Orglamix Update

Hello, everyone!  Awhile back, there was a stir in the makeup blogosphere when it turned up that Cheri Tracy, owner of Orglamix Cosmetics, was selling private label cosmetics as handmade.  Worse still, it was uncovered that she was selling products for uses that they were not approved for, and telling her customers that her products were vegan when they were not.  Photos were circulating of eyeshadow and primer pots with double labels - some with parabens on the ingredient labels, which Cheri claimed were never used in her "all-natural" formulations - and Cheri had no answers for any questions that arose, choosing instead to make extremely unprofessional comments in response before deleting comments and blocking the concerned posters who wanted to know what they (and others) might be putting on their skin.  People were even finding her "product photos" on stock photo sites, meaning that the photos she was using weren't even of the products she was selling.  Shortly after, Cheri ceased anything and everything pertaining to Orglamix, aside from a business venture that popped up later called Three Twelve Tudor (they were reported as selling the cosmetic line at the grand opening, and pictures were posted of the line in the store, but the ensuing uproar caused the incident to be buried quickly without mention.)  I'm sad to say it, but it looks like Cheri thinks the whole thing has blown over and decided to pull her head out of the sand.  I just want to make it clear that Orglamix is not vegan, not handmade, and not all-natural.  There is more on this subject (links to screenshots, photos of double labels, other blogs, etc.) in one of my previous posts.  Please, please, please, I urge all of you to research companies before you buy, because it seems cases like this are popping up all too frequently.  Thanks for reading!

Brands I Do Not Support

This is a list of brands I do not support.  The reasons vary from one brand to the next, ranging from nondisclosure regarding repackaging to poor customer service to unsafe products to legal threats, harassment, and charity fraud.

Bitchslap and/or Ruthless Cosmetics - Marketing private label products as their own formulations, selling paint wheels as eye-safe that contain colors that are not eye-approved, extremely unprofessional behavior (including profanity and legal threats) in response to videos or blog posts calling them out and asking them to be honest about what they sell, stealing photos from honest indie companies.  See more here.
Crush Cosmetics -  Not the Australian wholesaler, the Etsy shop.  I had a not-so-stellar experience with Crush Cosmetics and found TKB micas that strongly resemble the shadows I received from CC.  Read about my first impression here, then see my followup with the TKB micas here.

Fantastic Faces Cosmetics - Nondisclosure regarding repackaging, marketing UV pigments as eye-approved when they are not, potentially using other unsafe colorants in lip products (although this is not proven, only speculation)  See more here and here.

Glittersniffer Cosmetics - Nondisclosure regarding repackaging, marketing UV pigments as eye-approved when they are not, extreme packaging and shipping inconsistencies, cursing at customers and threatening legal action, editing negative customer reviews on the GS webpage, deleting negative comments from the GS Facebook page, posting GS Complaints blog author's personal information in an effort to remove the blog, lying about charitable contributions, lying about refunds, lying about ingredients and whether or not they are safe and/or vegan-friendly, and the list goes on and on...  Basically the customer service, business practices, and products are sub-par to say the least.  Glittersniffer has repeatedly closed and come back with grand re-openings, probably in the hopes that she'll be able to escape the criticism and that the "rumors" will go away if she lays low for awhile.  Although the GS Complaints blog has not been active in a great while, there are still many accounts of Lela's behavior.  See more here.

Hi-Fi Cosmetics - I had a very negative experience with this company; I somehow was able to make a purchase from a shop that was supposed to be closed, waited almost triple the stated turnaround time, and when I received my order one of my items had leaked (I also questioned whether that product could be used for its intended purpose due to the size of the particles,) and despite three separate contact attempts I got no reply of any kind from the owner.  See my review here.

Kupcake Kutie Cosmetics - Defunct as of 1/26/15 update.  The owner of Kupcake Kutie is related to the owners of Bitchslap/Ruthless Cosmetics.  More repackaged Lady Burd, claiming products are eye-safe when they aren't, in addition to bullying and harassment on behalf of Ruthless.  See more here.

Lime Crime - Almost all of their pigments at one point turned out to be repackaged micas from TKB.  When asked for a response, owner Doe Deere then accused TKB of copying her even though TKB had been established selling the same products long before Lime Crime came into existence.  Doe also sold a dress hemmed with duct tape and responded very inappropriately when it was brought to light later.  See more here.  More recently, there was a huge security breach on the Lime Crime website due to a lapse in the SSL that put all of their customers at risk over the course of several months.
MYO Makeup - Another seller using what appears to be soap dyes and selling them as eyeshadows.  A reviewer on that Amazon listing says the product burned their eyes, while another on this listing reflects poor customer service including name-calling.  You can see in this listing that the ingredients listed on each color are exactly the same, so clearly the ingredients do not reflect what is actually in the products.  Sketchy, sketchy, sketchy! 

Orglamix - Owner Cheri Tracy was selling repackaged private label mineral makeup on Etsy, branding it as her own handcrafted, vegan-friendly, all-natural, no-nonsense-or-yucky-stuff product.  It came to light, however, that there were second and even third labels on many of her products, some of which listing parabens and animal byproducts in the ingredients (which Cheri claimed not to use in "her" formulations.)  She also purchased stock photography which she claimed was her makeup being modeled, took to deleting comments from the Facebook page before eventually disabling fan posting, stopped sending products (leaving many customers without their money and without their purchases,) and wrote an official response to the allegations that cleverly skirted around the issues at hand.  Oh, and she lied about Etsy shutting down her shop for non-delivery and disappeared on "vacation," surfacing again several months later with a new brick-and-mortar store called Three Twelve Tudor.  Orglamix is now back up and running, and as far as I can tell, still lying about ingredients, repackaging, and stock photography.  See more here.

Pure Luxe Cosmetics - Repackaging, unprofessional behavior in response to a blog post featuring a photo from the shop (which did not disclose where the photo came from, therefore not pointing fingers in any way,) violations of Etsy TOS (listing the same item in more than one shop, listing private label items as handmade.) See more here. 

Edited 3/20/15

Orglamix is at it Again!

The reason I started this blog was to make my readers aware of companies I think are awesome and comanies I think they should avoid.  If something isn't safe, I do my best to get the word out about it.  If something shady is going on with a company, I will do my best to warn you, my lovely readers.  One company in particular was enough to get me started.  Once I read about the terrible business practices and ethics of this company, I decided I had to do something.

Back in March, I saw a strange post in the Etsy forums that was quickly shut down by admin for "calling out."  At this point, I had never heard anything about Orglamix or Cheri Tracy, but I wanted to know more.  See the original forum post here.  I clicked on the links in the post, and one of them took me to a blog post over at The Eyes Have It with some pretty damning evidence against Orglamix.  I read that Cheri was claiming her products to be all-natural and handmade, but that they were not what she claimed them to be.  I looked further and found posts from many reputable bloggers that had questioned the contents and labeling of Orglamix and/or Urban Apothecary, Cheri's old company that is somehow defunct yet still has a website up and running.  Customers were getting curious after it came out that her Candy Glam line was private label, and sold as eyeshadows when they were not eye-safe.  Some customers decided to peel back the labels on their Orglamix jars and found strange labels underneath.  While Cheri's Orglamix labels were printed on a home ink jet printer with her logo and unscrupulous ingredients lists, the mystery labels were glossy, laser-printed, and had no trace of anything to do with Orglamix.  Some had strange numbers that were eventually traced back to a private label company (though these numbers did not always provide a color match), and the labels on her primer actually stated "Distributed by Quero Pro."  The more I read, the more Cheri seemed like not only a nut job, but also a total crook.  I found a blog that gave Orglamix an unfavorable review, and a follow-up to the post claiming that Cheri had sent the author a cease-and-desist letter.  A cease and desist letter for a bad review?  Are you serious?  I read everything I could find on the subject, and came to the conclusion that this woman is a complete con artist.  Many people, including myself, posted our concerns about the ingredients, double-labels, etc. on the Orglamix facebook fanpage and were promptly banned and their comments removed.  Thankfully, there are albums containing screenshots of the deleted comments on the fanpage, in addition to negative feedback left for Orglamix on Etsy, despite Cheri's claims to never have had a single complaint.  I got a lovely, professional response to my questions before they were deleted.  I was not able to screencap it, but I've copied it directly from the Facebook E-mail: "Jessica, I have a family-- and two kids to attend to for God's sake. I also have over 300 emails and 100+ Etsy convos that need to be addressed. I said I would make a statement and I will. I actually need to write it first-- and make sure I am addressing all legitimate concerns."  And if you were curious, her statement was written on a blog that is no longer available.  But she did gloss over important concerns, crafting her words carefully to make it seem as though she was actually answering questions.  When people continued asking questions, she kept claiming that her products are handmade and the double-labels were due to misprints or new names.  She had nothing to say about the laser-printed labels that had no Orglamix logo, or the ones that specifically said they were distributed by another company.  She even posted a video of her office and her "lab" to prove that she was making her products, but her "lab" lacked any sort of mixing equipment, sanitation equipment, or enough raw materials to make anywhere near the product she was supposedly making and shipping every day.  She also posted a video of her "mixing" a limited edition color, by putting some base, mica, and glitter in a tupperware container and shaking it.  Literally.  She claims she makes all of her products this way, and people still support her.  Her last post on the Orglamix Cosmetics facebook page is dated March 14th, at which point she had stated she would be going on vacation and that a friend of hers had a death in the family.  Her Etsy shop had actually been under investigation at this point according to admin, but she claimed that she had intentionally put it into vacation mode.  I believe that after the investigation was over and the shop was back up, she did in fact willingly put it into vacation mode, but she never once acknowledged that her shop was under investigation.  On April 17th, her shop was suspended due to non-delivery; any links to her shop, feedback, etc. now go to an error page.  Her twitter feed, which is run by a bot, is still up and running and posting broken links to her Etsy account.  Throughout everything, Cheri has been ignoring her customers, not sending orders, and being extremely curt and unprofessional toward any person who questions her.  Her PR representative, Kelly, has been contacting bloggers to do giveaways and reviews and acting as if everything is totally normal.  Some people had speculated Cheri had taken ill because of her having been quiet for so long, so it came as a shock to many when an article was posted about a new boutique opening up in Glencoe, Illinois as a joint venture by Amy Bishop and (surprise, surprise!) Cheri Tracy on July 6th.   Let me take a moment to make it clear that I do not wish any ill toward Cheri.  If she had said, 'No, I don't make my own products.  It's private label and I will now leave Etsy in respect of the fact that Etsy is for handmade items only.' and properly labeled her ingredients, this whole thing could have been avoided.  Saying your products may contain carmine essentially means that all of your products contain carmine if they are all made with the same equipment, just like the 'may contain peanuts' warnings on certain food items.  The peanut warning is there so that people with allergies know not to handle the product due to a potential reaction. In this case she was advertising her products as vegan, when in all likelyhood, they all contained carmine.  Saying your products are all-natural and paraben-free, but placing a label that says "pomegranate oil" over a label that says "liquapar oil" is straight deception.  Many people have serious reactions to ingredients that are in Orglamix products, and improper labeling knowing that it could cause a reaction  is absolutely deplorable. It's my belief that Cheri Tracy's business practices are horrendous, so I am sure that this post sounds quite biased, but I assure you this is not a jealous rant from a competitor.  This is fact.  This is research.  Take from it what you will, and form your own opinions.  As always, thanks for reading!