Others Experiences

I have been contacted by numerous people over the last few weeks to share their experiences with GlitterSniffer Cosmetics. I have been very busy with the Facebook page and have not had a chance to get these stories out there in as timely a manner as I had hoped. I apologize wholeheartedly, and post them now so as to educate others about what they may experience through the use of GlitterSniffer Cosmetics. I have been given permission to publish all these stories, but some wish to remain anonymous. In an effort to streamline this process all personally identifying information has been removed from all the stories.

...went to a hospital the first week it began happening. I was prescribed medication and then the next week eye drops when we tracked down the root cause. she took some of the makeup to send to have tested. I'll live. But I have medical bills now, and missed a week of work.it's been about 3 weeks since I've used it, still have lingering issues but getting better. Dr said I am lucky, but it could take months for my eye to recover fully. just glad it happened to me before i gave gs to my family members as gifts & something bad happen to them. I wrote a lengthy letter on dec 22nd to GS, never got a response. I finally resent it today (Jan 17). It detailed the problems I've had with the makeup, my multiple doctor visits, medications & missed work due to the use of GS makeup. Also stated I wanted to find out how to get a refund for the $150 in GS i bought for gifts that I could not give to family since it was obviously dangerous. This was the rather cavalier response I received. I am less than pleased with how this was handled, to say the least.

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 This is a company that caused me to miss a WEEK of work due to pinkeye from their Matte Pink Collection; later in December I used Elizabeth's collection which is NOT on the recall list; three colors the green/grey and a blue to which I also had re-occurring pinkeye; thus so, I don't consider *any* of this companies products SAFE. I ordered all of these from a "deal", personally discounted to me by Lela Warren (owner, GlitterSnifferCosmetics) around Black Friday.

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*Here's the Glittersniffer debaucle from a year or so ago: I bought a bunch of colors from her shop, including a peachy pink color. I don't like pink, but I like matte peachy pinks on my lids. When I got my order, it wasn't there, but there was a barbie pink and a matte hot pink instead. I messaged her and said I figured there must be some mistake, but she said no, she just didn't have the one I ordered, and sent those instead.  

Now to this I replied that I wish she had simply told me, since I don't enjoy pinks and would gladly wait for her to make the requested pigment again, or just get a refund. As it stood, I now had TWO colors I didn't want instead of the one I paid for.

She outright refused to make more of the color I wanted, and said she wouldn't refund me since she sent the other two colors. This did not sit well with me. I told you what I wanted, paid for it, you sent me something else. Fix it or give me my money back, right? Well, I told her my opinion in a far more polite but no less firm manner. It went like this (verbatim c&p):

Me: Yeah, I would like you to send the color I selected. It may have seemed a kindness at the time, but I would have preferred to be notified that the color I wanted wasn't available. I would rather have waited than receive two pinks I am totally uninterested in. I do like the new jars, btw.

She basically said that she didn't have Skyla at the moment, and that the two pinks she sent should more than make up for it.
Whatever, I put negative feedback on the order. Not of out spite, but out of honesty, citing that the pigments were great, but the seller did not communicate well, to which she sent, no lie, just... "Huh?!" Because I had put my negative feedback up.

Her: I will not ship you a new Skyla until you fix that negative feedback. That is unfair.

Me: "Huh?!" Nothing. What a cute joke. You are being immature. I will fix the negative feedback when I receive the item. I am not going to put positive feedback on something I don't have, and apparently wasn't going to get until I complained. You need to work on your customer service. If you had simply sent me a note, like you are now, that Skyla wasn't available, this wouldn't happen. As it is, all you need to do at this point is send me what I paid *money* for. At that point the transaction is settled and you will receive better feedback, although at this rate it won't be better than neutral if you don't fix your attitude. Negative feedback means your customer service isn't 100%, you aren't perfect. That's business. Twisting my arm won't get you what you want.
If you went to a restaurant, ordered a salad and then were given pasta with no explanation, you would assume a mistake had been made. Once you told the waiter to bring your salad, what would you say if he said "I'll bring you your salad, but only if you promise never to say anything to anyone, or give me a good tip. THEN I'll bring you your salad" I hope you'd laugh in his face and call the manager, because that's a steaming load.
I'm a nice person but you are handling this very, very poorly. Please send me the eyeshadow I selected and paid you for. Thank you.

The reply I got? ...
Nothing but negative feedback on my 3 purchases, along with this remark: Buyer got free product and still had the nerve to complain. Pretty uncouth in my opinion.

To her merit, she sent me a Kiss and Make Up like a month and more later, but I had moved on and didn't care to accept. The only reason I went through the bother of even posting this was to warn people that she might not be the best seller in the customer service dept. Then I noticed that her makeup shop on etsy is straight up gone, but it does look like she has a new site up. I wish her all the best. Link

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A few years ago, I gave up all my worldly possessions and traveled the country for a while. I threw out all of my make up, gave my jewelry to Goodwill, and said fairway to things I, at the time, deemed frivolous and superficial. I spent this time contemplating the meaning of beauty and it's place in my life. Eventually, I rejoined the real world and settled down, got a job, met a man, and had a baby. But I had a hard time letting go of my personal feelings towards cosmetics. Most of them are harmful to humans and animals alike.
After my pregnancy, I really let myself go. My life was all baby all the time. I stopped getting my hair cut. I gained weight. My skin broke out with acne. And I did nothing about it. Last March I looked in the mirror and hardly recognized myself. I sunk into a deep depression. I didn't feel like myself any more. I didn't want to leave the house- the girl who once ran around the country freely couldn't leave the house.

Then I met redacted. redacted is an activist full of love and joy for the world around her. She inspired me to enjoy the artistry of make-up. She encouraged me to explore my options and enlightened me to the world of mineral make up. She taught me that I could take time for myself without harming the world arond me. One of the first companies she recommended was GlitterSniffer.

I joined the fan page at her urging and, just my luck, there was a contest. What an awesome way to introduce myself to something new- I could work on a project from my home, enter a photograph, and get some free product. If I liked it, I could buy more. Not only did I enter, but I won! My flower-pots were picked as the "Most Creative" in the storage contest. My prize was supposed to be 10 pots of free pigments. I contacted Lela right away with the colors I was interested in trying then waited by my mail box for a package that would never come.

After e-mailing her twice with no response, I figured it was my fault. It was unfair of me to collect winnings from a company that I had never purchased from.

I watched the fan page and was, initially, very impressed. The girls seemed supportive of each other and constantly complimented one another. I got the sense that this wasn't just a make-up company. This was a community.

I e-mailed her again regarding the safety of her product (specifically pinks and blacks) and their use on children. This is where the screen cap I posted on the complaints page fits in to my time line (see above). My daughter was going to a fairy party and I had a great out fit for her. I asked redacted if I could borrow some GS to dust redacted's cheeks with. I was actually a little surprised that Lela stated they were safe for a 2 year old. Since children's skin is more sensitive than adults, very few cosmetic products are considered safe for kids that young. Thank goodness I decided against using it.

Even though I've had the opportunity to ask her about this specific incident via the complaints page, I still don't feel like the issue was resolved. She dodged the question or ignored the heart of the issue issue. It's not just that she felt what she was selling was safe. She actually stated that all her colors INCLUDING pinks were "natural minerals" when, in fact, they were not. If she lied about pinks to me then, how do I know she's not lying about other colors now? How am I supposed to feel sure that there aren't other colors in my collection that aren't natural mineral pigments?

Of course, hindsight is always 20/20. In June there was a sale. At that time she had started offering priority shipping options. I made my first order that I had intended to ship it priority, but there was no priority option listed. I made my order without adding priority shipping and e-mailed her directly after the order. I asked if she could re-list priority shipping and I could purchase it separately for this order. She said that would be fine. I waited for the re-list that never came. I e-mailed her back with in 24 hours asking why it hadn't happened yet, only to be told I couldn't get priority shipping because my order had been processed. I was also told that I should have contacted her prior to making the order. If you were around the GS page this summer, you know how quickly her sales frequently went. Sometimes hundreds of items would be gone in minutes. Asking to make contact before ordering a sale item was pretty much asking customers to do the impossible. Especially when I considered how many times I had e-mailed her in the past and gotten no response.

Still, I blamed myself. My shipment arrived and I was content for the time being. Over the next few months, I spent close to $200 trying new colors. While I was enjoying my new color palette, I began to notice some issues in this "community" I was once proud to have found. Anyone who said something negative, even if it was just constructive criticism, was immediately bullied, bashed, or banned by the GlitterSniffer in-crowd. There was very obviously a clique and I was clearly not a member. If a member of the clique posted pictures, people would rave. If someone new posted pictures, they were largely ignored.

I had a few issues with my orders over the coming months. A missing pigment here, a pack of randoms missing there. These issues were usually resolved quickly and without issue- as long as I e-mailed frequently and persistently. By August, I began to suspect that what she claimed was issues with her e-mail address was actually her selective responses to customer issues.

My last straw with GS was this. On July 22 I placed an order for a random pack. I got a call from redacted asking if I could order one for her too. I made a second order within a few hours of my first. I paid for shipping for both orders and assumed that they would be packaged separately since that's what I paid for. They were not. She charged me full-price shipping on two separate orders but shipped them together for less than what I paid in shipping.

I figured it wasn't worth the hassle of e-mailing her over $2 shipping. Not, when I considered, how many times I'd have to e-mail her in order to get a response.

After watching drama on the fan page for another month, I gave up on GS all together and walked away. I figured it was pointless to say anything about my issues, as I was sure I'd just be attacked.

My hopes of finding a positive community to help me learn about MMU were dashed and I went back to my life. I continue to look for quality mineral cosmetics, but I'm terrified to try anything after my horrific experience with GS. How do I know I can trust a company? How do I know other companies aren't telling lies just to pacify their customers?

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This is only for chrome serum, not for pigments. After reading the reviews about chrome serum, I decided to test mine on my arm before trying it on my eyes in hopes I wouldn't have an adverse. I had to quickly remove it because it began to create a burning sensation on my skin within minutes. It's been 24 hours since I did this test, and I still have marks from it. I have thrown it out because if it was that painful on my arm, what in the world would it do to my eyes?

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In October of 2010, I received my first official Glittersniffer order - 6 random pigments. I had received No Nonsense, Profanity, Brass Knuckles, Flickr, Miniature Animal Parade, and one other pink (which I can't recall the name of) . I didn't like most of the pigments, so I traded a majority of them away, including the pink I can't seem to remember. However, I did keep Profanity. I am now aware that this pigment has been filed on the recall list.

The first time I used Profanity, I used it with 2 other GS colors. Half way through the day, I noticed that it was becoming really painful to blink, or look in any direction other than straight ahead. I took a quick trip to the restroom, to find that my right eye had become pretty red. I looked closely at my eye, noticing that something looked "off" about my cornea. I poked at my lower lid, and watched as the pressure from my lid SLID my cornea around on my eye; wrinkling, folding, and moving my cornea. My cornea had become loose! I felt like a freak of nature. In a panic, I ran back to my computer and researched everything I could find. I quickly found out that this is a form of an allergic reaction. The condition lasted about a day after use, then subsided. Thinking GS was safe, I blamed myself, thinking that I was allergic to a pollen, or something. A few weeks later, I attempted to dupe the look I had done the day of my reaction. The same thing happened, once again. My cornea became loose, wrinkled, and folded. Since then, I have not used these three GS colors, and have not had a problem. It could have been any of the three colors, but I only remember Profanity in particular.

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I ordered many times from Glittersniffer over almost a year. None of the orders I made with the company ever arrived to me correct, if they arrived at all. Four orders, totaling over $140.00 never arrived. With each issue, incorrect or missing, I contacted Lela. I explained, in each email I explained the issue, provided my information (I would often screenshot the Etsy purchase into the email) and provide line by line feedback. One of the following responses always occurred: my email was ignored for multiple weeks, I received an email asking for my paypal address (after about a week,) I received an email saying "it was shipped" (despite that my original contact explained that the shipping info hadn't updated in weeks.) Usually I would get a promise that it would be fixed, but as I said, four of my packages never arrived and none of my orders (even when a replacement was sent) were correct. 

I had used Glittersniffer products exclusively for about a year. The last purchase of items I received was the Charity collections. I purchased all three, to donate to charity. Personally I have literally several hundred pots of Glittersniffer products and only purchased this product because of its charitable association. When I used colors from the collections for the first time I immediately noticed issues. My eyes burned and became sore, my vision became blurry. This was directly related to the charity collection pigments. I took the makeup off, but continued to have issues with my eyes. The intense pain and blurred vision lasted for nine (9) days total. I was diagnosed as having corneal abrasions (scratches on the cornea) due to the texture of the pigments and their glitter. The glitter in the product was large enough to see its shape with the naked eye. I do not feel that the glitter in these colors is cosmetic safe. It has been over a month since my injury and I continue to have issues with my eyes. They are now more sensitive to irritation whenever I wear makeup, no matter the kind. I believe that I may be permanently injured from these products. I'm afraid I will have to give up wearing makeup permanently.

In the past I had encountered similar issues from Glittersniffer products (I used them exclusively for almost a year.) Many other pigments from Glittersniffer would cause blurry vision and watery eyes. Although I own them, I rarely used pinks or most of the colors listed on the recall list, so I believe that there are more unsafe pigments than the recall list contained.  I never associated my reactions to the makeup, but I can now say with certainty that all eye issues and vision problems I have encountered in the past 12 months can be directly attributed to my use of Glittersniffer eye makeup. Until the use of these products I did not have any issues with my eyes or eye sensitivity. My eyes were very healthy, they no longer are.

I wanted to share my experience in hopes that those people who are still wearing the product might learn that these pigments are not safe, and the true danger they pose. I was afraid of mentioning any issues I had on the fan page, as I saw that Lela would direct fans to bully anyone who did so on the fan page. Attempts to share my request for a refund after Lela posted that she would be giving refunds resulted in intense harassment by current fans and a full ban with my comment deleted.  I feel that since the fan page is so stringently censored to remove any negative information about the products, there needs to publicity elsewhere about personal experiences.

At the time of publication the majority of people in this post are still waiting on refunds.

Thank you to all who shared.