Kickstarter of Misery

Hi, friends!

In March of 2017, I learned about a Kickstarter project that I was really excited to back: Lisa Frank makeup made by a company called Glamour Dolls. The makeup was inexpensive and seemed like it was going to be really pretty. I was a little hesitant because I wasn't sure that Glamour Dolls really knew what they were getting into; they didn't seem to know much about Kickstarter in general. At that point, though, I was still 90% enthusiastic and 10% skeptical.

Then the lies, excuses, bad decisions, and disappointment began.

For most Kickstarter campaigns, stretch goals are what the creator does to thank backers for exceeding the original funding goal. This campaign raised ten times more money than what they were hoping for. For whatever reason, Glamour Dolls decided that their stretch goals would be what any other campaign would have called add-ons. Our extra funding gave us the opportunity to give them more money if we wanted the extra products. Weird, but not a deal breaker.

They hadn't decided on any of the colors for the products before the funding was completed, so they started running surveys to let backers pick what colors they wanted. This was, in my opinion, a huge mistake. There were two very distinct groups of people voting for colors: Team "Lisa Frank Makeup" Means Bright, Rainbow Colors In Cute Packaging and Team "Lisa Frank Makeup" Means Painfully Average Colors Of Makeup In Packaging With Lisa Frank Art On It. Unfortunately for me and the other members of Team Fun, the people who voted for the lipstick to be rose, mauve, or nude (seriously?!) vastly outnumbered the people who voted for blue, purple, green, and other colors that you can't necessarily find from every makeup brand that ever existed. In the survey to decide on the highlighter color, 74% of the responses voted for opal, which is possibly the most standard highlighter color possible. That was exasperating. We all backed the project with our own idea of what the makeup itself would look like, and it quickly became very clear that we hadn't all been on the same page in that regard. Despite the announcement video for the campaign involving rainbow leopard print lips, there were a ton of people hoping for the makeup to be as neutral and "grown-up" as possible.

A month after the funding was completed, I was already starting to seriously regret my decision to back the project. Neutral color after neutral color was being chosen for the makeup, people requested that the makeup bag be plain white with rainbow trim instead of having Lisa Frank designs on it, and I got more and more disappointed with each update.

We were told that the unicorn lip balm we would be getting was a unique mold and design. Like a lot of other things we were told, that was a lie. Identical unicorn lip balms have been spotted at Hot Topic and on several websites.

The original estimate was that the makeup would be finished and sent out to backers that September. (Spoiler alert: September came and went, as did the next September. No makeup yet.) Kickstarter campaigns rarely deliver on time, so that didn't bother me, but the delays were not at all explained. By the time we were supposed to have our makeup, we still barely knew anything about the project and had been mostly kept in the dark about production progress. We were told to expect an update within a certain time frame, no update would come, and Glamour Dolls wouldn't even acknowledge their failures.

Glamour Dolls had been working on a blush brush and a bronzer before the campaign started, and because they started before they made their Kickstarter, they decided it would be fine to not tell us that those products would be going out in Ipsy bags. (Ipsy is a subscription service that sends a bag of assorted makeup to their customers every month.) They neglected to tell us until backers started finding out and probably wouldn't have said anything if people hadn't called them out on it. Their "Kickstarter-exclusive" shade of a single eyeshadow was also available for purchase on the Glamour Dolls website, which was another slap in the face.

A Facebook group was created by some backers so that information could be shared. The Glamour Dolls team was doing an awful job of communicating and had been giving us more excuses than answers for far too long.

As far as the backers knew, we would be able to get everything in the collection from the campaign. However, Glamour Dolls had a deal with Hot Topic that involved making an exclusive eyeshadow shade that was only available from Hot Topic and not part of the Kickstarter. (That eyeshadow was a very blah burnt terra cotta color, by the way.) It also seemed like the eyeshadow singles came in packaging with a fun design on the lid, but that design was only on the cardboard box that the shadow came in and there was a purple-and-white, much less exciting design on the compact itself. A surprising number of people were surprised by that, myself included.

Originally, backers were going to be given a digital background with Lisa's art. Out of fear that the background(s) would be stolen, they decided to give us "vintage" postcards instead. Oddly enough, those postcards had QR codes on them that lead to a Lisa Frank app. Smartphones and "vintage" don't really go together.

Another issue with the postcards is that a small number of them were going to be signed by Lisa Frank. What Glamour Dolls didn't tell us is that each postcard would have what looked like a signature and message from her. The people who had the blush brush and bronzer in their pledge had those delivered at some point in November 2017 as a gesture of good faith - though Ipsy customers had received them much earlier - and those packages mistakenly had postcards in them. Everyone was happy to see what appeared to be a signed message on their postcard until people in the Facebook group realized that everyone had one identical, printed message. When backers who weren't in the Facebook group sent messages of excitement to Glamour Dolls, they chose to not point out that none of the signatures were authentic. They lied by omission by letting people continue to believe that they'd gotten a genuine signature on their "vintage" postcards.

I don't know how many updates ended with a promise to give another update the next week or at least within two weeks and were followed by the next update a month later instead. It's really not that difficult to type out a quick, "Hi, we're still alive and working on things!" even if there isn't any real update to share. That would've been a lot less frustrating than being ignored for a month at a time.

Backers started using social media and emails to beg for updates. That didn't work, because of course Glamour Dolls wouldn't actually listen to feedback. People began leaving reviews on their Facebook page to warn others about how frustrating and irresponsible the company was. After so many people left negative reviews that the rating had dropped down to about two stars, Glamour Dolls finally decided to remember that their backers existed.

In March of this year, they promised to be more consistent with their updating and share something every 7-10 days. They did okay at that for a while, then went silent for nearly four months. Not only did they not update us, but they deleted perfectly civil comments on their social media and even turned off commenting on their Instagram pictures.

The radio silence is what sparked the huge influx of people requesting refunds. I finally requested mine on August 1st, was informed that a refund had been issued and should go through within 7-10 days, and believed that for a little while. When my money never got put back in my account, I realized that it was the beginning of the end. Lots of other backers were getting the copy-and-paste response promising a refund and then not hearing anything else when they would ask when their money would be refunded. Soon enough, even the canned responses stopped coming when people asked for refunds.

I realized that my only hope of getting my money back was talking to my bank directly. I found a dispute form to fill out, mailed it to my bank along with proof that I had requested and been promised my refund, and hoped for the best. Thankfully, I did get my full refund and breathed an enormous sigh of relief when it happened.

Their most recent update, from late September (which was the first one since the end of May), was useless. I'm convinced that the update was only posted to give them legal cover. Glamour Dolls mentioned in one of the comments on that update (not in the update itself, for whatever reason) that they were no longer giving refunds to backers.

They never addressed the refunds that had been promised and not given. They didn't address blocking backers on Instagram for leaving comments wondering about the Kickstarter. No updated delivery estimate.
Possibly the most ridiculous part of the update was that they told us how they (supposedly) spent the money from the campaign. Including the BackerKit add-ons, $475,685 were raised for this makeup. They apparently paid $15,329 for production samples, $45,615 for Lisa Frank's artwork, and $510,754.04 to Lisa Frank. Did I mention that their original funding goal was $30,000? Does anyone else see some major problems with those numbers? There's also the fact that their production matrix seems to blame Lisa for the delays on almost everything. (The matrix also says that the art for the eyeshadow palettes haven't been finalized yet even though they literally showed us what definitely seemed to be finished art on those palettes months ago.)

What should have been a fantastic, fun campaign was a complete disaster. I don't know how much blame Lisa Frank and Glamour Dolls each deserve, but my enthusiasm for both companies has been thoroughly murdered.

Whatever happens with this collaboration in the future is no longer my problem. I really hope that the other backers finally get either their products (very unlikely) or their refunds (also pretty unlikely) like they deserve and that more people hear about this through articles and social media.

Don't be afraid to back things on Kickstarter; usually, they go a lot better than this one did. I would, however, advise you to never, ever, ever buy anything from Glamour Dolls. I'm not sure how much longer they'll be in business anyway, but it's still good to know.

Love,

Lizzie