Buying from indie cosmetics companies can feel really noble and gratifying. I think supporting small, independent businesses rather than massive corporations is a good thing. Also, indie companies tend to put out some more interesting products than mainstream companies, since they are only making small batches and don't have to try to appeal to the broadest audience possible.
The downside is that, when something goes wrong, a small business might not have the infrastructure or resources to fix it. That's what seems to be happening with Mentality Polish, who sold some products this spring that caused what they call "sensitivity" for a number of their customers. People's nails have been lifting from the beds and it's all pretty gross and painful-looking. A major company would do a proper recall at this point (or would have been able to do extensive testing of their products beforehand to avoid these results in the first place). In the case of this indie nail polish company, they seem to have started out trying to replace the products of the people who got in touch with them, but ran out of money to do so and are no longer making amends (and posting on social media about "bullies" - not enough eye rolls for that). They also didn't communicate the issue to all of their customers, so there are likely people out there having bad reactions without knowing why. You can find out more about the issue and the company's response in this post from The Mercurial Magpie (warning: graphic photos of injured nails).
I'm posting this tonight in case you bought anything from Mentality during the problem window (April-June 2015; see above link for details) and also just as a word of caution about dealing with independent cosmetic manufacturers. I'm curious about people's thoughts on indie cosmetics in general. Do you think they are likely to be more or less reliable than mega-corps?
Holy fucking shit. Thanks for the heads up. I never took an interest in this brand but two "indie" brands that I love and are now maybe too big to be considered indie are a-England and Picture Polish. It never even occurred to me that nails could be damaged to this degree simply by applying something over them.
ReplyDeleteI can't stop reading about this crap. There are crazy people who still want to use their Mentality polishes. WHAT.
DeleteThere is a serious rabbit hole to go down reading about this (and Mentality seems to keep digging themselves deeper too)!
DeleteHoly fucking shit!! looks corrosive.
ReplyDeleteI think indies have a wider range of extremes. The good are great, fastidious, and respond great. I believe Haus of Gloi had a (small in comparison) contamination issue recently and they responded very promptly and without any coverups. On the other hand there are lots of indies who are terrible businesses with horrible customer service. Big corporations at least, generally have to answer to regulations. I think this is something the guys at the beauty brains mentioned before, that indie companies demanded to be excluded from certain regulations, so only us as consumers lose.
This is terrible stuff, I hope people get over the 'shiny new stuff!!1!' And try to look beyond the product into good business ethics.
I agree. I think with indies there's probably a lot more variation based on the personality of the owners. With bigger corporations, even if they don't want to behave ethically, at least they have teams of lawyers saying, "Legally, you have to do X, Y, and Z, now," so they don't just ignore things and whine about bullies.
DeleteAnd the big corps have insurance, too, I should add, which makes a difference in their responses.
DeleteFrom the accounts I'm reading, the way Mentality is responding is starting to sound a lot like the ways of the bonkers owner of Limecrime. Yipes.
ReplyDeleteEven if you're a small brand with limited funds, good communication, politeness and taking responsibility go a long way to making things right, even if you can't fix the problem.
That's what I thought of too, especially since LC started out indie and then tried to hold on to that indie cred for a long time. I agree that if they had been upfront about the problem when they became aware of it and apologize, they wouldn't have been subject to "bullying" and probably wouldn't have been in the same financial trouble either.
DeleteWow, that's horrific. I don't follow the world of indie polishes at all, so I'd never have heard of the Mentality scandal if not for your post! Honestly, this sort of thing is a big part of the reason I'm reluctant to buy from indie companies. Say what you will about larger corporations, they usually have systems in place to ensure that customers' nails don't literally fall off from a bad batch of polish.
ReplyDeleteI don't really follow indie polishes either, but I follow a few great nail bloggers on Instagram, including Mercurial Magpie, so that's how I heard about this. I agree. I'm sure there are many, many indie cosmetics makers who have a lot of integrity and who are conscientious about health and safety, but how can we tell which ones those are (or aren't) before there's a problem? Larger companies are subject to more scrutiny and oversight, at the very least.
DeleteMost of us indie nail polish brands are as horrified as everyone else. It sounds now like Mentality might have been making their own base and screwed up somehow, and are trying to cover that up. A bunch of us (including me) have been writing posts discussing the standards we use for testing and our refund policies just to reassure people that we're not all bad!
DeleteThat sounds like great information to put out there!
DeleteI refuse to use indie makeup companies until they have been established for a while with proven results. So like when Makeup geek first came out, I held off for at least a year till I saw good positive reviews from others. Lime Crime NEVER interested me and and thank God for many reasons. Same goes with Skincare companies. I held off on Colleen Rothschild till I saw some reviews from others. I mean its face, hands and body right. You need to make sure these companies are legit before you use them.
ReplyDeleteThat's a good point - though I was under the impression that Mentality had been around for a while and yet this still happened. Well over a year anyway. It's disturbing.
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