Lime Crime Drama

Photo Credit

I’d like to open this by saying that if you’re totally sick of hearing about this by now, I’m sorry, and the rest of this article is under a cut so you can ignore it! Back in November, I received a number of search engine hits in reference to Lime Crime Makeup and the associated drama caused by alleged mineral eyeshadow repackaging and the company’s business ethics in general. I wrote a very brief post on the subject directing readers to the various articles wherein the majority of the discussion was taking place, and since then it has become one of the most viewed posts in my archive.

Back then I felt uneasy posting anything on the subject, as I had no personal interaction with Xenia (the owner of Lime Crime) or her company, but I will admit to a slightly unhealthy fascination with Internet drama, so I have from time to time gone back and read the original thread where much of the discussion started, but I have refrained from posting any kind of personal opinion up until now.

The truth is that I enjoy Xenia’s blog, Doe Deere Blogazine and have been reading it for over a year now. I’ve posted comments, praised some of her outfits and no doubt at some point remarked on the cuteness of her cat. Despite having a bit of a history of getting involved in Internet drama in the past however (lets not go there right now!) I have thus far *tried* not to take either side in this matter, at least not on this blog. The nature of Internet drama tends to make ascertaining the realities of either side quite difficult, and whilst there is a lot of evidence to suggest their eyeshadows were indeed repackaged wholesale micas (the original source of the drama), Lime Crime was not the first company to do this and nor will it be the last, and with no physical evidence in front of me, only others’ reviews and swatches (though I’m not doubting the authority of these, merely stating that I am unable to give my own opinion based on the products themselves) I decided not to play any part in this one. Besides, the lipsticks are undeniably an original product, so perhaps the company is veering away from the easy, repackaging option.

The reason I have decided to post today however, is something I read whilst checking my email this afternoon. As I said, I rather enjoy reading Xenia’s blog, so when the lipstick line was introduced and she set up a “street team” with regular email updates, I signed up. I even had a badge on this site for a while, though I removed it as a precaution when the drama kicked off, not wishing to be associated with anything that was later confirmed to be shady. It was to my great dismay then, when I read the latest update from “Team Candyfuture” that I read what I can only see as an invitation to spam a blogger’s personal email address with gushing Lime Crime reviews.

Finally, we wanted to discuss a less-than-favorable review we received on Temptala.com. The review gave our Candyfuture opaque lipsticks a C- rating… We don’t agree! Do you? Here is the link so you can see for yourself: http://www.temptalia.com/lime-crime-lipsticks-reviews-photos-swatches

We would like to encourage all of our futurettes who have had good experiences with our company and products to make yourselves heard. Please don’t keep your happy opinions to yourself! Feel free to email Christine (Temptalia) at [address removed for privacy reasons] and share your positive Lime Crime experiences with her, let her know you disgree with her review, or leave a comment on the article letting everyone know your personal view on our products and company. Please be honest, respectful, and polite!

Despite asking the “Futurettes” to be “honest, respectful and polite”, this sounds like a request for her fans to bombard Christine with what amounts to junk mail, since it’s unlikely to get her to change her mind and however “honest, respectful and polite” these fans choose to be, it reads like Christine’s time is being wasted as a “punishment” for writing an honestly less-than-favourable review of products that were sent to her by Xenia, presumably in the hope of a review on the site. There is absolutely no need to email her with opinions, Temptalia allows comments on all posts, and in addition there is a contact form on the website. If people have had favourable experiences with Lime Crime and want to share them, there are ways to do this that do not require making Christine’s personal email public.

If it were any other blogger or company I would likely have passed this off as an innocent mistake, a bad judgement call that is easily forgivable once in a while. With all the other evidence stacked up against Lime Crime however, it really doesn’t look good, and I think after sitting on the fence for a long time, I now feel justified in saying that I would not buy from Lime Crime unless I started to see evidence that they were learning from all the mistakes they’ve been called up on recently. I’m sure many small business owners make numerous silly errors in judgement, badly-timed, badly-worded comments and many, many more start off buying wholesale goods and repackaging them, but Lime Crime seem unable to address questions about these problems face-on.

From what I’ve read, Xenia appears to have been given numerous opportunities to answer questions and either come clean about mistakes she and / or her company has made, or to set the record straight, but there are many people claiming to have asked these questions and either received no answer, or a very vague reply telling them not to listen to the “haters”. I’m not trying to turn anyone against Lime Crime, in fact, if anyone can speak for them and explain how these so-called “haters” have things wrong, I’d love to hear it. I want this brand to be ethical, I want Xenia to be the trustworthy “gleeful” “unicorn queen” she presents herself as, but right now as I see it, the evidence speaks to the contrary and nobody from the “Candyfuture” camp seems to be in a hurry to address the problems.

I wrote this because more than half my hits from search engines at the moment come from “Lime Crime Drama” or similar phrases, and the number keeps increasing so I felt I should, finally, share my point of view. I’d love to hear about your personal experiences with Lime Crime / Xenia / Doe Deere, the products, the drama, or anything else you have to say about it all and I’m still holding out hope that Xenia or some other representative of Lime Crime will address these problems straight-up and tell us what’s really going on and what they intend to do to re-gain the trust of consumers.