Morphe and influencer Jaclyn Hill have teamed up yet again on a collection of four palettes that are available to purchase individually or together as a set called "The Vault."
And I won't be buying.
I know that I'm pretty late to write this post, but I figured it was probably still worth writing since these palettes are currently "out of stock" and will be restocked soon.
If you haven't read my last post, I recommend doing so for all of my thoughts on the current drama in the beauty community and how much influence we consumers give to these YouTube influencers. I'll touch on some of that throughout this post, but for a more comprehensive post, I recommend reading that.
I have a lot of thoughts about this collection, but I can simply them into two categories:
- In terms of color selection, I have a fair amount of positive things to say
- In terms of how this launch was handled, I have mostly negative things to say
Let's look at the palettes.
Ring the Alarm:
Bling Boss
Armed & Gorgeous:
Dark Magic:
Let's start with the positives.
One thing that I can say about Jaclyn Hill is that she really knows how to curate a color selection. I don't think it's a coincidence that many brands want to work with her, and I also don't think it's a coincidence that Morphe set their sights on her when they first came to market.
These palettes are quite pretty, in my opinion, and most of them don't look like things that we've seen ad nauseam from brands like Tarte, Too Faced, and Urban Decay. With that said, Ring the Alarm looks like a mini version of her big palette with Morphe, but we will get to that in a bit.
Another positive about this collection is that it is inclusive. All of these palettes can work with multiple skin tones, and there is not a brow bone shadow just for light skin tones in every single palette.
I think it's also good that you have the option to buy each palette individually, so if you are only really attracted to one color scheme, you can buy that for $15 instead of buying the entire vault, which retails for $49 plus tax and shipping (unless you buy in-store from Ulta).
And that's where the positives stop for me.
Thing is, if these palettes were high quality, I would probably have a lot of praise for them. It's a good price point and an interesting, inclusive color selection, so there is a lot to celebrate if the quality is there. Unfortunately, that is just not the case at all. Even if this palette had the same quality as the bigger Jaclyn Hill x Morphe palette, I would still say that the quality would need to be higher because darker mattes are really where this brand struggles, and this collection is full of them.
Not unsurprisingly, this collection was met with delay, which has happened with every single Morphe and Jaclyn Hill release. To me, that is a huge cause for concern with supporting a brand because when you are a functional, professional brand, you shouldn't have to delay multiple projects.
The PR statement that was fed to consumers was that there was a "pressing issue" and that ALL of the palettes were going to be destroyed and repressed. The "pressing issue" was apparently the cause for the negative reviews the vault got when PR packages were sent out, and the brand wanted to "correct the issue."
For what it's worth, this alone should speak volumes about the manipulation of swatches that brands provide. Let's look at Morphe's swatches:
Personally, I think all of these swatches look to be photoshopped onto the models' arms. I could be wrong about that, but at the very least, these swatches look visually enhanced. And when you look at these swatches, there is no reason to think that there is a quality issue or that the colors would be patchy and lacking pigment. But, since the brand acknowledged that there was a quality problem, it really showcases that swatches from brands are really worthless in a lot of ways.
Before I get into the other problems with this collection and its launch, I just want to quickly discuss why I personally decided against buying any of these palettes before I even knew of the controversies surrounding the launch.
Ring the Alarm:
This palette is essentially a condensed version of the bigger Jaclyn Hill palette:
So if you own this one, you don't need the smaller one. I wrote an anti-haul post on this palette, but if you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that I received it as a gift. My overall thoughts on it are that the quality is slightly better that the other palettes I've tried from Morphe, but it is still not great. The color selection is also too repetitive, and it didn't need to be 35 shadows. I don't like that there are so many pink shimmer shades but no pink matte shades, so it feels like your only option is to have a pink/brown look or a pink/red look. Finally, I only use a handful of shadows in this palette since so many are just repetitive, so it isn't worth the price for me.
Due to this, I think Ring the Alarm is a better option overall if you don't already own the bigger palette, but I still don't like that there are two pink shimmers with only a whole bunch of matte browns. No one needs that many matte brown shadows.
Bling Boss:
Out of all of the palettes, this was the least interesting to me. You've got three taupe shimmers that look exactly the same, two brown shadows that everyone already has a dozen times over, and then some purple/berry shadows that you also probably have in other palettes.
This is the least inspiring to me, and while I appreciate that it largely leans cool-toned, which is different for Jaclyn and most brands, it just isn't that interesting of a color selection for me.
It reminds me a lot of ABH Norvina:
Which, frankly, while I also find this palette to be pretty boring, is a better execution of this color scheme.
Natasha Denona Lila:
Morphe 35P:
Violet Voss Hashtag:
And Lorac Desert Sunset:
Armed & Gorgeous:
This palette appears to be the most popular, but I really don't see why. It's the same palette that we have seen so much over the past year, except that it has a green color thrown in.
It is essentially Colourpop Yes, Please!:
With a bronze and a green.
The shimmers in this palette are a white (which most people have many times over), golds, and a bronze. Most people, even if they aren't makeup hoarders, will have a gold and bronze shimmer. The mattes are even more browns plus a mustard, orange, and green. I assume the the reason this palette is so popular is because of the mustard, orange, and green mattes, but those can easily be purchased as singles from brands like Colourpop and Makeup Geek.
This palette also reminds me of ABH Subculture:
And I personally think Subculture executed this color scheme in a more interesting manner.
Dark Magic:
This is the palette that is most interesting to me because I haven't seen it a dozen times over, and interestingly, it is the only palette that did not sell out. And I assume that's because it is different (and people tend to buy the same thing over and over) and has green and blue shades as opposed to browns, golds, and pinks, which have been popular for years.
With that said, I still already own all these colors and there is still too much brown.
This palette reminds me of Melt Gemini:
And Viseart Dark Matte:
And I think both of these palettes executed the color scheme better than Dark Magic.
So, although I do like the color schemes of the palettes individually when compared to what a lot of the major brands have available, I think as a vault, there are still too many repeated shades, especially browns.
I counted 14 matte brown shades between all of the palettes, which means that only 26 of the shadows in the 40-shadow vault are not brown. And I can guarantee you that no one needs 14 shades of matte brown. I can also guarantee you that those 14 shadows are not all unique from each other.
Now I would like to discuss to some of the controversy surrounding this launch. As I mentioned above, the launch of this collection was delayed following negative reviews about the quality and performance of the shadows.
If you recall, the launch of the bigger Jaclyn Hill palette was also delayed after a picture of a cake surfaced that essentially spoiled the palette's color scheme, and Jaclyn promised that the cake did not have the real color selection. And then the palette finally released and we saw that the cake did, in fact, have the correct color scheme and Jaclyn lied about it.
Suffice to say that when Jaclyn announced that the vault was going to be delayed due to quality control, the existing palettes were going to be "destroyed" and new ones made, and then those "new" palettes were available for purchase less than two months later, no one believed her.
And then it surfaced that weeks earlier, following the PR launch of the palette, Becca had sent Morphe a cease and desist letter because the packaging of the vault palettes:
Looked very similar to the Becca and Jaclyn Hill collaboration:
And by "similar," I mean nearly identical.
When the "new" vault palettes were released, they received negative reviews, and people cited the same problems that people had in the PR launch. People who worked in manufacturing then weighed in to say that it was essentially impossible to remake all the palettes and ship them from China (where the palettes are made), in the time between when the palettes were "destroyed" and when they were available for purchase.
This led many people to believe that the delay had nothing to do with wanting to improve quality and everything to do with getting a legal plan in place for the eventual lawsuit Morphe launched against Becca, claiming that they have every right to move forward with the design.
What is so disappointing about this is that Jaclyn Hill went out of her way to say that quality was the issue, acknowledging the problems people noted in the PR launch. She admitted that the quality was bad and that they were fixing it, and it seems pretty clear that they released those same palettes everyone knew was poor quality.
And, because it has Jaclyn Hill's name on it, they knew they would sell. And they did.
This relates to my last post about the predatory and manipulative nature of marketing with influencers. Due to the platform of YouTube and social media, the audience feels like they have a more personal and substantial connection with the person than they do with a celebrity they watch on television. And with that comes a certain amount of trust and loyalty that makes people want to "support" the influencer, buy whatever they had a hand in making, or believe them when they swear the quality is great.
There has been a common thread lately of YouTube personalities in the beauty community sharing their "truth," and Jaclyn Hill was the latest person to jump on this trend. But honestly, I just don't know how much of any of it I believe. Because right now, everyone is acting in their own best interest to protect their current income and lifestyle. And acting that way while presenting it as the "truth" is also very predatory.
In the end, I think the current beauty industry marketing model is one that preys off of people who are vulnerable and susceptible to addiction as well as people who have fear of missing out or who idolize people with a certain amount of fame. And I can tell you that I was absolutely someone who fit into the first two categories at the height of my addiction.
But, as consumers, we need to be smart. We know that these palettes are poor quality—the creator blatantly admitted that. So we shouldn't buy them just because Jaclyn would "love it" if we did.
Personally, while I do like the color scheme of these palettes and think that Jaclyn is very talented at curating a color scheme, the palettes still aren't anything that I haven't seen before and don't already own. Added to that. Morphe just doesn't have great quality—they just picked the right people to pay as advertisers. I already own all of these colors already and have no space in my life to add more palettes that are poor quality, so I won't be buying.
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