In late May of this year, Jaclyn Hill launched her new cosmetic line, Jaclyn Cosmetics, with a lipstick vault of nudes. With her previous track record, all signs indicated that this would be her most successful launch to date. However, that was not the case.
In 2015, Hill teamed up with Becca to release the Champagne Pop highlighter, which sold out in 20 minutes. Her next collaboration with Becca in 2016 sold out in a little over an hour. Her best seller to date was the 2017 launch of the Morphe x Jaclyn Hill eyeshadow palette which sold one million products in six months.
The launch of Jaclyn Cosmetics was no different. Hill’s products were sold out within 24 hours. However, the outcome was significantly different than the others. Customers immediately started taking to their social media accounts to bash the product they received, saying that it had fibers sticking out and lumpy parts. Some said it was melting after a couple uses.
After all the negative comments and feedback, Hill deleted all her social media accounts, for which she claims that embarrassment is not the reason. She re-emerged in late July with a YouTube video.
About the video:
A distraught and seemingly disheartened Hill claimed that she was quite “uncomfortable” talking about her feelings and what has happened with her launch. She talks about how other influencers have told her to stay away from communicating with the public and move on. And although she is “very nervous, and very vulnerable,” she feels the need to talk directly to her customers who she believes are her friends, because her career is built on that relationship.
About halfway into the video, after she talks about how nervous she is, Hill finally gets down to the point that her “Launch was a failure” and proclaiming that she “completely failed.” She addresses her overconfidence at the start of the launch and how it made her look “cocky.” She says that she didn’t have a large enough quality control team to overlook her project at that level.
Although she says that what she has done to correct her mistakes is confidential she still names a few. Jaclyn Cosmetics has refunded all the customers who purchased the contaminated products. Hill has fired old and hired new employees on her quality control team. That’s the reason she said she deleted all her social media accounts; so that she can start from scratch and rebuild her brand while ignoring all the negative comments. She repeatedly says how thankful she is for her fans and how much she loves them.
Reactions:
The comments on this particular video were not all that positive either. Though she mentions that many of her fans have been kind to her, the comments for this public apology was met with disdain. Comment by William Gomez states, “Nope. I really loved you and your tutorials. But now I feel like you’re money hungry. I don’t believe you anymore.” This sentiment was shared by many others who said that Hill rambled about her feelings for 20 minutes when she could have just said that her lipsticks were contaminated and she will do better next time.
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