We love lipsticks here at That’s Normal! I even wrote a whole post about the prepping and application of liquid lipsticks!
The Background
Jaclyn released 20 nude shades of lipsticks and before I start the shading, let me be very clear on this, I think the lipstick colors she released are gorgeous. However, her packaging looks like something a southern Christian mom would have loved in 2007 but that’s just Jaclyn’s style.
I was mildly interested in buying one of Jaclyn’s lipsticks but then found out the price was going to be $18 a tube. Ummm, no thank you. It’s not that I don’t want to spend money on high-end makeup. It’s just that the little amount of money I have to spend on makeup I only want to spend on well known and well-loved makeup. So I had planned on waiting and seeing how Jaclyn Hill’s lipstick launch went and what the feedback was like.
Oh boy, was that a good decision.
The Tea
The day of Jaclyn Hill’s people were super upset about the website crashing, long waits to check out in which the items in their cart would sell out and they didn’t get all the shades they wanted. And when I say that people were “upset” I mean, people were ENRAGED. Apparently, none of these people have been forced to watch the blue circle of death for an hour while trying to buy SDCC tickets.
The launch date was May 30th, a very short few days later is when the first orders were being received and at first, all the feedback was pretty positive. But then a few people were complaining that their lipsticks were soft and breaking in half. I saw the feedback on Twitter and thought, well it’s summer they were probably hot from shipping and then extended out too far.
Very disappointed. @Jaclynhill @jaclyncosmetics. Both my lipsticks came in melted/broken… pic.twitter.com/JMiLEciclb
— Yesenia Q. Garza (@yeseniaquezada_) June 4, 2019
Next, a woman asked Jaclyn on Twitter why her lipstick looked lumpy after using it and Jaclyn (in a now-deleted tweet) basically accused the woman of lying and having dry crusty lips. Classy, Jaclyn, classy.
Why is my @jaclyncosmetics Decaf lipstick lumpy?? @Jaclynhill This cant be ok right?? #jaclyncosmetics #jaclynhill pic.twitter.com/xjffA4fUF1
— Veronica (@itsv_82) June 5, 2019
But the final nail in the coffin was when my girl RawBeautyKristi (check her out on YouTube, she’s amazing), put her lipsticks under a microscope. Yep, that’s right, a microscope. Why? Because thousands of people were reporting that they were finding plastic, metal, HAIR, and fungus inside their lipsticks.
https://twitter.com/_alanagilmore/status/1137538011980357637?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1137538011980357637&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.seventeen.com%2Fbeauty%2Fa27912944%2Fjaclyn-hills-makeup-brand-jaclyn-cosmetics-slammed-for-hairy-lipsticks%2F
Check out the full YouTube video here, it’s a long one, but it’s worth the watch.
That’s when a lot of Jaclyn’s hairy lipsticks hit the fan. People were claiming to have reactions to the lipsticks, that they were getting sick from them, and that they were contacting labs to test the lipsticks and see what was actually inside them. It took Jaclyn Hill almost a solid week to come onto YouTube and tell her customers that the lipsticks are 100% safe, not contaminated, and are not expired.
The Excuses
Here’s a quick list of reasons she gave for why her lipsticks are gross:
- It’s summertime and things get hot.
- The lab only started making the lipsticks (all 300,000 of them) in May 2019, you know the same month they launched. So they didn’t mix the batches of the product up enough leaving people with gritty underdone lipstick.
- The lab (and this one is my favorite) used FUZZY WHITE GLOVES to inspect the lipsticks, so the hairs are from the gloves.
- When called out on why the hair would be INSIDE the lipstick she then said that the lab also used fuzzy white towels to dry the vats that the lipsticks were undermixed in.
- The black dots are air bubbles caused by the silicone cup releasing the lipstick bullet.
That’s Not How That Works
There is no way a real lab would EVER use white fuzzy gloves to do quality control inspections, why you ask? Because it’s not sterile. I also don’t believe Jaclyn because there is no way EVER a lab would use white fuzzy towels that could shed to dry out vats. Why? Because of instances like this where nonsterile items are being used in sterile areas. If a towel was used to dry a vat, it would have to be a sterilized towel, one with a tight weave so it doesn’t shed. Have you ever felt a surgical towel? They are hard, scratchy, and unpleasantly clean.
So, let’s say, all of that IS TRUE. What still doesn’t make any sense is why she’s saying her lipsticks are not contaminated and are safe to use. If those hairs are fibers from gloves and towels, then her lipsticks are contaminated. But as of right now, still, no recall has been issued.
Check out this great video by a channel called TeaSpill on YouTube, it exposes all of the inaccurancies in Jaclyn Hill’s video, the one where she tells you her clearly contaminated lipsticks aren’t contaminated.
The Take-Away
Some may say that’s its just lipstick, it’s really not that deep. Which is true. If it was an issue with longevity or overall quality, I would be saying the same thing. But it’s not. It literally is a health and safety issue. We ingest lipstick. If it’s contaminated, we need to know and we need to know the truth. For people with mold allergies (people like me), if this isn’t (the nearly impossible) glove and towel fibers and is in fact mold, it could seriously harm me.
Another takeaway is this actual page from the Jaclyn Cosmetics website, where there is a FAQ section regarding the safety of Jaclyn’s lipsticks. It’s tricky to find on her website, so I took the liberty to find it and link it for you. You’re welcome.
So, what have we learned from Jaclyn Hill’s hairy lipsticks?
We’ve learned that not all labs are created equal. That just because the product is Made in America™ doesn’t mean it has been made correctly and safely. And just because someone is our fave on YouTube, it doesn’t put their wallets above our health and safety.
If you have one of these contaminated non-contaminated lipsticks, please don’t use it. Contact [email protected].
