Hello friends and happy Thursday! Last Sunday I hit you with a super lengthy, in-depth review of the “Pirates of the Caribbean” Lorac collection, which I think lends perfectly into this not so lengthy, more opinion based post that I am posting today.

Today I really wanted to talk about why I am so sick of anything marketed to me as “limited edition” or “limited quantity”. I think I touched on this in my Palette Mayhem post, but marketing a makeup item, collab, or collection as limited edition is a marketing strategy that basically manufactures an artificial demand.

What I mean by artificial demand is this: by saying something is limited edition, or more panic inducing, “limited quantity”, it is giving you the message of a few items versus a large amount of people who want it. Like that game Hungry Hungry Hippos, we think when a product drops that a million people are all  going to try to add 500 eyeshadow palettes to their Sephora carts all at once, and if we are not fast enough we’re going to miss out and everyone is going to rock that palette but you (despite it probably looking like everything else you already have) and everyone else’s lives are going to be radically changed but yours.

Are you honestly telling me that companies like Tarte, Urban Decay, Kat Von D Beauty etc do not have the manufacturing means to make sure all of their customers can have access to their products? Of coarse they do – but why would there be a reason for everyone to grab their new products unless they were given a reason to believe they would be special for owning it?

Admit it, you’ve fallen for it before, I know I have, and I have also seen the same items I’ve set alarms for to buy re-released over and over and over (and eventually go on sale) and I’ve felt stupid for ever buying it in the first place.

Seriously – how many times is the Pastel Goth palette going to be re-released????

I feel like this happens the most often with collaborative products, like when a youtuber collabs with a big brand or a brand releases a themed collection like the Pirates/Lorac collection – and I think there is a definite, huge difference between honestly not knowing how popular an item will be and literally not creating enough units over getting everyone all riled up and knowing exactly how much to sell and when to bring items back. These companies have huge marketing teams and know exactly what they are doing, and since we keep falling for it, it’s going to keep happening and we’re going to continue to buy sub par crap we don’t need.

Okay – going to stop myself for a minute because I feel like when I do these opinion type posts I get very disorganized and cluttered in my thoughts: so I am going to break this up into categories:

Seasonal Collections:

Companies make collections of products for different seasons or holidays, that’s pretty standard. Obviously by default these are going to be limited edition because it won’t be Spring forever, or the holidays forever etc. Makeup trends come and go, so companies need to release a lot of products to keep up with these trends.

Sometimes products might start as a seasonal release and the demand becomes so high they turn permanent or come back for a minute. An example I can think of is the Smashbox “Light It Up L.A. Lights” Palette. This palette was a holiday release that was basically sold out the second it hit the shelves, it was great quality and people loved it so much that it became impossible to get – then I saw it on the Ulta website’s new arrivals page in early April. As far as I know, Smashbox didn’t make a big deal about re-releasing this product, it’s not even on their official website. That’s great for me, since I was bummed I couldn’t get it last December and now I own it without having to find it price gouged on Ebay, cool.

In contrast, Lorac’s “California Dreaming” eyeshadow palette is on sale (and sold out) right now probably after not selling as well as they hoped it would for their Spring line. Not enough people bought it so they dropped the price and got rid of their stock – it was truly limited edition, and now we’re all going to move on and worry about the summer (then before you know it, the holidays).

I WILL STRESS, THOUGH! That the holidays produce the most “gotta sell it fast” crap possible. Think of all the palettes, gift sets, collections etc that get released from every brand during the holidays – do you ever hear anyone talk about them when the holidays are over? Do you see beauty gurus busting out their “Christmas in New York” Too Faced palettes that came in the super cute cardboard mansion in the spring because the shadows were such good quality and amazing? No. When things are limited edition there is less pressure on companies to invest in quality (especially during Christmas panic) so by the time you realize something was bad they already made their money and it’s off the shelves anyway.

When something is permanent there is much greater pressure to get everything right because people are going to be reviewing it, telling their friends about it, hopefully repurchasing it etc so the money a company will be making relies on it’s lasting power. Look at the “Modern Renaissance” palette from Anastasia Beverly Hills: that palette is virtually perfect when it comes to quality, so people rave about it, it is CONSTANTLY in the top selling spot on Ulta.com, and people therefore recommend it and buy it. There is no need to create an artificial hype for it, because the hype is real and worth it.

Hopefully my point about quality is making sense here? Anyway, let’s move on.

Low Supply But High Demand:

Sometimes companies legitimately do not realize how high demand a product will become, and just don’t have the means to make enough products (especially with smaller, indie brands). I remember when I first heard of Juvia’s Place (a small indie brand), huge youtubers like NikkieTutorials and KathleenLights talked about their palettes, created hype, and such a small brand then became overwhelmed to the point where their website was crashing and any restock was reselling in seconds.

I think this could and maybe does happen to bigger brands (maybe Too Faced Sweet Peach?) but probably less often because these companies have the means to mass advertise and definitely have the resources to predict how many units will be sold and therefore how many should be made. My question is, how many Peach palettes are sitting around in Sephora’s and Ulta’s now? We were all told it was life changing and bought it, it became permanent, so now what? It’s a good palette, but it’s definitely not my most reached for palette, so maybe leaving it limited edition (even for a second release) might have been a good thing? Who knows.

Something I definitely think should have never been released again was the Tarte x Grav3yardgirl “Swamp Queen” collection. If you don’t know, Grav3yardgirl (aka Bunny) is a very successful youtuber who did a very, VERY successful collab with the brand Tarte which included an eye + cheek palette, and two lipsticks. These was yet another bunch of products that sold out instantly everywhere. I know I personally tried desperately to get the palette on it’s first release and could not find it anywhere (I am a HUGE fan of Bunny), and was totally bummed out as were lots of people who tried to get it. Imagine my surprise when Bunny and Tarte announce the collection was coming back in what was described as “very limited quantity” a few months later. It has literally been on Tarte’s website ever since, always in stock, and has gone on sale several times.

Now, I didn’t try extremely hard to get it the first time, I didn’t camp out outside of my local Ulta or anything, but I know a LOT of people did, so now something they perceived as being so special has lost a lot of that value. Is it still the same quality as before? of coarse, but the sentiment has been taken away, and we are stuck (yet again) with something that we thought would be awesome and collectable which is now probably just sitting in our drawers. I’ve actually seen people get mad at Bunny in her comment sections describing the effort they had to go through to get her collection the first time, and how frustrated they now feel that it’s back. Is it Bunny or Tarte’s fault for creating the hype, or is it the consumer’s fault for putting so much emotion into a purchase? Maybe a little of both.

I know when KathleenLights did a collab with Morphe the palette sold out instantly, which caused people to get very upset, so months later the palette was re-released for a limited supply again and now it is gone for good. Did this leave Kathleen, Morphe, and the customers all happy? Probably, in my opinion, as close to making everyone as happy as possible.

Collaborations:

This leads perfectly into the biggest culprit of creating limited edition hype – collaborations. Companies will team up with influencers, other brands, movies or artists etc to create special, supposedly collectable, limited edition products.

This used to be a sort of rare thing, and for a major brand to collab with a youtuber was thought to be really special and awesome and great for the influencer – but now that it has become so common place (probably due to the initial successes + the money influencers are making for these companies) I can literally think of like 10 really hyped youtuber/brand collabs being pushed as we speak.

Obviously, sometimes a collab produces an amazing product and everyone is happy (Jaclyn Hill x Becca’s “Champagne Pop”), but other times collabs are so hyped up but turn out to be garbage, leaving people pissed off and mad at the collaborator rather than the actual company making the product (NikkieTutorials x Too Faced’s “Power of Makeup”).

Also, unlike the example of KL I used earlier, sometimes collabs are marketed as limited edition, then constantly brought back time after time again, each time being told it is the last restock only to be brought back AGAIN (Manny MUA x Makeup Geek?) – are companies trying to meet demand or just make as much money as possible, again, probably both.

And finally – sometimes things are brought back “due to high demand” just a little too quickly and a little too suspiciously? Almost like it was planned? Almost in completely unrealistic time frames (a company needs some time to physically produce a line of products)???

Going back to NikkieTutorials who recently did a collab with Ofra Cosmetics. As expected the collab sold out really fast, Nikkie and Ofra thanked everyone for their support, and moved on – except not really. Nikkie then just casually mentioned in a video she was asking upper management of Ofra to bring back the collab “for her fans”, then crazy enough not only was the collab brought back (really fast, in my opinion – like a lot of the re-released I mentioned earlier happened over the span of months, but this was within a month tops) but Ofra also flew Nikkie to Flordia for a meet and greet and more mass promo of this collection. Does this seem ridiculous to anyone else? (clearly not since the gossip community on youtube has been freaking out over this unrealistic time frame as well)

This honestly brings me to the entire point of this longer than expected blog post – we have got to stop falling for this as consumers! The reality is that “limited edition” truly does not make the majority of products any more valuable or higher quality, and you’ll probably have multiple chances to buy it anyway.

Say what you want about Jeffree Star, but his collab with Manny MUA seems pretty successful, sold out as expected, and he has stated since the very first release that their will be one more final restock of the collab in the summer but then that is it. Cool, thanks for keeping us in the loop! Hopefully this is honestly true.

But to literally prey on consumers (and for collaborators, their fan bases), create hysteria and then produce garbage that you know we’re going to eat up is becoming seriously ridiculous.

This is my call to YOU guys as consumers to not fall for it, to make smart decisions, to ask yourself if something is really worth the value you are assigning to it? Sure you should support your favorite influencers and companies, but please stop setting your alarms to get something as soon as it launches, stop buying things because they have a new name on it even though you already have those colors, stop supporting this blatant exploitation of the phrase “limited edition”. It’s really not that valuable, I promise.

I get it – it’s not that serious, and it’s just makeup, but I just feel like things being actually, literally limited edition have become so rare that it’s annoying to even hear the phrase. The only product I can even think of that was marketed as limited edition, sold out, then truly never brought back from the Anastasia Beverly Hills Master Palette by Mario (I even had trouble finding a place to link you guys to, which is why that link takes you to Macy’s).

And you know what – that was a high quality palette and probably the last neutral’s palette you’d ever need, so I’m sure the people who own it are pretty happy with it.

To wrap up: stop letting companies take advantage of you, be a smarter consumer, and don’t fall for the hype: at the end of the day even if something really is limited edition and you missed out on it, you’re going to be fine and life will move on and you’ll buy something else that will make you happy – I promise (and don’t buy inflated LE products off ebay either, seriously – stop it).

I challenge you – the next time you want to immediately grabbed a limited edition, hyped up thing to stop yourself, wait for the reviews, go through your collection and see if you already have something like it, and honestly decide if it’s actually worth it to buy or not.

If you’re interested in learning more about making smart consumer decisions or need some inspiration to stop shopping, you should check out my fairy godmother of not falling for product hype: Kimberly Clark (seriously, her anti-haul series gets me through a lot of the “but I need it” shopping withdrawals).

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Anyway, I hope this post got you thinking a little bit on what is worth spending your money on, and if anything maybe I was mostly talking to myself in this post since we all know I am addicting to shopping and fall for this kind of stuff all the time.

Thank you to all the support from everyone who reads my blog (seriously, I freak out whenever someone talks to me about my blog because it all feels so silly to me). If you haven’t already, please subscribe if you are a wordpress user, or sign up for email alerts.

Also check out my instagram (spookylipsandfathips), and if you have any ideas for things you want me to write about (whether it is a review, something opinion based, a tutorial etc) please let me know! Have a great weekend!

-Lacie ❤︎❤︎❤︎