Sunday, December 19, 2010

Bad experience with Eve Pearl, her products and her staff!


UPDATE:
 Customer service rep from Eve Pearl office contacted me on the 24 Dec 2010. We have resolved this matter. Here is the explanation by them, for the spots found on the cream products. 

The belowmentioned is extracted from the email sent by the customer service rep Aina Lee dtd 24th Dec 2010.
  • Following is some information provided by our chemist on the composition of our products which we hope will provide a clear explanation to your claims about our cream products, particularly the section in red as it directly addresses your claim:

These cream formulations and mixtures are developed, mixed and Hot Poured (by human hand)  right here in New York and overseen by our chemist. This is why sometimes not all sides are exactly even or smooth…they are not poured by a machine or made by the thousands…they are made for us on 30-60 day orders…several hundred at a time.
These EVE PEARL formulations are ANHYDROUS: Products that do not contain any water such as balms and ointments are self-preserving with only the necessary antioxidants contained in the products. This is why they feel like your skincare without a thick waxy texture…because it is like your balm or ointment and will treat your skin…naturally.

At times you might see spots, dots or crystallization that might occur on the top of the products. This will indicate mottling and/or syneresis which happen commonly in anhydrous product that deal with drastic temperature changes (usually cold temperatures). This is NOT a cause of Fungus or Bacteria.   Fungus and bacteria can only produce in the presence of water in the product. There is absolutely no water contained in the concealers and foundations. While it may not look as attractive there is no harm to use the products and it does not affect the quality of the products…You can use as is or if you want it to look smooth, simply mix the cream.  If you are still uncomfortable to use the products and wish to send them back, we will absolutely refund your money.

Also, during extreme heat, these same Foundations/Concealers/Cream Blushes will melt…once again, as any balm, cream or ointment will.  Once again, melting will not affect the quality of the product.  Once it cools off it will harden up again. This is a good thing to know for makeup artists who want to keep their products always looking smooth…you can use a hair dryer over the creams to create a smooth surface. We actually fill our Pro Palettes right here, by heating the product and then pouring it into the empty Black Palette.  Because there is NO water in the products, they will not dry up or evaporate or grow any mold or fungus.

Shelf Life: On all the packaging with Boxes (like our HD Dual Foundation) in the back there is a little open jar pic that says 18M which means this product is good for 18 months from date of opening.  This is compliant with all global regulations.   Only food products can have a precise date of expiration.  This indicator, however is not on our Foundation and Concealer trios, and as a result of your feedback we will post this information on our website and in the near future adjust our packaging accordingly.  

  • Your order was scheduled to be delivered on December 8, but was not delivered until December 13th due to delivery rescheduling at your request,  thus leaving the package vulnerable to the extreme cold temperatures in Sweden.  This is a factor that must be taken into consideration as well.

  • The Pro Trio kit you ordered was not included in the Black Pearl promotion and therefore is eligible for a return.  Normally returns are shipped back at the customer’s expense, but we will allow you to ship your products back at no cost to you and grant you a full refund, store credit or replacement items.  Whatever your preference.  We will send you a return label so you can send the products back at our expense.

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Disclaimer : I am not here to hurt anyones business. It is not my nature. I always want to give my honest, unbiased opinion about the products that I pay with my own money or even the ones that are sent for reviewing purposes. This review is about what I received and how the company handled my complaint. It is not about product efficiency as I have not used any of their products on my face yet.

As the post title explains, it is about my bad experience with Eve Pearl, staff and her cosmetics line. Many of you would have heard about the 5 times Emmy award winning makeup artist Eve Pearl. I have been a fan and follower of both her work and Youtube channel. It has been on my wish list to try out her products as they seem very well suited for women of various skin tones.

About two weeks ago, she had a black friday sale (up to 50% sale on selected items). I quickly placed my order as it seemed like that was a good time to try out her products. The total cost including shipping came up to USD$226.19. 

Priming Moisturizer with Astaxanthin1$35.00$35.00
HD Pro Trio Kit: Foundations, Concealers, Blushes1$160.00$160.00
Magic Salmon Concealer (L/M/D)1$50.00$50.00

Sub-Total:$ 245.00
Coupon discount:$ 0.00
Gift certificate(s) value:$ 0.00
Another discount:$ 34.00
Sales Tax:$ 0.00
Shipping:$ 15.19
Handling:$ 0.00
TOTAL:$ 226.19


To me that is a lot of money, however, I felt that since her line is well raved about, I should be getting good things. I made a mistake obviously.

Out of the 8 products I ordered, 6 of them were unfit for use. They were all cream products. To my untrained eyes, it seems like something organic growing (fungi?) on them. I would never want to put these products on my face or on my clients. 

To clarify the matter, I sent them an email with a picture of a concealer with the suspicious spots and asked them for an explanation and resolution. There was no reply from them so I went ahead and wrote a comment on their Youtube channel about my email. They replied to it. I will add the link here so that you guys can see what was said (username UmaPreve and EvePearl). There you will see that I asked them to respond via email. Well, they were not tactical, they chose to respond publicly and continue defending and disregarding my complaints about their products/ my order. What made it worse was that Eve Pearl herself wrote some things that I felt were very unprofessional and intimidating which I till now cannot accept. This is because I have always had the impression that she is a very nice level headed humble woman. Now I feel otherwise.

Not even for a moment did she consider that maybe I could be one of the unlucky ones to have received defective products and that maybe I was trying to tell her something about one of her potentially bad batches. I am really very upset with how this whole incident was handled.

Now I have to spend my OWN money to ship the defective items back to Eve Pearl so that they can refund me based on the purchased price. How is this fair to me! I am the consumer who received bad products, quite likely, due to an erred quality inspection or to poor shipping and now I have to pay more to get my money back! You are not a good company in my book!

In my honest opinion, this whole incident could have been resolved between the company and myself if only they took the time to forward the email they claimed to have sent to me. Instead of intimidating and patting me on the head with their comments, they could have tried to listen to what I have to say.

Here is something that I find alarming about Eve Pearl's cosmetic line; there is no manufacturing date, no expiration date or even a batch number on their products. I find it strange that a makeup company can even present a product line without at least one of the above mentioned quality control measures to thousands of beauty/makeup enthusiasts like myself. All makeup items have a shelf life!

I have learnt my lesson. I will never put my money on Eve Pearl cosmetics line ever again. This whole experience with them has been very bitter and unpleasant, which could have been avoided if they just listened!


Here are the pictures of the products that have suspicious looking spots/growth on them :-

Concealer Trio 'B' 

HD Blush

Foundation trio A

Magic salmon concealer Trio 'A'

Foundation Trio 'B'

Magic salmon concealer Trio A

These were the only two items that seemed normal and usable.
Priming moisturizer & Concealer Trio A

The only concealer that had no nasty stuff out of my order. You can see some vaporization, which I can understand could have been caused by transportation, temperature change, etc...


A good company will always listen to their consumers!




16 comments:

  1. Wow! Make that a double Wow! Ok there's something clearly wrong with those products. Yuck! I'm sorry that this issue wasn't handled properly. How disappointing. I like how level headed you were about this but I can understand your stance. I'd be done with them as well. Sigh..... sorry you had to go through this craziness!

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  2. I have always adored Eve's youtube videos and would have never expected such behaviour on her part. I mean even small companies these days send fresh products in return for defective goods sent without having to pay anything extra, so why such a huge company as Eve's did not do so I don't quite understand.

    I agree that cream products usually have some of these dots due to excess oil I guess? not really sure but the one's on the products you recieved are too wierd :S I wouldn't use it too.

    Quite sad coz I was going to purchase something from her website soon but not anymore.

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  3. Wow. That is a lot of money to spend on makeup that you had great expectations for and then turned out to be defective and unusable, I'd be so pissed!

    To put the cherry on top her and her staff were down right rude. I went and read the comments on the video, I agree SO unprofessional of her to respond the way she did. I especially hated when she brought up the fact "since we are throwing titles I'm an award winner, etc". A consumer isn't going to care what awards you won or WHO you are when expectations aren't met. It's about your hard earned money being spent on something you thought worthy, and it turns out it wasn't. Even if the products are great when they aren't defective, it doesnt matter. When a company doesn't provide excellent customer service, they will end up having NO customers.
    I'll make sure to never purchase anything from her line.

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  4. This is yeast (type of fungi) growing on your make up.It's unacceptable.This could go to the FDA and you would win.
    She'd sure win an award in make up in jail.Pfffff for these companies and replies.

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  5. Now this is bullshit&outta order,with overwhelming evidence she still refuses to listen lol She should write a letter of apology and pay u back ur refund in full.

    I am so sorry to hear about the bad experience u had dear,u need to report it to some higher agency or somethn coz this is not acceptable.Its ridiculous I really do feel for u dear.Hope somethn good turns out4u in ths case

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  6. Thanks ladies for your comments. At least I know I am doing the right thing here!

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  7. Uma, I think that this company, Eve Pearl, is disgraceful and not only treated you unfairly, but very disrespectfully. I was really shocked at the e-mail that you read on your site from Eve Pearl herself. You are entitlled to a complete apology PLUS a total refund plus get your entire order mailed back to you in perfect, pristine shape. This is just not cool what happened to you. I am very sorry for your terrible experience and hope that Eve Pearl will come to her senses and make it right with you!!! Shame on this cosmetics firm.

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  8. Hi, I just read your message and Eve Pearl's response to you. I'm over here shocked that she took such a stance like she had to defend her life. She brought her emmy's into it, she brought her children into it! What is she smoking? All you did was try to get a response when they ignored you, they wont admit the makeup is unsafe, and wont refund you properly. I'm going to give them a piece of my mind right now.

    You did everything right. They did everything wrong.

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  9. i've just watched your video about problems with eve pearl's cosmetics. i'm just so shocked and amazed in a positive way, of your profesionalism, while talk about it. i don't know what i would do in a such situation, but would never stay so calm and clear thinking. i think it's really god thing with making this video and i'm totally by your side. i don't even have words to say how i'm feeling about all these...
    please, forgive me my grammar mistakes.. ^^'
    good luck, because you're all right with the situation!

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  10. The pictures are shocking Uma, you can really see them in great detail here, freaks me out I tell ya! I do hope they see these photos.

    Brilliant of you to notice they don't have a batch number or expiration date etc, it's just something automatically expect on cosmetics.

    Do let me know if you here back from them on this matter. They really should at least offer to reimburse your shipping costs as well of course the money you paid.

    I just can't understand their reaction, it could have happened to any of us that have purchased from them and I sure wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of those comments and very public they were too.

    Midnight here I'm going to get some rest.

    Night lovely,
    x

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  11. I will never buy from Eve Pearl.

    Uma please utilize your resources. I have no idea how it's done where you live. But please report her to the BBB, post on yelp.com, makeupalley, and any and every open forum you can think of.

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  12. Ewwww.... what are those on the makeup!!! The service totally disgust me!

    U need to report them!

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  13. I took a close look at the pictures and I can say that YES those things have fungus growing on them. I don't wear makeup often, so, it's easy for it to go bad on me. I also don't have a lot of experience with spotting obviously bad make-up, but looking at those compresses you posted reminded me of a horror story I had with some eye smudge recently. It was sporting those same condensation and off-colored spots on it. I used it, like a dummy and ended up looking like I'd been in a fist fight with Mike Tyson.

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  14. WoW. Those pictures tell it all. That is just disgusting. I hope this is a lesson learned for EP. They just messed with the wrong person. Think of all of the people that they sent the same funky products to that do not know any better. You are defintely doing the right thing and I am sure that we all thank you!

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  15. just now seeing this, and when you follow link to "YT" all comments have been disabled. i guess her pr person got to her in time!!!!!! i was never that excited about the product saw a bride of color she did personally for the wedding and she looked rather ashy. so i knew i'd never purchase her products!!!!!

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  16. you are right, these cosmetics look so bad and not usable!

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