On her path to cosmetics-world domination, 19-year-old Kylie Jenner has hit some (understandable) speed bumps. Her website has crashed on more than one occasion, the Better Business Bureau has come after her company’s (literal) inability to deliver, respected beauty bloggers have noted a decline in Lip Kit brush and formula quality, and so on. However, her stans’ thirst for Lip Kits remains unquenchable.
Which brings us to Kylie Cosmetics’ latest woe. Knowing that Lip Kit fanatics will wander into eBay — and even shadier — territory to get their hands on sold-out shades, counterfeiters are producing faux products and copycat websites to match. This has been going on for some time, with foolhardy buyers losing a few twenties here and there, nothing terribly serious.
[ How to Spot a Knockoff Kylie Jenner Lip Kit a Mile Away ]
However, two days ago one Emma Morgan took to Twitter to reveal that some of these dupes are actually dangerous. Her lips physically but not metaphorically sealed (too soon?), Morgan tweeted, “@KylieJenner fake Koko k I got… Literally has glue in it! So gross!! So not cute…..” She attached the following video as evidence:
@KylieJenner fake Koko k I got… Literally has glue in it! So gross!! So not cute….. pic.twitter.com/Ha7J8WAvja
— emma morgan (@emmamorg3) October 26, 2016
Jenner’s reaction? She was pretty bent out of shape.
“This is getting so out of hand people. Please, please, please don’t trust any other website,” she implored via Snapchat, advising, “Only shop at kyliecosmetics.com if you want my products because, anywhere else, they don’t have them.” Also, type in the URL yourself, don’t Google. Some Internet-savvy frauds have purchased Google ad space.
Laura Nelson, founder and president of Seed Beauty, Kylie Cosmetics’ parent company, emphasized that the knockoffs are “a very big problem. It’s something that we take very seriously, and we think it is definitely harmful for consumers not just on a customer service and financial level, but truly for health and safety. It is important that everyone knows exactly what is going on their lips and face, and when counterfeit products are introduced into the marketplace, you lose that ability to know what you are putting on your body.” (One very unlucky Lip Kit lover complained that her eBay-sourced kit contained actual gasoline. Ick.)
@KylieJenner ebay is one of the worst places- your ‘lip kits’ are going for as little as £4 my mum got one with gasoline in it
— Jasmine Glen (@JasmineGlen) October 27, 2016
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is involved, a site called kyliecosmeticsoutlet.com has been red-flagged, and Kylie, Laura and the FBI warn customers to steer clear of any URL suspiciously similar to “kyliecosmetics.com.”
While we could regale you with all the differences between the wannabes and the real things, we’ll leave you with this: Right now, aside from the recently-debuted “Moon,” Kylie’s Lip Kit arsenal is fully stocked, so why shop elsewhere? Plus, over the past year, the teen makeup mogul has gotten much better about replenishing her stock, so if you don’t see what you want, we’d advise putting in a Twitter request and exercising the virtue of patience.
And to total purists: shop these organic makeup brands instead.
[ via WWD ]
