Jaclyn Hill Refunds All Customers for Lipstick Purchases After Contamination Complaints
YouTube beauty guru Jaclyn Hill is refunding every customer who purchased one of her Jaclyn Cosmetics lipsticks after weeks of fans’ complaints of finding hair fibers, lumps and tiny black holes in their products.
While Hill, 28, addressed her customers’ concerns about the safety of her lipsticks in a YouTube video, she ultimately decided to refund each person for their purchase, regardless of whether they were pleased with their product or not.
“I’m going to be issuing a full refund, including shipping and tax, to every single customer from Jaclyn Cosmetics,” Hill said in a statement shared on her Instagram Story on Saturday. “I don’t care about the loss of this money. You know how embarrassing this is for me. I will do everything in my power to make this right moving forward and learn from this lesson God has given me.”
Hill added that customers didn’t need to do anything to receive their refund — every person would receive an email from the brand and the payment would be issued within seven days.
RELATED: Jaclyn Hill Breaks Silence on Lipstick Controversy, Says They’re Not Moldy or Contaminated
She also said she has completely cut ties with the cosmetics lab she used to create the lipsticks. “There’s been many people fired over this. We’ve got an entire new team we are building for quality control, because obviously that didn’t work,” Hill said. “At this point, I have sent out my lipsticks to five different labs that test product vigorously. I have spent over $100,000 on this process.”
A post shared by Jaclyn Cosmetics (@jaclynhillcosemetics) on Jun 22, 2019 at 7:07pm PDT
Jaclyn Cosmetics also addressed the refund in a statement on Twitter and the brand’s website. “Over the past few weeks, consumers have brought forward a number of quality issues with regard to our So Rich Lipsticks. We’ve taken this feedback very seriously and have been conducting a thorough investigation of each issue brought to our attention. We’ve also taken time to perform extensive additional third-party testing on the product to ensure we’re giving you the most accurate information possible,” the statement read.
“We’ve determined that the quality of more than enough of our So Rich Lipstick production did not meet the standards we aimed to achieve. As such, we will be issuing a full refund (including shipping charges) to everyone who purchased the product.”
Jaclyn Cosmetics takes consumer feedback very seriously. We’ve reviewed the quality issues related to our So Rich Lipsticks & believe our production did not meet our brand standards. We’ll be issuing a full refund (inc. shipping charges) to everyone who purchased the product.
— Jaclyn Cosmetics (@jaclyncosmetics) June 22, 2019
However, on its website, Jaclyn Cosmetics made clear that they did not plan on recalling the lipsticks (although at present, all shades are unavailable for purchase online). “There are no plans for a recall,” a spokesperson for Jaclyn Cosmetics tells PEOPLE.
“After a thorough investigation and extensive third-party testing, several labs and safety assessors have confirmed that while a fraction of our lipsticks did not meet our brand standards of quality, they are in full compliance with FDA regulation and safe to use,” Jaclyn Cosmetics said in a statement.
Days after customers began sharing photos on social media of their purchased lipsticks with what appeared to be black holes, gritty lumps and hair-like fibers (that some people hypothesized was mold) embedded in the product, Hill addressed the issue in a 14-minute YouTube video after completing an in-depth investigation with her lab and team.
“The first thing I want to address is the accusation that my lipsticks are expired, moldy or hazardous in any way,” Hill said. “My lipsticks did not go into mass production until the same month that I launched my brand.”
Fellow YouTube beauty star known as RawBeautyKristi posted a photo of one of the Jaclyn Cosmetics lipsticks she ordered that showed tiny hair fibers coming out of the bullet. “All I can say is WTF,” Kristi tweeted.
Why is my @jaclyncosmetics Decaf lipstick lumpy?? @Jaclynhill This cant be ok right?? #jaclyncosmetics #jaclynhill pic.twitter.com/xjffA4fUF1
— 𝓥𝓮𝓻𝓸𝓷𝓲𝓬𝓪 (@itsv_82) June 5, 2019
All I can say is WTF pic.twitter.com/qZFGPYlOWc
— RawBeautyKristi (@RawBeautyKristi) June 7, 2019
Kristi later posted an in-depth review of the lipsticks titled “THE TRUTH ABOUT JACLYN HILL COSMETICS LIPSTICKS…“, which has since garnered over 3.8 million views, where she examined each lipstick under a microscope. She was horrified by what she saw.
“When I went in to film this video today, I sat down and I said I think there’s a lot of exaggeration surrounding this launch. I think people want to find issues with it. Probably people being overly picky,” Kristi said at the start of the 52-minute video. “[But] I noticed so many issues and I was immediately shocked.”
She continued: “I did not see this coming. Some of these lipsticks are full of hair, lint, fuzz, holes, lots of little holes, air bubbles. I am not exactly sure what’s going on. Some of these are so bothersome that I don’t even want to apply them.”
However, Hill said the black holes people are noticing in some of their products are oxygen bubbles that rise to the surface as the lipstick is being cooled. The white hair fibers others see are because the lab used fuzzy white gloves used during the quality control inspection process.
“My lab, instead of using a standard glove that they would use in the lab, they decided to use white cotton gloves,” she explained. “They didn’t want to standard glove to put any smears on this component, to in any way have any prints on it.”
She added: “Not acceptable, at all. The second we saw this we changed to different gloves.”
Before announcing the refund, Hill told fans to contact the Jaclyn Cosmetics customer service team for a replacement lipstick and refund if they were unsatisfied.
