Lipstick Lawlessness: Spotlight on Lime Crime.

I feel that I should point out that this post began life as a ‘Conform, Consume, Obey’ piece. After all, Lime Crime is a makeup company run by self-proclaimed feminist Doe Deere:

The moment I crawled out of my mother’s womb kicking and screaming, I knew that having a vagina was not going to make me inferior to a man. (Yes, I was already contemplating on the role of vaginas as a newborn. You could say I started early.)

and on the surface, there’s not much to dislike about Lime Crime lipsticks. They’re fucking ace. Just look at them. They’re pretty versatile; you can downplay your look, or you can make your face into a rainbow. The lipstick tubes come with a freaking holographic unicorn on them, not to mention the fact that names like MINT TO BE and NEW YOLK CITY are pretty adorbs too. The makeup is cruelty-free certified, in fact they used to donate to Bideawee (but I’m not sure they still do).

I thought it my duty to tell y’all readers to buy these suckers by the boxful, ’cause mindless consumerism is totally my game. However, I changed my mind about this story half-way through. I realised I was going to have to put Deere in headlights.

The lipsticks themselves are a teeny bit pricey. Unlike the assertion on the website, I’ve found that they’re a little drying and I’ve needed to top up with lip balm. And I’ve also found if I smoke/eat/bite my lips a lot they’ll go patchy, so I have to keep topping up my lipstick in public like I’m Dita Von Teese. But hey, maybe you don’t smoke/eat/chew your lips like a freak. You’ve also gotta be pretty brave to pull them off. I still haven’t worn NO SHE DIDN’T out of the house yet.

However — the main reason I feel I can’t support these admittedly hella rad shades of face goop is because Lime Crime is just a terrible company surrounded by drama, controversy and crap customer service. Deere has been accused of racism and cultural appropriation, online bullying, repackaging product, and threatening to sue reviewers who give her less than starling reviews, among other things. Like, so many other things that I can’t even list every PR disaster here. I’ll just link you to a Google search on “Lime Crime controversy” and the Tumblr blog “Doe Deere lies” and I’ll let you makeup your mind about the rest.

It’s a shame, because before I knew all this, I was a huge fan of Lime Crime and the Doe Deere brand. It reminds me of PETA and the sad way they operate. Like, it just makes me so sad when something that could have been amazing is ruined by the fact that it is actually terrible instead. The world needs more feminist-fronted indie companies — but it definitely doesn’t need more bullshit.

Tags: conform consume obey, controversy, fashion, lawsuit, Lime Crime, lipstick, makeup, style