, Hill was actively reaching out to customers on social media, responding to a post of one of Kristi’s screenshots on June 8, “If any of you are receiving lipsticks like this…. please know that this is NOT hair! My factory used brand new white gloves to do quality control & they shed all over my product! 😡 We switched to rubber gloves 2 days ago & will make sure this never happens again.”
Some customers took her to task for that comment, suggesting it was an unreasonable explanation for fibers found within the product. Still, other fans were satisfied customers. “I’m OBSESSED with my new Jaclyn Hill lipsticks,” one fan tweeted with a photo of two tubes on June 6.
On Monday, June 10, a spokesperson for Jaclyn Cosmetics told Us in a statement, “The response to the launch of Jaclyn Cosmetics has been incredible. Of the incredible volume of orders that were placed at launch, we believe less than half of one percent of orders were impacted by compromised product. We are actively reaching out to our customers with questions and concerns and have added to our customer service team to make sure that any questions are swiftly addressed. We are keeping an eye on the Jaclyn Cosmetics social channels and info@jaclyncosmetics.com, and welcome all feedback. We love our customers and are proud of our successful launch.”