I discovered LimeCrime last year when I was stumbling around bored on Instagram one day, quickly falling for their dreamy-like pictures and colorful vegan products. It wasn't long before I was scrambling to buy from them, and I was of course over the moon when I (finally) received their products weeks later. I've mentioned them in more than one post/video, and they were everything I wanted in cosmetics, until about two weeks ago.
I follow many different makeup artists on Youtube/Instagram/Twitter, and two weeks ago I came across a video from Manny Mua talking about how he was boycotting LimeCrime. Curious, I hunted through a few other artist's pages only to find similar cries of boycotting and distaste with LimeCrime due to hacking. I was instantly confused: there had been no headlines on the company's website, no emails in my inbox, no videos from the company - nothing. Maybe I had missed the tweets and pictures, as that can happen with how fast everything is updated nowadays, but after Googling "LimeCrime controversy", I was hit with pages upon pages of customers crying out in anger over the way the company handled problems with their checkout process, shipping, and all-around general business practices. It turns out the website had had some long-brewing issues that finally boiled over and thousands of people had had their information stolen. Unfortunately, while it doesn't make this situation okay, ever, it does happen, and often. It happened to me back in high school with my first-ever online purchase. It happened just a little while ago to people who tried to buy the Jaclyn Hill palette from Morphe, and even Sony was hacked not too far back.
My husband and I back in February noticed a fraudulent charge to our account for several hundred dollars worth of sports games. Neither one of us plays sports games, and neither one of us could figure out how anyone got our credit card information since we're always so careful. It wasn't until reading about the backlash against LimeCrime and the outcry over the company's practices that it dawned on me my debit card information had been stolen when I checked out on their website. We got the charges dropped from our account almost instantly, we got new cards and were lucky that no permanent damage was done. Everything worked out smoothly on our end, but I've read some horror stories where people's lives, and bank accounts, still haven't recovered from the scandal.
I have spent hours and hours over the last two weeks reading what people have said regarding the company and what happened, and I've come to one very certain conclusion: I am not boycotting LimeCrime. Yet. I am also not supporting them. I am not going to go into my bathroom to toss my glitter and gloss into the trash. I am also not going to hop onto their website and order myself anything new. I will be here neutral like Switzerland (without the good chocolate sadly). Reason being: 75% of what I've read about the owner and the company seems to contradict itself. There are certain things that keep popping up, like a possible grudge against the owner of SugarPill cosmetics, that there was a band and selling DIY on LiveJournal before makeup, possible controversy regarding whether or not the cosmetics were repackaged and sold as LimeCrime when they're not, etc. Many of the websites I've read have claimed to tell only "facts" about what was said regarding the website hacking and business practices, but then one person's "facts" and quotes contradicts something on someone else's.
With that being said, many major makeup personalities know LimeCrime's owner personally, and have come out with testimonies as to how she regards her customers and the company's products. A company can be fixed and a brand can come back from the brink of extinction, which is why I will not boycott LimeCrime. I had to wait 2+ weeks to receive my items, and my credit card information was stolen, so yes, I had a less than fabulous experience with the company, but aside from those things I don't feel enough hatred towards LimeCrime to publicly shame & boycott them. Thousands and thousands of people ranting across the internet however does make me think twice about hopping on to purchase from them, but the company, while embroiled in controversy right now, can turn around. This is why I will use up their products I own and simply wait to see what happens in the future. Things might continue to go south for the company and their reputation, or things might change and get better.
For now, I will remain Switzerland.
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