Disclaimer: This post is based on opinion and observation from the Lead Writer herself! Please don’t read if you don’t like what she has to say!

Hello Shiquers and welcome back to Nerdy Shique Universe! Welcome to a new year and it’s a new controversy! ::dun dun dun!:: It deals with independent companies and even one company in how they deal with customers. I know we tend to get really good customer service especially with how we review them as well when we have a good experience and have a bad review after a bad one. There are some brands that can’t handle the criticism when it comes to the bad reviews or what people find in their products or even if they break and let’s see what I noticed.

The Controversy Inspiration: Lately, I have been subscribed to Drama Channels on YouTube but the main ones I love to watch include Rich Lux, John John Cuckian, Karina Kaboom, and….please don’t kill me when I mention him…Sanders Kennedy! I know that we as consumers can make up our own conclusion when it comes to what we like to buy but when I heard about this scandal I was surprised and it dealt with a customer who has bought Jeffree Starr Cosmetics items and she found a hair in the Ice Cold skin frost once she hit pan. Apparently, she went to the Jeffree Starr Twitter and she did get a refund but it started getting ugly where she was seen as a bully and was blocked by Jeffree himself when he said that she was bashing on him, his products, and his followers when she didn’t say of those things. I read the article from Seventeen Magazine which shown the tweets and man it was messy! Here is the link so you can read it yourself:

http://www.seventeen.com/beauty/news/a44327/jeffree-star-customer-finds-hair-in-highlighter/

In my opinion after hearing all this and reading the article, Jeffree should’ve handled it better after handling it professionally in the beginning. As in, keep the professionalism to talk to the person or ask them to PM him directly rather than going into an ugly fight like this. Also, watching one video which had me asking on Facebook and Twitter that on Read It that people have said that they are scared to buy from Jeffree’s company with what kind of attitude he presents. I can see where a lot of people are coming from since I have heard what he had done such as racist comments, sending negative comments to a YouTuber due to a broken skin frost, and even some products smelling like drugs due to his man smoking in the lab once. Also, they would be afraid of his wrath or his followers wrath if they say anything bad about his items which you have to be positive about. Which brings me to my next point!

Constructive Criticism = Good Criticism: This is one thing when it comes to makeup and sometimes it can be our best friend and our weapon. As a fan fiction writer and have hosted a panel on it which one tip goes “Constructive Criticism = Good Criticism” which helps improve on writing but it also helps improve on product quality whether that review is bad or good. I have seen a lot of beauty videos where some of the items I have bought were reviewed and got me to try for myself. This even includes brands themselves and one brand that I got to buy over the past year was Colour Pop which I heard through Coffee Break With Dani, Kathleen Lights, and Young Wild and Polished on YouTube. All thanks to the good reviews, many people have bought from Colour Pop and even mentioned Dani’s name in some of the reviews at how they heard of their company which does help with their business.

Even though some companies do grow from the amount of business that they get from YouTube there are the kinds of brands that grow from what they see in their products and what they should work on and one good example is one brand I got a few products in BoxyCharm and that is MakeUp Geek. This is one brand where the creator, Marlena, gets a lot of criticism from her customers in how they like the products and if some items don’t sell well or if the item needs to be fixed then she starts working on improving some things. One example is her blush line that was re-done last year and released last spring where she re-formulated and re-packaged into compacts. When they were just pans before. Good thing is she does mention in her videos about the newer items why it takes all this time to produce is due to how she wants to make the product feel right for her customers.

What about brands that don’t like bad reviews? Well, there are those that can’t handle some criticism that not only gets deleted but the creator really doesn’t like the person making it. Besides Jeffree, another person that seems to have a lot of controversy under her belt is DoeDear of LimeCrime. Not only her brand had a lot of bad things happeneing such as a major hack in her brand’s website from October 2014 through early 2015, she did have a bit of a recent scandal and it dealt with her duo chrome shadows that were released last year. I seen a review of how these shadows were amazing and if you haven’t seen them they are two shadows in one that are very glittery and shiny and are activated by water on your brush and this brought up a problem where people commented that they found mold and/or rust in their shadows which the pan is tin. I did mention this product as a runner-up to my “Worst MakeUp Product According to YouTube” where I did ask how can it be okay when this appears? Which LimeCrime responded to the comments that “It’s okay to use these products and the mold is harmless.” Again, you are putting this near your eyes. Back to my point, in the past comments on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook have been deleted by LimeCrime due to how she didn’t like the negativity towards her products. Usually, comments that deal with quality not being that great does help the company improve their formula and release the re-formulated version. Plus, a lot of users do become honest with their reviews which another product that was released last year from LimeCream was their Diamond Crushers which is a clear coat for your lips that has glitter that you can put on top of lip glosses, lipsticks, or even wear it on their own. Someone who used to work for the company snapped about and even mentioned they swollen her lips and was told to take it down by LimeCrime. She may have swatched six of them and I have seen lip swatch videos where people didn’t have the same reaction as she had. I even swatched two lipsticks once when I bought Ion from Kat Von D and had worn my Hot Topic lipstick and my lips didn’t have a weird reaction when I switched between the two. LimeCrime was trying to cover this up when a review like this where a lip product causes swelling should be a signal to the company to take the product off the shelf and improve the formula even if not everyone’s lips had the same reaction. I would pull my own lipstick if that were to happen if I had a company myself or make sure the item’s formula was good to go before releasing. Still, reviews do help with improvements.

(Note: I meant Super Foils guys!)

Customer Service: Now onto the biggest part of this whole entire thing and of course pointing back to the latest scandal with Jeffree Starr. The thing that really makes brands survive, whether independent or in malls, is the customers and how they are treated. We do go for the bright and shiny things that do get sold and many do listen to the reviews and lead to them buying the item as well. What really brings the customer back is how they are treated too. I admit I had some customer problems with some companies and one experience really involved E. L. F. Cosmetics back in 2015 with two incidents at two different times of the year. First, during the summer I ordered some products that was during their Free Shipping Sale and had gotten the wrong products two times and that was in the original order where I got someone else’s items and contacted them about it through email which they responded right away and said they were going to send me my products and then when package number two came some of the items were missing which I found their phone number after emailing again and they picked up by saying, “Sorry! We will send you the items that you told us that were missing in an entire new package and a $5 gift card!” Which was some of the amazing customer service of all and did get my actual products on the third package. When winter came around E. L. F. decided to put a bundle on sale and ordered it and said it was shipped but nothing was updated and it was December when I kept checking and I tried contacting them through email and phone which was odd when during the summer their customer service was really great and they said that their phones are no longer being used just email them. I finally got my answer and got an apology and was told my items were on their way. They did arrive by mid-December rolled around and it was disappointing which got me thinking that I should just purchase items in stores instead of the website. This does seem similar to what had happened with Too Faced recently where people ordered the Sweet Peach collection when it launched online and nobody got their packages until recently when they were told that it would arrive before Christmas. People did try to call but phonelines were down and this caused major worry and even people wondered if they should buy from them anymore. I have ordered from Too Faced before but it was in September when the Power of MakeUp set was online still and did get pretty good customer service when I talked to them over the phone and that did hearing about this did make me wonder that customer service should be around in case things like this do come up. Delivery problems do happen and I have heard Too Faced did fix the problem and they still should have a way of getting in contact a lot more whether through phone or even email by answering right away. Not only that, Christmas time is also the hardest time for mail delivery services because of how people order tons of gifts online instead of going to the store. Heck, I had a brush set delivery problem and received the original and the replacement when it came overseas, which customs can also cause delivery problems too. Still, sustomer service should be handled accordingly.

Besides product problems when it comes to delivery, Companies should also consider their customers when it comes to problems that take place on the products when their websites crashed or hacked into. I did mention LimeCrime’s hacking scandal. I remembered years ago when I ordered from Lush’s UK website for their Smell of Weather Turning perfume and they were hacked a month later. I did get a call when people were trying to charge on my card and couldn’t due to lack of funds on there and it was handled pretty well and got a new card. LimeCrime, on the other hand, they were hacked due to not updating their security license which is important for a website when you purchase items. They didn’t notify customers until the beginning of 2015 when the website got hacked at the end of 2014. People noticed that they were being charged double and their account went to zero, even some YouTube videos mentioned some students couldn’t pay for college because of what happened. This was majorly scary for many and if LimeCrime noticed early enough then they would’ve notified customers. A lot of people were mad at them and DoeDear, heck it even caused their social media to be switched to private due to people posting negative comments. Even around the same time a petition was made to keep the company out of a New York makeup show coming up since customers were not too happy about the lipsticks with a running unicorn on them. I admit I did have Airborne Unicorn and got it on EBay and did toss it since it smelled weird recently, I did hear when people did buy some or the products that they don’t look like they are supposed to as well. I can see where LimeCrime got in trouble even after one scandal where the FDA even slapped a warning for using an unapproved product in one of their Velveteens. Still, I can see where customers are straying away even with a contest issue at the end of last year, where people had to buy products to refer a friend and win over a thousand bucks in product and people asked if there is any other way of entering and were told on Facebook “No, this is the only way.” To me that is not worth entering. Sorry for rambling but with how DoeDear and her crew treat customers it’s something that can cause wary customers to stay away. Plus, there are dupes out there and cost less when it comes to a bright pink lipstick and even blue ones. What should they do to keep their customers? Well, definitely treat them better and have free contests even with reviews because not everyone will be liking the product and of course people prefer an honest company with customer service that helps rather than blame someone for purchasing their product.

Now, finally, the recent scandal with Jeffree Starr. I did mention how people are starting to become afraid of buying from his brand. I bet you’re wondering am I afraid of buying too? Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeellllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll! I am stepping out of my box of my comfort colors of pinks, reds, and purples and some nudes in lipstick, I have heard that his liquid lipsticks are amazing and want to try them out along with his skin frosts, and did hear how he pushed back the release of his Androgeny pallet to make sure the formula is good to go but….but….I am iffie on buying his items because of seeing what went on with his customer service. I am subscribed to him on YouTUbe and enjoy his content with his makeup reviews and tutorials, heck I did my pastel goth look off of his but I am kind of thinking that what if my products do have the drug smell or if I find a hair in my skin frost if I were to buy it. If I were to find something like that, what if I was treated the same way as he treated some of the people who found issues with their products, heck I saw the video of Rocky Road Kill’s King Tut skin frost being broken and how he was treated, which yes Rocky should’ve contacted Jeffree first for the replacement but he didn’t talk anything else bad since he did mention that Jeffree is his idol, well was his idol and Jeffree should’ve worded his comment to: “Sorry that your skin frost was broken! I would gladly replace it, just email my company and we will arrange something.” As in, acted more professional rather than yell at him. I did see that he handled the recent problem professionally at first when I read the article but it could’ve been handled even more professionally by the end and understand that shipping from Ontario would’ve taken too long and just send a replacement anyways. I had replacements sent to me when it came to makeup brush sets from Amazon and and did have one of my Lucy keys replaced when one of them was missing from the package and I had a great time talking to the seller who sold me the keys and the key pouch that I bought later. I would ask when it comes to bad customer service treatment…Where’s the How to Treat Your Customers Right Class? Anyone? Anyone!? It should exist!

So, yeah, that does it! In my conclusion, some of these companies need to work on their customer service etiquette and even find other ways for them to communicate when ordering and product issues arise. Heck, even working on customer issue timing should also be something that can be worked on. I remembered having some problems with that with a few places. Anyways, whehther independent or not, the creators of the ones that can’t handle criticism well or customers well should at least know how to chill for once and realize that they are also people too and should treat them nicely. Remember that old adage of “Treat people the same way you want to be treated.” Yes, some of the followers can be bullies, they should also follow that adage as well. In the end, customers are what makes the company grow and succeed and that is how a lot of them still exist.

What is next for Nerdy Shique Universe? Well, I still have my Convention Spotlight on Omni Expo 2017 coming up! I am announcing that I will be getting my January Ipsy bag! YAY! It will be on YouTube when I get the bag.

Also…if any of you guys are Jeffree Starr Cosmetics followers, please respect this post and what I said in my disclaimer and what I wrote. It is my opinions and I know he tends to block people, which I don’t want to cause any drama with him. Also, anyone who doesn’t like him, don’t bash his followers please. I am already respecting them and plus I do feel sorry for the ones who got bullied by him or his followers. Thank you all and til next time see ya on the universe side!