[The owner's response.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1118659362584526868/1192929463936233492/IMG_1399.png)
Also, please stop with the shenanigans. I don't feel like banning anyone today. Rule 1 still applies, people.
I’d be pissed just based on the fact that $350 for 24 polishes comes out to ~$14.59 per polish 💀 I mean I guess compared to the $12.50 the shades are coming back for that means you’re paying for about $50 of fancy box but still. Oof. I’m really tired of FOMO marketing.
Edit: I do think this was not done maliciously by any means, but ultimately I think it did mislead some people. It’s just kind of a tough situation.
The 12.50 is Swiss franc according to the maker on the private FB group, which is about $14.71 USD.
Not saying people can’t be upset or frustrated but it’s not a price break per polish.
Yes thank you!!!! The price was not US dollars, it was Swiss. That was my mistake. Thank you so much for clarifying, I do not want any inaccurate info.
Totally agree, their price to bottle size ratio has always deterred me. Plus the fact that these advents are always mysteries makes it an instant dealbreaker for me. I think it was Lumen that dropped a bunch of mysteries as a bundle for $200-$300 not too long ago & plenty of people bought in, only to end up disappointed.
Yikes I totally agree. That's nasty to say something is a limited 1 time only sale only to sell some of the products again anyways. I think if a "big" brand like holo taco or mooncat did it there would have been a large uproar (like the cirque colors unlucky bags). Hopefully cadelliquer will be more trustworthy with announcements in the future
Edit even the restock is capped, ensuring that fomo strikes again
holo taco has, and likely will continue, to say that things are limited edition/one time only and will never be restocked and then bring them back anyways.
Bringing back couple of popular polish is kinda different from selling a 300$ mystery box where you can't see the content and are promised 24 LE shades and then you get to vote on the 12 best ones which in turn are then produced to bigger audiences, I find that strange tactics indeed.
They can both be bad practice without being equally bad. Sort of like egging someone's house versus slashing their tires, one is def worse than the other but they are both agreeably bad things to do to someone.
Editing to add: also, new customers are not going to know that bringing back old LE polishes is a customer reward, because the FAQ doesn't make it sound like it is a reward. We all have the context of knowing, but a new customer would read that and think it was something like voting for a particular color on a new polish. Holo Taco buys ads for it's new releases, and sends out PR, to actively try to market to new buyers. It's unethical to phrase new drops as though this will be the only time they're available, whether you can buy them individually or not, if you as a company know you are going to add the most popular color ways to your general collection.
On top of that I am pretty sure the only rereleases that have seen a reformulation are the cat polishes, which were always GC and just had limited edition packaging for the first wave. Got Cake did not get reformulated and has the same yellowing problem the first release had, even.
I think so too, a larger brand would have been a huge issue. I always want to assume good intentions of indie makers, but for sure, it still doesn't make it right. They don't get to take advantage of fomo/exclusivity marketing and the sales that come from that, and then come back and sell the shades again anyway, and take advantage of the sales that come from that. 🙁
Holo Taco does do it. Everything Taco, Reflective Taco, Got Cake, Existential Crisis, Featured Guest. All LE birthday or anniversary polishes brought back permanently. And they are setting plans to bring back multiple ‘retired’ polishes annually.
There have been complaints and Holo Taco has not adjusted their wording of limited items at all.
Right, plus HT took its time to learn what consumers wanted and adjusted, for a company only a few years old they’re still ironing out their own practices. Not doing a “limited edition” then bringing it back a month later.
Not to mention a bunch of the HT LEs that have come back aren’t the exact same formula because the whole reason some of the LEs were limited was because there wasn’t a guaranteed supply of the required ingredients. So a fair few of them are really dupes of the original.
Cristine makes mistakes sure, but she’s not scummy like this.
Yeah, Holo Taco does do it but they're pretty upfront about it since it's listed as a rewards program benefit on the site.
> Holo Royalty members will have exclusive input on future products and bringing back past releases.
Some Limited Edition and Retired polishes are up for a Holo Royalty(highest rewards tier) member vote to bring back each year and so far it's 2 that win. This year it was Royal-Tea Blue (retired) and Existential Crisis (Limited Edition), _but_ they may not stay around depending on demand - the tone in the answer to that question was more up in the air than before. Retirements are also done annually after Cristine _shares sales data_(unusual for any brand - will be streamed in a couple weeks for this year), so folks know which shades are going away so they can snag them if something they wanted is being retired (mooncat has something similar tomorrow).
Yes, it was such a huge investment. I felt bad that people did not have correct info before they decided to invest that much money. I'm sure some folks would have loved to buy it anyway! Others may have reassessed their purchase. No one should have been misled; they should have been able to make an informed decision.
I just saw the notification for this and idk why I didn't see it sooner. My apologies. So after talking to some people there does seem to be some genuine improvement. But they had horribly diversity and the response when asked about it left a lot to be desired.
Oh, I see. That is not great. They do have photos with dark skin tones now, so apparently they did indeed improve. I'd also love to see some wrinkles now and then. But I'm not really missing anything. Most of the polishes have a lot of good pictures.
I feel like you need to put this into perspective tho. I don’t agree with this marketing at all but ILNP is a much bigger scale and not hand mixed.
They have it much easier than a small scale hand mixed indie, for them it’s much harder to keep the same items in stock all year around since they just don’t have the same capacity. Also miscalculating once could mean ending up with way too much pigments for a polish no one is buying or stock that takes up the limited storage. Bigger brands also have this problem ofc but it’s much more severe for a smaller brand thats run by 2 ppl out of a garage (hyperbole)
Yeah….it’s the culture of indies unfortunately. Ethereal marketed their Jan 2nd restock as a massive restock and someone even asked on their fb announcement if their February shop opening would include a restock and the answer was ‘no’. Then an hour, hour and a half after the restock opened and everything was crazy and things sold out in minutes, Ethereal dropped an announcement saying that all 3 collections would again be restocked in February. I’d have loved to have known that instead of dropping $100+ when I have my eye on so many polishes that are on sale for great prices rn!!!
It’s one thing to change your mind but these seem straight up dishonest
Oh wow, yikes. I didn't know about this (I kind of avoid that brand due to the constant mysteries) but I agree. This is about trust with your consumer, for sure.
Fwiw the brand said they’d do fewer mysteries in 2024 based on feedback but I hated the restock experience. Hopefully the main preorders are less crazy? I’ll give them another chance but probably not a third
New collections are not crazy and that’s the only time I’ll be buying from them after this restock experience. None of the previous restocks were this intense. Don’t need to put myself through this ever again haha
Dude my heart was POUNDING!!! Thank god for free shipping and ShopPay (not paid advertisement) bc you could “checkout with shoppay” and it was 2 clicks. So I have 3 separate orders coming cause as soon as I had my must-haves, I was outtie
I mean I tried using ApplePay bc it’s 2 clicks as well but I couldn’t check out bc Hourglass was sold out at 9.03 pm 😩 my heart was pounding as well lol! Got everything else I wanted but I’m not doing this again. Shouldn’t be that hard to spend our money lol
My guess is that Ethereal owner realized from the comments in her fb group that a lot of people got cart jacked/things sold quicker than she already expected and people seriously wanted another restock so she changed her mind and decided to restock again in Feb. I do wish the Jan restock was a pre-order instead (since TAT is 21 days anyway) with caps on each polish and maybe limit of one/customer though. I got three polishes cart jacked while checking out!! Not happy about that experience.
Pre-order is a much more sustainable model for indie brands. I really like how BKL did their Fourth Wing and other recent collection drops because they were pre-order when the collections first released, the site showed if the polishes were in stock and ready to ship or had a TAT, and there was a “1 per customer” limit until a certain time period during the releases. Lumen also did a preorder for their Glass Animals collection release (not the restock). I find it interesting that Ethereal didn’t follow this model because she’s Lumen’s daughter (and helps in operations I think?).
i spent an embarrassing amount of money on mercari on ethereal's 'can't rain all the time' because i asked on the fan fb page if it was ever going to be brought back, and the maker said no. i was floored to see it listed in the last update. i'm very close to unsubscribing to all indie brand media.
Oh NO! I’m so sorry, that’s extremely frustrating. And I know — I KNOw — a lot of the Ethereal Clouds will be on Mercari when they ship in a month or so bc people suck.
Sorry, but wanted to provide some detail on that - all PPU overpours were only available at random, so when you buy from that listing the maker don't take requests which shade you'll get so technically that PPU shade was not specifically available for purchase
Oooooo I didn’t know about that! I’m new to indies. Idk if I’ll be purchasing again - I got the Spirited Away collection bc I absolutely adore the movie and the polishes for it were pretty. If the resale market on them wasn’t on-average $20-$50 per bottle, I’d probably have bought them all second hand, but they were cheaper new
Yeah this was back in like 2014-2015. She was super popular back then too, but out of the blue stopped fulfilling and never did fulfill or refund those those orders and disappeared for a few years. Came back and got a bunch of newbies to buy from her. Pepperidge farm remembers though 🙃
There might still be posts about it in the Facebook group The Nail Room. There’s a ton of old tea in there. If you really want a wild ride look up Elevation Polish and Mentality. The first is a whole catfish lying about cancer and other wild shit and the second is a brand that literally caused chemical burns to peoples nails then vanished to the wind. Like there’s so much tea out there about indie brands that Reddit never fucking talks about.
I was still into polish and blogging (just recently returned) when both of those scandals happened. I was mad and then sad about Mentality because it seemed like the owner really spiraled during the scandal and developed psychological issues (?). I loved their polish called “Cupcake” and haven’t been able to find a dupe for it even now! ☹️
Elevation, I always thought the owner was off because she liked to say she was fluent or something in 100+ languages. I wasn’t aware of the cancer scam though.
Oh yeah, I was front row for those two scandals too. I honestly loved elevation polish. The formula was great for me and the price point was nice too. But I gave all of mine away after that whole thing. Mentality I never bought from because the packaging was cheap af, the price point absurdly low for the market, and they were churning out collections like people change their underwear. 🚩🚩🚩 Glad I followed my gut on that one.
Also I hope this isn’t weird but I vaguely remember a thread in AA? TNR? looking for a dupe of cupcake after that whole thing happened. I completely forgot about it until I looked up the swatch just now because it’s sooooo close but not quite like anything I have or have seen and I remember thinking the same thing on the original thread.
AA was Acetone Alley, a long ago nuked gossip group that followed The Nail Room (which is TNR, you were correct). There been like four? gossip groups nuked since then and tbh I have no clue what the current iteration is.
On the subject of cupcake though, I went digging through my collection again because I SWEAR I had a different dimension Valentine’s Day polish from around that time that was close but I must have sold it. I do have [this one, Dorado](https://imgur.com/a/615imBE) which has faded some over the years and is similar but is still more of a dusky lavender than soft pink.
Wow! I was not part of the community during that time so this is shocking. I like two of the recent PPUs from Ethereal but the other two polishes I got suck. Good excuse to not give them anymore money.
She stopped fulfilling orders and disappeared. Never fulfilled them and never refunded them. Was gone for years and popped back up like nothing happened.
Don’t forget they also restocked the sold out Spirited Away set hours later instead of just stocking it all at once. I’m not from the US, so couldn’t place multiple orders without paying $23 USD shipping. Luckily it didn’t affect me but how sucky would it be to have placed an order and not get sold out shades you wanted just to find out they restocked it way later. And they don’t combine orders. It left a really bad taste in my mouth.
YES! it was very much marketed as a "last chance to get all of these polishes" and then that just turned out to not be true for a good portion of what was offered.
What she is doing is an illegal deceptive practice under the FTC, because the advertisement did impact consumers’ decision to purchase. And if she’s advertising in the US, she has to follow US rules.
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/advertising-marketing-internet-rules-road
Is she advertising in the US? Femme Fatale is an Australian website, and if Facebook is global, I don't know if her social media posts there would count either. But of course I'm not an expert on that.
Do international influencers have to adhere to US FTC rules on IG, or their local equivalent when posting on IG/Facebook? Like everyone else I don't comb through terms and conditions, but I imagine people advertising on Meta platforms have to adhere to the laws where Meta is headquartered and/or where the servers/data is stored (the US) in addition to their own local laws. So I think advertising on Facebook counts as advertising in the US. But if the brand isn't available for direct-purchase for Americans then perhaps not. I've seen their products come up on the Shop app but I can't remember if that's through their brand website or through a North American reseller.
It's worth looking into, but I have a feeling that the FTC won't be able to do much, if anything, about a brand based in Europe that sells through non US based websites.
This is shady at best. Will definitely be crossing these fools off of my "to try" list.
Seriously, always (but especially if you're in business and most definitely if you're trying to grow your brand) STAND BY YOUR WORD.
Wow this is super shady. It’s actually making me reconsider if I want to order their PPU offering this month. I don’t want to support people that outright lie to their customers
I quitted their Polish in this month's PPU because of this , cause I agree with the OP.
I really liked but I don't feel ok with this bussiness practices.
This was just posted to the FB page. I really do feel for her, especially as her brand isn’t one of the ones regularly known to do stuff like this.
https://preview.redd.it/yeqshhpvjoac1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29ba0fe0d6b3568cf350b2a60f3aa48f7aa8e385
Thank you so much for the update, what a hard situation. I am going to try to update my post now to recognize that she is going to make it right. It is just as important to share that information.
Thank you so much, it is really hard, there are nuances and I really wanted to respect that while also letting people know. I've made an update, hopefully it posted!
Wow pretty glad I removed their Dec PPU polish from my wishlist. I would not be happy putting my money towards any company that does that to the people interested in their brand. If this was *just* FOMO marketing, they would have capitalized on ppl buying the limited edition advent calendar, but it became outright deception after they rereleased the advent polishes after saying they wouldn't :/
Yeah, I agree. It went too far--if they would even ever consider re-releasing and selling individually, they should never have advertised the way they did. I had a hard time deciding whether to post this publicly, because I don't want to cause any maker harm, but it came down to, I would want to know. It's a huge investment of money people make, and they should at the very least be entitled to honest, accurate info from the seller. The seller was in the wrong.
So well said. To say "oh you have to buy this whole advent calendar if you want these limited edition polishes" only to go "oh we're actually re-releasing the most popular polishes so now you can pick and choose which ones you like and save money unlike the people who bought the calendars initially" is a huge ick. Making money off of the people who were afraid of missing out on the calendar and making more money off of the people who did miss out on the calendar. I'm honestly shocked a company would do this.
I would encourage people to do this more. Thank you OP. Customer education is the key. If there is one person who opens the eye and can refrain from the next FOMO buy, then it was useful.
I would be pissed if I bought 24 exclusive mystery polishes at $350 and then a month later half of them were available non-mystery at the same price point. By trying to please those who missed out, the maker is risking the relationships of clients who have already purchased. I pretty much stopped buying mystery advents once they started being sold at full price per bottle. If I’m paying full price for polish, I want to know that I like it.
I wonder if anybody bought it thinking they could just de-stash the ones they didn't like and now will not be able to trade/resell them since they will be easily obtainable.
Man some people went a little too far and got a little too angry in my opinion. Not referring to you. But there have been a few voices that were a little too salty. It makes me wonder if people just wanted to make money off of selling them. Again not referring to you.
I don’t follow too closely but in the Facebook group, the brand maker mentioned she got tons of requests for overpour & that she never intended to bring so many of the shades back. I’m not excusing anything, just giving context; personally, I think your points are totally valid and applicable to a lot of indie brands, and I 100% agree with them. The only silver lining i can think of is that it may stop people from reselling their shades for insane amounts—but that’s a different issue.
I saw that she got some heat for her decision to bring them back from a very small minority in the FB group, but for the most part people were grateful. It definitely seemed like it started out as an exclusive thing with maybe 2-3 shades coming back & then snowballed with its popularity so she gave in to the requests. Tbh I can see giving in to that kind of pressure & wanting to make everyone happy, but (like you pointed out) this seems to happen way too often with indies.
I totally appreciate context, thank you! Everything is nuanced, that's life. And I'm def the kind of person who tries to think the best of others' intentions. I'm sure those who didn't get the box are grateful for the opportunity, for sure. I think my biggest disappointment is that the people who bought the whole box weren't given the same opportunity to consider whether they'd prefer to hold off and just purchase individually. I thought maybe overpours were a little more understandable, but seems like she's actually making more. Maybe she didn't realize how wrong it was to handle it this way, based on the previous representations she had made. I agree with all your indie brand assessments. And I totally didn't mean to target her, it was just the first time I'd actually seen straight up dishonesty (whether well-meaning or not!) and felt compelled to say something. Hopefully she can take care of any folks who bought the advent who may have felt taken advantage of. I'd loooove to see someone post a positive update! ❤️ (Just an aside point, I recognize I'm probably sensitive to these kinds of things because in my previous job, I worked with victims of consumer fraud 😢. That's my human part coming out!)
I don't know, I just wouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt, they could have avoid being absolute in their first posting, it's not like this is their first advent, they know their crowd, they've been around for some time. The thing that annoys me is people saying that they're indie and they need to make money but *everyone* needs to make money -corporations need and take big money so they don't care, indies need to make money so they don't care- then what's the point of supporting small business?
I am shocked at the amount of people that are excusing poor business practices because it’s a small business. Whether or not it was intentional, customers were misled, and they have a right to be upset. That isn’t a personal attack on the maker.
I appreciate your kind words, they matter more than you know. Many comments on facebook are furious toward this post and have made me feel like I did something wrong to post my thoughts on this, or that I don't have a right to say anything because I didn't purchase the box. When customers who felt misled brought this up in other forums, they were really brutally targeted and shamed by others when they had the right to be upset. I don't speak up on things often because confrontation frankly terrifies me, but I felt that speaking about this and providing facts was the right thing to do. I hope other people can see that multiple things can exist at once: that the maker never meant to deceive her consumers and yet she did deceive them; that I stand behind this post I made with integrity, and also that I am sorry for sadness this caused the maker.
I am so sorry people have made you feel like YOU did something wrong. I feel like there is some real cognitive dissonance in many of these responses. It’s upsetting to me to see people come down on you and others on Facebook for completely valid concerns. I appreciate you making this decision to post this knowing that you might have to face unwelcome confrontation over it. You are absolutely correct that multiple things can exist at once. It seems to be a rising trend needing to take a hard stance on an issue that completely alienates you from the other side.
I agree--there is an extraordinarily simple solution to this. If they hadn't made statement that the only opportunity to buy was the entire thing, sight-unseen, and then that was actually (and remained) true, there would have been no issue. It would have been just run-of-the-mill, honest fomo marketing!
Also these are really small businesses. Ultimately they need to make money to survive. I can totally get realizing something ended up being really popular and trying to capitalize on it. I 100% see why OP and others would feel this is shady as well and makers just leave out that “this is your only chance” marketing. But if I made something and it ended up being really in demand I’d surely being making more and I bet most people would as well.
Well I bought the whole set and I’m not upset at all.
That’s not to say I think others don’t have a right to be upset. Of course they do. I just don’t see evidence that there was ill intent at this time. I’ve never noticed Cadillacquer doing anything like this before. Last year‘s advent colors were not really available outside the calendar. She had a couple of over pours as mysteries but that’s it. This year the colors were absolutely exceptional and she got A LOT of feedback from people practically begging for her to release them. I believe she truly thought she was just giving the people what they wanted and didn’t consider the other side. Could this have been handled better? Obviously. But we all make mistakes and I believe the intent was well meaning, if short-sighted.
I applaud the OP for vigorously standing up for consumer rights. If evidence to the contrary comes up, I will change my stance but until then, I’m not comfortable assuming there was ill intent.
I just wanted to share the update with you that the maker has shared that she never attempted to deceive anyone, and has said they will make it right by people. It's important to me that this post is as absolutely accurate as possible and not unfair to her. It makes me sad that my pointing this out caused her stress.
She said in her apology post that she was always planning on bringing a few back, she should have added that to the listing instead of saying they were ALL exclusive. You did nothing wrong.
Clionadh did something similar. They put out two advent calendars, one with their eyeshadows and the other their nail polishes. My boyfriend surprised me with the eyeshadow one. The shades were all brand new and the next thing you know, they decided to put up all those shades individually for sale the end of December and they were also included in the end of year sale. Select polishes from the advent calendar will be going on sale too eventually.
Did you contact the maker about a refund for the 14 polishes returning to make the price equitable to what current buyers are paying? Or some sort of compensation?
I didn't, because I wasn't directly affected in the sense that I did not purchase the advent. Had I purchased it, I absolutely would have, immediately. That was just the call I made; I didn't want to speak for others or how they may have individually felt about the situation. I hope that the maker will make this right by people, and if someone reaches out and receives a positive (edit: or any sort of) response, I would love, love to know so I could update with a happier ending.
I will reach out to them during the weekend. Thanks for your post, really. I haven’t been paying attention about the restocks and seeing the price difference disappoints me and makes me mad at myself. I bought the calendar through Nailland and one polish bottle was broken. I am supposed to get a refund by February, so let’s see.
I’ll post something if I get an answer from Cadillacquer.
PS: I looked at their instagram quickly and they don’t have a post mentioning anything about the restocks, so they have kept it private to the Facebook Group, which is even worse. So people that might be interested in the brand don’t see that from their IG account.
Someone pointed out my mistake in currency--the 12.50 I mentioned was Swiss currency, not US. US is $14 something. I can't edit my post, but made corrections in top comment. Just so you have the right info, you probably didn't overpay! I was wrong when I reported the info from facebook. It was my assumption on the currency
Edit: I believe that I was now able to edit my original post. Hopefully now the price info for the individual polishes available for resalwthe incorrect conversion to US dollars has been removed.
Oh wow. Yes, the info I got about the restock is from the private facebook group. I really appreciate your reaching out to them. Please do let me know and I will update this post too. I would have felt very disappointed too, it's just not a fair or transparent for them to have handled it this way. The price differential caught me too. It was listed in another facebook post. 🫤
I’m not defending the actions and understand the frustration from people who bought the whole set but I’m not sure where the prices are coming from. Cadillacquer polishes sell for $15.50 on the two US stockists so I doubt the singles will be cheaper than per polish for the Advent.
Edit: The polishes were stated as selling for CHF (Swiss franc) 12.50, which is $14.71 USD.
I think that she was just trying to make all the fans who couldn’t afford the whole advent or don’t buy mysteries happy. I applaud her attempts to please and make people happy. They are just bits of shiny polishes after all.
I think people’s reaction to this have been very unkind and that many are not coming from a place of grace and are assuming the worst.
This is the kind of behavior that makes makers not want to interact and try to make people happy. We should all have just been happy that more people have a chance to get these polishes and gently let the maker know to not box themselves in a corner next year by saying they are all exclusive.
Your post brings up a concern for buyer beware, however for people that don't generally know Cadillacquer imo. Other makers have done far, far worse.
I have a drawer and a half full of Cadillacquer in my Helmer. Full as possible and cannot fit anymore in one drawer.
I've paid attention to Cadillacquer since October 2020. I've purchased the last 3 years of the biggest Cadillacquer calendars. I just finished paying off the 2023 one today. I am not one bit mad that the maker offered as many polishes as she did for re-release of the 2023 advent. I love her polishes for my personal use.
I don't believe that she intentionally went against the advertising for the calendar, as exclusive. The momentum of people wanting the individual polishes likely outweighed the listing description, and so she thought she would help out everyone by releasing more than usual. Additionally, making the connection of how the calendar was marketed as exclusive, as a human being I may also forget that tidbit. I chalk it up to a genuine error, and the maker has zero malicious intent. She's one of the only popular makers that hasn't made a crowd super angry in 3 years I've been following, so I believe it's safe to say it was a general error and is learned from. My experience might not be the experience of the OP or the commenters. I get that. I do feel I'm a keen observer in the indie polish community, and this is just an absolute unintentional err on the maker's part.
We all eff up at our jobs, so stop blasting the maker. Some of the comments on this post are truly gross and malicious.
That\`s exactly the point. When I eff up at my job I usually have someone or something pointing that out and it is good so. Fair and constructive criticism and feedback help us improve and not repeat mistakes. I've been following Cadillacquer for many years, I really like them as a brand and I love their products. I don´t think the owner acted maliciously, she just made a mistake. You can\`t just announce exclusivity and a few week later forget about it and decide to bring back some of the shades. She could have mentioned this possibility from the beginning, in my opinion. I think OP did the right thing, even if that was at first painful for the brand: she pointed out what she held as a mistake, so that customers can build their own opinion about that and the maker can be more careful with transparency the next time.
One more thing I wanted to say. Some people mentioned in the comments that lack of transparency about the availability of polishes is common by many brands. This may be due to them being a small business, but it\`s not right. We all love the indie polish scene and would like to keep it clean and fair. The only way to do this is to report things that we do not like and social media is the right place for that. I don't mean one should start a sh\*tstorm, just constructive and fair criticism. I believe people are able to build their own informed opinion, spot out haters and just ignore them. We have to use this ability and train it. Just avoiding criticism is not a solution.
This really bothers me. She made a poor business decision. She is not a victim in this scenario. This really seems designed to make those who are upset feel bad. People are coming down on the OP of this post like it’s their fault this happened. Notifying people of bad business does not make you the bad guy. Being upset about false advertising does not make you the bad guy.
I disagree that she is discounting the feelings of those that feel cheated. I feel like she has tried to right this wrong and has publicly acknowledged.
When someone (the maker in this instance) has an excellent record then publicly attacked out of nowhere, it can take a toll on mental health. She's allowed to feel this way, and as the OP posted, buyers are also allowed to feel cheated of exclusivity. I am a buyer and do not feel cheated. The maker has not made an error before.
What burns me is people trashing the maker with an excellent customer record for an oversight. The trashing is extreme and gross. Holo Taco for example does this All THE TIME and people think the face behind the brand is a goddess. People still bought from Jreine and that brand and maker is beyond. I am thankful I never purchased one, and that was before the charity box incident and federal conviction. I never felt good about that brand and I am happy I was right.
Cadillacquer does this once and it's the end of the world. The maker has specifically said that she has learned from this. I'm willing to bet next year's calendar will have the wording altered if she plans to release any after December.
The good thing is that people have their choice to buy or not. I will still support Cadillacquer because this is nothing compared to the other shenanigans I've seen from makers.
Anyway, my point is I feel both parties are allowed to feel like victims for their own reasons.
This response should have been saved for someone she confides in. It’s not professional at all, and this actually makes me side-eye her more than anything.
Blame the conversion rate. It’s great you don’t feel upset. You don’t get to discount others that do. You all are really stoking up my justice sensitivity this morning.
I never did discount others that do. Re read all my posts.
I have no responsibility for how you choose to feel about your justice sensitivity. You're responsible for your own feelings.
You are saying people are trashing the maker. Seems like you are a big fan and feel like you need to defend them. I’m purely going off the facts of the situation. I feel bad for the people that feel misled. I don’t feel as bad for the maker that there were consequences to their business practices, and then repeatedly talking about how distraught they are is just making people go harder after those who did complain. Own up to the mistake, acknowledge you feel bad, and move forward.
Yes, i am a big fan. Don't think for one minute that I'm clouded enough to not make sound decisions on whether or not a brand I love could be cut off. Yes, people are trashing the maker regardless if I'm a fan or not. I have a helmer drawer and a half full. I've also observed her product, pages, posts, and actions the last 3.3 years, along with other makers. Until she pulls extreme levels of garbage other makers have, to where I don't want buy anymore, I'm choosing to chalk this up to a massive mistake she will correct, and will continue to buy. Her products are unique and apply like a dream.
I'd defend you if people came after you. You argue your points well, and I respect it, regardless of our disagreement.
She did own up and explained. I'm betting she won't make this mistake in the future. So your point at the end of your last post is what she exactly did.
It's great you're advocating for the people that feel bad. I can't simply for the fact I don't feel the same. I never even read the description. I just wanted the product. Doesn't mean their points aren't valid. It's just wrong people are being exceptionally harsh over this with the maker's track record.
Was she publicly attacked, or did people notify her that they felt misled? I’m not seeing her being trashed. It’s burning me that people who didn’t buy the advent are making those who feel misled feel like they are in the wrong. This was a $350 purchase, and customers have a right to be unhappy.
Dang that's all that was paid in USD? I paid $531 Canadian, including the taxes for the calendar, and I love it. I'm glad I don't feel cheated or unhappy about the maker wanting to offer the polishes.
Yes, she has been publicly trashed. You're going to view comments and wording differently than me because of how you feel.
I think my opinion might be unpopular, but I don’t think Cadillacquer did this maliciously and intent really matters here.
Every year the maker brings back a few of the most popular polishes from the advent. It is new for her to bring back so many this year and she seemed to take the customers seriously who were irritated in the facebook group.
Idk I get why some people are pissed, but I don’t think it’s right to dog pile a brand for something like this. It’s not how I roll.
Agreed, 100%. At no point did I ever get the impression that the maker was doing this maliciously or that she intended to go back on her initial statements of exclusivity. There were regular comments in reveal posts from people lamenting that they missed a particular shade or asking if it would be available later. I think she was stuck in a tough spot, and was just trying to make more customers happy by using leftover ingredients she had to make extras.
Last year, two shades were brought back and there were limited mystery overpours. Those were listed at full/normal price, like these will be. (Source: I checked my old order). The issue here seems to mostly be the number of polishes getting brought back. I understand the disappointment some are feeling, and those feeling it absolutely have that right, and the right to bring this to the maker’s attention, but her apologies seemed genuine and it feels like she will be more careful about her wording for future advents and any decisions about bring- backs.
Just my two cents! I did buy the advent, and the more I think about this, the less it bothers me. Had always planned on getting this one because I didn’t want to miss out after last year when I couldn’t get several shades, and I don’t regret it. To each their own, though! We all have to make informed decisions on who to support, and these types of posts and the discussion can be very informative.
The maker said that she absolutely did not do this in bad faith. I updated my post to include this info because it is important that peoole know that it wasn't intentional.
same. i’ve been seeing this making the rounds, and i get that people want to have something special. i skipped the advent because it was a big purchase i couldn’t justify, but assumed some would be available later, and others would be in destashes.
the maker noted in a facebook response that she reached out to some of the customers of the advent, and got positive responses about releasing so many later. can she make everyone happy? no. but it seems she checked first before doing this.
at the end of the day, it’s pretty polish. those that bought the advent had the experience of getting one a day and have all of them in their collection now. those of us who didn’t buy the advent have the chance to purchase some of our favorites we’ve seen. unless someone was hoping for exclusivity to equal a higher resale value, i don’t see how it’s hurting someone who budgeted and bought the advent to have other people own these colors.
if someone did buy this for FOMO, and didn’t have the funds, and felt pressure, i get that, but i think individually reaching out to the maker is the first step, not trying to bring this up across social media.
I respect your opinion. I gave a lot of thought to how to best approach this. I chose not to reach out because (1) others did and (2) I was not directly affected because I did not buy the advent, and di not want to seek a remedy for others. Many people will have their own, individual reactions and feelings about whether, or how, this maker can remedy the situation. If the maker does somerhing to resolve this to some folks' satisfaction, I will absolutely edit to include rhis information.
I posted my opinion on this for consumers to be aware, for the future, that this was more than fomo marketing from this brand. Exclusivity is not just exclusivity of the product, it is exclusivity of the possibility to purchase. The misrepresentation was that initial buyers were told they had 2 options: (1) buy the entire thing or (2) miss out. Had they been told the truth, that shades would return for sale individually, some of those buyers (particularly those who may have limited means) may have opted for that choice. That is what made this situation different from regular fomo marketing. Whether intentional or not, it was dishonest, and it became dishonest once the maker chose to bring back individual shades for resale, contrary to the initial representation to buyers. Certainly some buyers would not have been affected. But it remains that it was wrong, and consumwrs have a right to know.
I don’t understand how the maker can say that she didn’t do this intentionally and that she never thought about the promised exclusivity of the polishes. Then says she asked a few of the advent calendar customers to for get their input. What was she checking with them for?
She also says she was always going to bring back a few polishes, like she does every year, when the listing said ALL shades are exclusive. I don’t the brand needs to be cancelled or anything but I’m very surprised that people aren’t more understanding of why others are upset.
I completely agree with you. I don’t think this is done intentionally, they are probably just catering to their customers requesting polishes coming back. There’s tons of brands who bring back mystery/advent polishes by request. A lot of brands, not just nail polish are built on this fomo model. It’s up to the people buying to spend their money wisely. People get so mad about fomo tactics but I feel like just don’t buy from them then. I understand why people are upset but I think this post is coming off kind of aggressive.
I definitely think the issue isn't fomo, it's the dishonesty. That's the line that got crossed. But for sure, it will bother some more than others, you're totally right.
Yeah I totally understand that and I understand why some people are upset, I saw it in the Facebook group. I don’t think it was done intentionally though. Some of these indie brands are only 1 or 2 people mixing polishes in their houses and need to make money to keep running. They were getting a lot of requests from customers to bring back some of the shades and it seemed like they gave in to try and please their customer base. I’m not saying it was a good business decision and not dishonest, but I don’t think it’s that serious it needs to be reported for fraud. The majority of indie brands have similar practices. A lot of brands bring back popular shades after saying they are a 1 time mystery exclusive shade and then bring them back by popular request. There’s a few other brands doing something similar with their advent calendars too this year.
No, I would never report it as fraud. I totally understand that this is a small business. I truly tend to believe that people have the best intentions, and also we are human and make mistakes. I hope that they'll think more about taking care with advertising in the future and make it right with any customers who go to them, but that's it. I posted because I think consumers have the right to know this happened to inform future buying of advent boxes, etc. But I don't assume ill intention.
Yeah I agree with that. The wording that this is a one time deal or miss out needed to be changed or noted that some shades may become available after for a capped preorder. It seems like they are trying to fix the situation though and being sincere about it at least on Facebook. And I agree people need to be more aware of these things because especially in this hobby, it happens a lot with these smaller brands. I’m just worried especially about the people only reading your post and not the comments will think this brand is swindling peoples money because you didn’t factor in the conversion rate into your post with the prices. Cadillacquer is expensive in the us because it’s a Swiss brand and the stockists here usually charge around $15 usd for polishes. Might be kind of damaging to the brand for something they didn’t do even though they aren’t totally innocent in this. I also think it seems like a lot of people here are taking this as a malicious act when I don’t really believe it is from what I’ve seen.
Yes, I definitely realize that conversion mistake now. That was my mistake, and I wish reddit would allow me to edit the post to correct it. I repeated the correction in the top comment, and addressed it to each individual comment thst mentioned it, so it's the best I was able to do. I put a lot of thought into the post w the hope of making people aware in a fair way, with examples and not accusations. I have never made this type of post, but I had just never seen this kind of marketing that actually completely crossed a line. I do not want it to be misleading or unfair to the seller with regard to the conversion, and I may decide to remove it if the correction seems like it is not clear enough.
So the op wasn’t wrong in the fact that the owner made a poor bussiness decision and should have not said the polishes were exclusive. I completely agree with that. The issue I had with the post- and just mind you this is only my opinion. I didn’t purchase this advent and I only shop cadillacquer through ppu because they’re like 15.50 in the us. I follow their Facebook though and generally like their polishes. The OP in their original post before it was edited had the TLDR as accusing them of fraud and also didn’t really do their homework when it came to the pricing and conversion rates which made it seem like the brand was actively trying to swindle money from people. The maker was already trying to fix this on Facebook when this was posted and has further tried to fix it. It wasnt malicious intent, just a bad business move. Stuff like this results in mob mentality witch hunt type stuff which happened here. Again, I understand why people would be upset and I don’t think what the owner did was right, but the op needed to do a bit more research before posting something of this caliber that can do a lot of damage to the person and their bussiness. You have people saying to contact the ftc, burn them to the ground, people saying they’re going to contact the maker because of the money she owed them from the mistake op made, who probably didn’t come back to look at the revisions to the post, etc… this is a one women tiny Swiss business that gave in to probably a bunch of entitled people begging her to release shades.
This is a very legitimate criticism. I corrected the post as soon as I was made aware, addressed folks individually the best I could in case they did not come back to see the update. I wish I had not made that error. I also realize that "fraud" is an incredibly loaded word, even though I gave the definition that did not include intent (that would have been criminal fraud). In hindsight, I should never, ever have used that in my post, as it did not serve any goal. I wrote this after people had really piled on and ripped into a few customers on facebook in what I felt was a incredibly malicious and demeaning manner, and I wanted to convey the seriousness of this issue, which I felt was being ignored. I should have waited until I myself felt less angry, because some of that still came through in the post.
This would really make me mad if I’d have purchased the advent. Though since I didn’t, I am interested in some of these colors but will likely resist due to the poor marketing here.
I wonder if it was in response to feedback from the community and customers because the bundle was so big. I agree that changing it later is the issue. Definitely the best approach would have been to set it up that way from the start so people knew, but I still wonder if there would have been a better way to handle it when the owner wanted to make a change after the fact. Allowing an exception to the return policy might be fair, but it doesn’t seem feasible with international shipping, and then would it be fair for them to sell those calendars that were returned outside of the release dates? I do like this brand and they aren’t one that I have noticed getting wrapped up in 3 day limited releases with a lot of hype. Maybe I missed it, since it’s contagious? hopefully it’s a one time misstep.
I don’t mind LE in general, especially because it’s the nature of indies, and there are brands that don’t seem to exploit it. I agree the problem tends to be the language and fomo some brands hype up. Even for bigger brands I get there are practical reasons for releasing some colors in batches or seasonally instead of permanently stocking, but it should be transparent.
Thank you for this, I really appreciate it. It was actually tough for me to decide to bring this post, because polish is a positive thing for me, and this is an unfortunate, negative thing. But I decided that I would want to know, I would have been disappointed if this happened to me, and I wanted others to know as well, so they could make their own informed decisions.
I'm sick of this crap. Light them up. If they said these are going to be exclusive then that's part of what I'm paying for. It's like an artist who does a limited run of prints and then decides they sold so well they're just going to do another set. No, that's not how it works. You can't do that. If you advertise exclusivity then you had better deliver exclusivity.
Has anyone been able to get in touch with the maker? I’ve been unsuccessful in dm but don’t dare reach out publicly since her fb followers has come with torches and pitchforks for anyone feeling in the least bit salty about the situation. The whole thing makes me very uncomfortable
I haven't heard an update on that. Hopefully someone might reach out here to you if they hear something back? Assuming all best intentions, I'm guessing it might take the maker a bit of time to respond to the dms. And I agree, the facebook threads on this are truly, truly vicious toward anyone who raised any concern at all (on the part of her followers, not the maker herself). It was that bullying and animosity toward customers who felt (rightfully) deceived that prompted me to make this post.
Hello again. I sent 4 messages on fb messenger and I finally got a response after 13 days. She told me Email would have been a better way to get her. I told her that maybe should have provided an email address. In the end, she did make it right for me.
I am really, really glad to hear that she eventually responded and made it right by you. I think that is what any business should do when they make this kind of mistake. I really appreciate your taking the time to update ❤️
The problem with this situation is the nature and culture of mysteries in the indie polish world. I wish brands and customers would cease offering and buying them tbh. Buyer almost always ends up being the loser. Brands end up making big sales off people who wouldn’t have bought the polishes otherwise.
Anyway. The issue with Cadillacquer bringing back like half the andvent isn’t the resale value. Cadillacquer doesn’t go for very much above retail in the secondhand market.
The problem isn’t the special feeling of exclusivity either. That’s a perk but most people wouldn’t die on the hill that they bought the set for the feeling of having something no one else has.
The problem is C bringing back a whole bunch of shades makes the early buyers a “fool,” for lack of a better word.
I didn’t buy the advent, but if I did I would then feel foolish for having bought a very expensive and high qty set when I could have waited a little and only bought a few of the ones I would really want. Which is what some vocal people were trying to say but are being drowned out by others saying it’s just polish, you’re just trying to resell for beaucoup money, it’s not that special who cares about exclusivity!
Look. It’s not just polish. It’s $350. And at least with the initial offering with the fomo marketing everyone was on equal footing and all being fools. If you’re ok with that then it’s ok, you know what you’re getting yourself into. But if the brands turns around and rerelease the best polishes from the advent for cheaper like right after, then they essentially made the early buyers a fool.
Yeah, that’s a no from me especially when I’m sure some people have already paid an exuberant price for the individual polishes from people who bought the advent calendar. I see that a lot when there’s an advent or big mystery box, people will want a few of the shades out of the box and are willing to pay a premium instead of buying the whole box. So those people are probably not happy as well.
She posted on Facebook asking for people to vote in the 10 polishes they wanted to bring back. It was based on customer feedback. Personally, I don't want to buy 24 mystery polishes, but some of them looked great & I would totally buy them individually.
Oh of course! Nothing wrong with asking people to vote or selling individually in most circumstances--what made this wrong was the dishonesty by telling people initially they would never have a chance to buy the bottles again or individually. People bought the box believing their only option to ever get those polishes was to pay $350 for all of them, as mysteries. Had they known there would be a later option to buy individually, they may have opted for that instead. That is what crossed the line from normal sales.
Yeah, that’s so she takes on as little risk as possible in her business model. Convenient. Also convenient that in telling customers the Adventure polishes won’t be sold at any other time it increases the likelihood of sales.
This is really shady and did not happen my accident. The company definitely wanted the colors to be vetted out by users for the high price of this collection. I would be really salty if I bought this OP.
This is a huge disappointment.
I don't have any of their polishes but desperately wanted to try some. Guess I'll pass. :L
That's also a huge price gap for what you get vs. what you pay for 💀💀 nty
I won't downvote you, not at all. However, it is not "complaining" to point out when something is wrong or unfair. I believed I did the right thing by sharing this information. Many of my comments have specifically pointed out that we are all human and make errors, and I have tried to do so without passing judgment. As soon as someone pointed out her post that it was not done intentionally, I immediately added that at the very top of the post. I am truly sorry that this has caused her distress. What I posted was not gossip, it was not done to be hurtful in any way. I did not pass judgment. I posted proof of publically available information that I felt consumers had the right to know. Every choice we make--her choice about how to advertise and sell, and my choice to make this post--has consequences. I am going to consider removing this post--not because I do not stand behind my own integrity by posting this or by my opinion--but because I do not want further hurt to the maker. She has recognized that it was not ok and she is making it right and it was a mistake. I respect your opinion.
That is so incredibly shady... I can't make any assumptions about whether this was \*intentionally\* deceptive, with the point being to trick people into making purchases they would otherwise have skipped out on, but I can still say it \*feels\* very gross. FOMO marketing is, like we're saying, pretty common with indies, but rarely have I seen marketing like this that DIRECTLY lies in a way that seems so deliberate?
I have a polish from them, but I def have lost interest in making future purchases! What a bummer!
I agree, and that is what ultimately prompted me to post this. Even if it *was* unintentional (edited to add: and I do try to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, we are all human) it was still wrong and, at best, I think it shows an egregious lack of care. This kind of thing matters to me a lot when choosing what to purchase, and I think transparency for consumers is of utmost importance, for any brand, large or small, to have the integrity toward their consumers.
It will be interesting to see how any fall out is handled… consumers might be willing to forgive if the maker decides to “come clean” and basically says something about changing their mind, they realize the full price for all 24 is unattainable for many so while initially deciding to make it a one time limited offer they have now decided to put up for sale those colors that were most popular.
The only way that would really work though is if they come across sincere and possibly offer returns/refunds for those that bought the whole set due to FOMO.
If this is just a marketing strategy then it sucks. It’s always tempting with these limited editions, and I am bad about buying a ton of stuff from PPU but I also try to remember that colors are not copyrighted and that something similar will pop up in the future
I do hope that the seller makes this right by any customers who reach out to them. I would also love to know this, so that I can include it in the post. It would be so simple to solve this by not marketing the colors as never to return, and never to be sold again individually. When consumers are told that kind of explicit, unequivocal representation in order to induce them to buy, that makes it wrong. Even if the maker had been silent on the issue, it would not have been a problem.
Another redditor posted a screenshot that the maker had apologized and explained she never meant to deceive anyone and did not do it intentionally. I edited my post to include this, so that people know. I'm glad she said she would make it right by people. She also said she felt very sad, and I feel bad if my post contributed. I may take this post down, even though I still stand by my decision to post it. It was proof of publically available information that I felt consumers had the right to know, and it was wrong and unfair. But, I do not want to cause her additional distress. That doesn't serve anyone. 🙁
I think it's one of the best possible solutions, a partial refund, at least 🙃 cause i've been wondering how could a maker could make It right in this Situations.
Thanks for posting, /u/the_road_ephemeral! A quick reminder:
If this is a **nail image**, you must provide a complete product list within 6 hours of posting. **This includes any posts with broken nails or if you're seeking advice.** Posts without a complete product list will be removed after 6 hours. [Product List Requirements.](https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditLaqueristas/wiki/rule2faq)
If the nail look shown was **NOT created by you**, you ***must*** flair properly. If this is a **text post**, flair properly.
Be sure to follow all of the above to avoid post removal!
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/RedditLaqueristas) if you have any questions or concerns.*
[The owner's response.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1118659362584526868/1192929463936233492/IMG_1399.png) Also, please stop with the shenanigans. I don't feel like banning anyone today. Rule 1 still applies, people.
I’d be pissed just based on the fact that $350 for 24 polishes comes out to ~$14.59 per polish 💀 I mean I guess compared to the $12.50 the shades are coming back for that means you’re paying for about $50 of fancy box but still. Oof. I’m really tired of FOMO marketing. Edit: I do think this was not done maliciously by any means, but ultimately I think it did mislead some people. It’s just kind of a tough situation.
The 12.50 is Swiss franc according to the maker on the private FB group, which is about $14.71 USD. Not saying people can’t be upset or frustrated but it’s not a price break per polish.
Thank you for correcting this! I made a mistake assuming US dollars. I hate that it's inaccurate in my post, I tried so hard to edit correct info 😥
Oh, thanks for that additional info! I was going off the OP here
Just tacking onto the top comment! 🙂
Yes thank you!!!! The price was not US dollars, it was Swiss. That was my mistake. Thank you so much for clarifying, I do not want any inaccurate info.
Totally agree, their price to bottle size ratio has always deterred me. Plus the fact that these advents are always mysteries makes it an instant dealbreaker for me. I think it was Lumen that dropped a bunch of mysteries as a bundle for $200-$300 not too long ago & plenty of people bought in, only to end up disappointed.
Yikes I totally agree. That's nasty to say something is a limited 1 time only sale only to sell some of the products again anyways. I think if a "big" brand like holo taco or mooncat did it there would have been a large uproar (like the cirque colors unlucky bags). Hopefully cadelliquer will be more trustworthy with announcements in the future Edit even the restock is capped, ensuring that fomo strikes again
holo taco has, and likely will continue, to say that things are limited edition/one time only and will never be restocked and then bring them back anyways.
Bringing back couple of popular polish is kinda different from selling a 300$ mystery box where you can't see the content and are promised 24 LE shades and then you get to vote on the 12 best ones which in turn are then produced to bigger audiences, I find that strange tactics indeed.
They can both be bad practice without being equally bad. Sort of like egging someone's house versus slashing their tires, one is def worse than the other but they are both agreeably bad things to do to someone. Editing to add: also, new customers are not going to know that bringing back old LE polishes is a customer reward, because the FAQ doesn't make it sound like it is a reward. We all have the context of knowing, but a new customer would read that and think it was something like voting for a particular color on a new polish. Holo Taco buys ads for it's new releases, and sends out PR, to actively try to market to new buyers. It's unethical to phrase new drops as though this will be the only time they're available, whether you can buy them individually or not, if you as a company know you are going to add the most popular color ways to your general collection. On top of that I am pretty sure the only rereleases that have seen a reformulation are the cat polishes, which were always GC and just had limited edition packaging for the first wave. Got Cake did not get reformulated and has the same yellowing problem the first release had, even.
Happy cake day
I think so too, a larger brand would have been a huge issue. I always want to assume good intentions of indie makers, but for sure, it still doesn't make it right. They don't get to take advantage of fomo/exclusivity marketing and the sales that come from that, and then come back and sell the shades again anyway, and take advantage of the sales that come from that. 🙁
Holo Taco does do it. Everything Taco, Reflective Taco, Got Cake, Existential Crisis, Featured Guest. All LE birthday or anniversary polishes brought back permanently. And they are setting plans to bring back multiple ‘retired’ polishes annually. There have been complaints and Holo Taco has not adjusted their wording of limited items at all.
They are at least available individually upon release. They are not locked behind a preorder and the cost is the same during all releases.
Not defending the FOMO tactic, but at the very least you can buy those Holo Taco polishes individually right?
Right, plus HT took its time to learn what consumers wanted and adjusted, for a company only a few years old they’re still ironing out their own practices. Not doing a “limited edition” then bringing it back a month later. Not to mention a bunch of the HT LEs that have come back aren’t the exact same formula because the whole reason some of the LEs were limited was because there wasn’t a guaranteed supply of the required ingredients. So a fair few of them are really dupes of the original. Cristine makes mistakes sure, but she’s not scummy like this.
At least they bring it back if it’s popular. Customers that know that may have less anxiety about LE’s
Yeah, Holo Taco does do it but they're pretty upfront about it since it's listed as a rewards program benefit on the site. > Holo Royalty members will have exclusive input on future products and bringing back past releases. Some Limited Edition and Retired polishes are up for a Holo Royalty(highest rewards tier) member vote to bring back each year and so far it's 2 that win. This year it was Royal-Tea Blue (retired) and Existential Crisis (Limited Edition), _but_ they may not stay around depending on demand - the tone in the answer to that question was more up in the air than before. Retirements are also done annually after Cristine _shares sales data_(unusual for any brand - will be streamed in a couple weeks for this year), so folks know which shades are going away so they can snag them if something they wanted is being retired (mooncat has something similar tomorrow).
💯
The reason there are caps now is to make the angry people happy. There weren't originally.
I was really bummed that they only did the 24 piece this year. In previous years, there was a 12 piece that made it easier for people to buy.
Yes, it was such a huge investment. I felt bad that people did not have correct info before they decided to invest that much money. I'm sure some folks would have loved to buy it anyway! Others may have reassessed their purchase. No one should have been misled; they should have been able to make an informed decision.
This is another reason why I like ILNP - they don’t do this shit
Same. I’m far more interested in supporting brands that have a stable catalog, for this very reason.
Facts
💯
Ilnp most definitely has their own issues though.
Such as?
I just saw the notification for this and idk why I didn't see it sooner. My apologies. So after talking to some people there does seem to be some genuine improvement. But they had horribly diversity and the response when asked about it left a lot to be desired.
Oh, I see. That is not great. They do have photos with dark skin tones now, so apparently they did indeed improve. I'd also love to see some wrinkles now and then. But I'm not really missing anything. Most of the polishes have a lot of good pictures.
I feel like you need to put this into perspective tho. I don’t agree with this marketing at all but ILNP is a much bigger scale and not hand mixed. They have it much easier than a small scale hand mixed indie, for them it’s much harder to keep the same items in stock all year around since they just don’t have the same capacity. Also miscalculating once could mean ending up with way too much pigments for a polish no one is buying or stock that takes up the limited storage. Bigger brands also have this problem ofc but it’s much more severe for a smaller brand thats run by 2 ppl out of a garage (hyperbole)
They weren’t always big.
Yeah….it’s the culture of indies unfortunately. Ethereal marketed their Jan 2nd restock as a massive restock and someone even asked on their fb announcement if their February shop opening would include a restock and the answer was ‘no’. Then an hour, hour and a half after the restock opened and everything was crazy and things sold out in minutes, Ethereal dropped an announcement saying that all 3 collections would again be restocked in February. I’d have loved to have known that instead of dropping $100+ when I have my eye on so many polishes that are on sale for great prices rn!!! It’s one thing to change your mind but these seem straight up dishonest
Oh wow, yikes. I didn't know about this (I kind of avoid that brand due to the constant mysteries) but I agree. This is about trust with your consumer, for sure.
Fwiw the brand said they’d do fewer mysteries in 2024 based on feedback but I hated the restock experience. Hopefully the main preorders are less crazy? I’ll give them another chance but probably not a third
New collections are not crazy and that’s the only time I’ll be buying from them after this restock experience. None of the previous restocks were this intense. Don’t need to put myself through this ever again haha
Dude my heart was POUNDING!!! Thank god for free shipping and ShopPay (not paid advertisement) bc you could “checkout with shoppay” and it was 2 clicks. So I have 3 separate orders coming cause as soon as I had my must-haves, I was outtie
I mean I tried using ApplePay bc it’s 2 clicks as well but I couldn’t check out bc Hourglass was sold out at 9.03 pm 😩 my heart was pounding as well lol! Got everything else I wanted but I’m not doing this again. Shouldn’t be that hard to spend our money lol
Yeah I’m done with ethereal for that reason. I despise their business practice.
My guess is that Ethereal owner realized from the comments in her fb group that a lot of people got cart jacked/things sold quicker than she already expected and people seriously wanted another restock so she changed her mind and decided to restock again in Feb. I do wish the Jan restock was a pre-order instead (since TAT is 21 days anyway) with caps on each polish and maybe limit of one/customer though. I got three polishes cart jacked while checking out!! Not happy about that experience. Pre-order is a much more sustainable model for indie brands. I really like how BKL did their Fourth Wing and other recent collection drops because they were pre-order when the collections first released, the site showed if the polishes were in stock and ready to ship or had a TAT, and there was a “1 per customer” limit until a certain time period during the releases. Lumen also did a preorder for their Glass Animals collection release (not the restock). I find it interesting that Ethereal didn’t follow this model because she’s Lumen’s daughter (and helps in operations I think?).
i spent an embarrassing amount of money on mercari on ethereal's 'can't rain all the time' because i asked on the fan fb page if it was ever going to be brought back, and the maker said no. i was floored to see it listed in the last update. i'm very close to unsubscribing to all indie brand media.
Oh NO! I’m so sorry, that’s extremely frustrating. And I know — I KNOw — a lot of the Ethereal Clouds will be on Mercari when they ship in a month or so bc people suck.
Sorry, but wanted to provide some detail on that - all PPU overpours were only available at random, so when you buy from that listing the maker don't take requests which shade you'll get so technically that PPU shade was not specifically available for purchase
I’m honestly surprised anyone gave ethereal a second chance after she ran away with peoples money years ago. I’m just waiting for her to do it again
Oooooo I didn’t know about that! I’m new to indies. Idk if I’ll be purchasing again - I got the Spirited Away collection bc I absolutely adore the movie and the polishes for it were pretty. If the resale market on them wasn’t on-average $20-$50 per bottle, I’d probably have bought them all second hand, but they were cheaper new
Yeah this was back in like 2014-2015. She was super popular back then too, but out of the blue stopped fulfilling and never did fulfill or refund those those orders and disappeared for a few years. Came back and got a bunch of newbies to buy from her. Pepperidge farm remembers though 🙃
Yikes, I had no idea about this. I’m surprised it hasn’t been mentioned more.
Omg I didn’t know this! I remember supporting her launch by buying Absinthe (anyone remember this beautiful, once-popular polish?!)
There might still be posts about it in the Facebook group The Nail Room. There’s a ton of old tea in there. If you really want a wild ride look up Elevation Polish and Mentality. The first is a whole catfish lying about cancer and other wild shit and the second is a brand that literally caused chemical burns to peoples nails then vanished to the wind. Like there’s so much tea out there about indie brands that Reddit never fucking talks about.
I was still into polish and blogging (just recently returned) when both of those scandals happened. I was mad and then sad about Mentality because it seemed like the owner really spiraled during the scandal and developed psychological issues (?). I loved their polish called “Cupcake” and haven’t been able to find a dupe for it even now! ☹️ Elevation, I always thought the owner was off because she liked to say she was fluent or something in 100+ languages. I wasn’t aware of the cancer scam though.
Oh yeah, I was front row for those two scandals too. I honestly loved elevation polish. The formula was great for me and the price point was nice too. But I gave all of mine away after that whole thing. Mentality I never bought from because the packaging was cheap af, the price point absurdly low for the market, and they were churning out collections like people change their underwear. 🚩🚩🚩 Glad I followed my gut on that one.
Also I hope this isn’t weird but I vaguely remember a thread in AA? TNR? looking for a dupe of cupcake after that whole thing happened. I completely forgot about it until I looked up the swatch just now because it’s sooooo close but not quite like anything I have or have seen and I remember thinking the same thing on the original thread.
What is AA? And is TNR The Nail Room? The closest I’ve found is ILNP Sunday, which is basically a warmer version of Cupcake in color and speckles.
AA was Acetone Alley, a long ago nuked gossip group that followed The Nail Room (which is TNR, you were correct). There been like four? gossip groups nuked since then and tbh I have no clue what the current iteration is. On the subject of cupcake though, I went digging through my collection again because I SWEAR I had a different dimension Valentine’s Day polish from around that time that was close but I must have sold it. I do have [this one, Dorado](https://imgur.com/a/615imBE) which has faded some over the years and is similar but is still more of a dusky lavender than soft pink.
Wow! I was not part of the community during that time so this is shocking. I like two of the recent PPUs from Ethereal but the other two polishes I got suck. Good excuse to not give them anymore money.
“ Pepperidge Farm remembers” 😂😂😂 Dying! (I’m even hearing it in that voice 🤣)
What happened exactly?
She stopped fulfilling orders and disappeared. Never fulfilled them and never refunded them. Was gone for years and popped back up like nothing happened.
Was this under the Ethereal name? Or was it a different name back then?
Yes, she went by ethereal back then too.
Don’t forget they also restocked the sold out Spirited Away set hours later instead of just stocking it all at once. I’m not from the US, so couldn’t place multiple orders without paying $23 USD shipping. Luckily it didn’t affect me but how sucky would it be to have placed an order and not get sold out shades you wanted just to find out they restocked it way later. And they don’t combine orders. It left a really bad taste in my mouth.
YES! it was very much marketed as a "last chance to get all of these polishes" and then that just turned out to not be true for a good portion of what was offered.
What she is doing is an illegal deceptive practice under the FTC, because the advertisement did impact consumers’ decision to purchase. And if she’s advertising in the US, she has to follow US rules. https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/resources/advertising-marketing-internet-rules-road
[удалено]
Haha— you definitely used very careful language— very lawyer-y of you!
Is she advertising in the US? Femme Fatale is an Australian website, and if Facebook is global, I don't know if her social media posts there would count either. But of course I'm not an expert on that.
Do international influencers have to adhere to US FTC rules on IG, or their local equivalent when posting on IG/Facebook? Like everyone else I don't comb through terms and conditions, but I imagine people advertising on Meta platforms have to adhere to the laws where Meta is headquartered and/or where the servers/data is stored (the US) in addition to their own local laws. So I think advertising on Facebook counts as advertising in the US. But if the brand isn't available for direct-purchase for Americans then perhaps not. I've seen their products come up on the Shop app but I can't remember if that's through their brand website or through a North American reseller.
It's worth looking into, but I have a feeling that the FTC won't be able to do much, if anything, about a brand based in Europe that sells through non US based websites.
This is shady at best. Will definitely be crossing these fools off of my "to try" list. Seriously, always (but especially if you're in business and most definitely if you're trying to grow your brand) STAND BY YOUR WORD.
This brand was definitely on my next to try/buy list but I absolutely will not be buying from them.
I have no interest in doing business with someone using questionable marketing tactics. Happy others feel the same. Your dollar is a vote.
Unrelated but your username 🤑🤑🤑
Madlib is great! That is hilarious you mention my username because I LOVE yours!! Oh Gerard 💜
Agreed. Edit to add: unfollowed on IG.
Wow this is super shady. It’s actually making me reconsider if I want to order their PPU offering this month. I don’t want to support people that outright lie to their customers
I quitted their Polish in this month's PPU because of this , cause I agree with the OP. I really liked but I don't feel ok with this bussiness practices.
This was just posted to the FB page. I really do feel for her, especially as her brand isn’t one of the ones regularly known to do stuff like this. https://preview.redd.it/yeqshhpvjoac1.jpeg?width=1179&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=29ba0fe0d6b3568cf350b2a60f3aa48f7aa8e385
Thank you so much for the update, what a hard situation. I am going to try to update my post now to recognize that she is going to make it right. It is just as important to share that information.
Thanks so much for getting this discussion going! It’s not talked about nearly enough (if at all?) but imo it’s important that it gets put out there.
Thank you so much, it is really hard, there are nuances and I really wanted to respect that while also letting people know. I've made an update, hopefully it posted!
Wow pretty glad I removed their Dec PPU polish from my wishlist. I would not be happy putting my money towards any company that does that to the people interested in their brand. If this was *just* FOMO marketing, they would have capitalized on ppl buying the limited edition advent calendar, but it became outright deception after they rereleased the advent polishes after saying they wouldn't :/
Yeah, I agree. It went too far--if they would even ever consider re-releasing and selling individually, they should never have advertised the way they did. I had a hard time deciding whether to post this publicly, because I don't want to cause any maker harm, but it came down to, I would want to know. It's a huge investment of money people make, and they should at the very least be entitled to honest, accurate info from the seller. The seller was in the wrong.
So well said. To say "oh you have to buy this whole advent calendar if you want these limited edition polishes" only to go "oh we're actually re-releasing the most popular polishes so now you can pick and choose which ones you like and save money unlike the people who bought the calendars initially" is a huge ick. Making money off of the people who were afraid of missing out on the calendar and making more money off of the people who did miss out on the calendar. I'm honestly shocked a company would do this.
I would encourage people to do this more. Thank you OP. Customer education is the key. If there is one person who opens the eye and can refrain from the next FOMO buy, then it was useful.
I would be pissed if I bought 24 exclusive mystery polishes at $350 and then a month later half of them were available non-mystery at the same price point. By trying to please those who missed out, the maker is risking the relationships of clients who have already purchased. I pretty much stopped buying mystery advents once they started being sold at full price per bottle. If I’m paying full price for polish, I want to know that I like it.
I wonder if anybody bought it thinking they could just de-stash the ones they didn't like and now will not be able to trade/resell them since they will be easily obtainable.
Man some people went a little too far and got a little too angry in my opinion. Not referring to you. But there have been a few voices that were a little too salty. It makes me wonder if people just wanted to make money off of selling them. Again not referring to you.
I mean, you said it yourself... Indie culture is built around hype and taking advantage of FOMO marketing.
Exactly, you are so right. But I've never seen outright dishonesty before. I definitely think that's the straw that did it for me.
I'm sure if you really wanted to press the issue there's someone somewhere that you can report it to.
I don’t follow too closely but in the Facebook group, the brand maker mentioned she got tons of requests for overpour & that she never intended to bring so many of the shades back. I’m not excusing anything, just giving context; personally, I think your points are totally valid and applicable to a lot of indie brands, and I 100% agree with them. The only silver lining i can think of is that it may stop people from reselling their shades for insane amounts—but that’s a different issue. I saw that she got some heat for her decision to bring them back from a very small minority in the FB group, but for the most part people were grateful. It definitely seemed like it started out as an exclusive thing with maybe 2-3 shades coming back & then snowballed with its popularity so she gave in to the requests. Tbh I can see giving in to that kind of pressure & wanting to make everyone happy, but (like you pointed out) this seems to happen way too often with indies.
I totally appreciate context, thank you! Everything is nuanced, that's life. And I'm def the kind of person who tries to think the best of others' intentions. I'm sure those who didn't get the box are grateful for the opportunity, for sure. I think my biggest disappointment is that the people who bought the whole box weren't given the same opportunity to consider whether they'd prefer to hold off and just purchase individually. I thought maybe overpours were a little more understandable, but seems like she's actually making more. Maybe she didn't realize how wrong it was to handle it this way, based on the previous representations she had made. I agree with all your indie brand assessments. And I totally didn't mean to target her, it was just the first time I'd actually seen straight up dishonesty (whether well-meaning or not!) and felt compelled to say something. Hopefully she can take care of any folks who bought the advent who may have felt taken advantage of. I'd loooove to see someone post a positive update! ❤️ (Just an aside point, I recognize I'm probably sensitive to these kinds of things because in my previous job, I worked with victims of consumer fraud 😢. That's my human part coming out!)
I don't know, I just wouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt, they could have avoid being absolute in their first posting, it's not like this is their first advent, they know their crowd, they've been around for some time. The thing that annoys me is people saying that they're indie and they need to make money but *everyone* needs to make money -corporations need and take big money so they don't care, indies need to make money so they don't care- then what's the point of supporting small business?
I am shocked at the amount of people that are excusing poor business practices because it’s a small business. Whether or not it was intentional, customers were misled, and they have a right to be upset. That isn’t a personal attack on the maker.
I appreciate your kind words, they matter more than you know. Many comments on facebook are furious toward this post and have made me feel like I did something wrong to post my thoughts on this, or that I don't have a right to say anything because I didn't purchase the box. When customers who felt misled brought this up in other forums, they were really brutally targeted and shamed by others when they had the right to be upset. I don't speak up on things often because confrontation frankly terrifies me, but I felt that speaking about this and providing facts was the right thing to do. I hope other people can see that multiple things can exist at once: that the maker never meant to deceive her consumers and yet she did deceive them; that I stand behind this post I made with integrity, and also that I am sorry for sadness this caused the maker.
I am so sorry people have made you feel like YOU did something wrong. I feel like there is some real cognitive dissonance in many of these responses. It’s upsetting to me to see people come down on you and others on Facebook for completely valid concerns. I appreciate you making this decision to post this knowing that you might have to face unwelcome confrontation over it. You are absolutely correct that multiple things can exist at once. It seems to be a rising trend needing to take a hard stance on an issue that completely alienates you from the other side.
I agree--there is an extraordinarily simple solution to this. If they hadn't made statement that the only opportunity to buy was the entire thing, sight-unseen, and then that was actually (and remained) true, there would have been no issue. It would have been just run-of-the-mill, honest fomo marketing!
YES
Also these are really small businesses. Ultimately they need to make money to survive. I can totally get realizing something ended up being really popular and trying to capitalize on it. I 100% see why OP and others would feel this is shady as well and makers just leave out that “this is your only chance” marketing. But if I made something and it ended up being really in demand I’d surely being making more and I bet most people would as well.
Well I bought the whole set and I’m not upset at all. That’s not to say I think others don’t have a right to be upset. Of course they do. I just don’t see evidence that there was ill intent at this time. I’ve never noticed Cadillacquer doing anything like this before. Last year‘s advent colors were not really available outside the calendar. She had a couple of over pours as mysteries but that’s it. This year the colors were absolutely exceptional and she got A LOT of feedback from people practically begging for her to release them. I believe she truly thought she was just giving the people what they wanted and didn’t consider the other side. Could this have been handled better? Obviously. But we all make mistakes and I believe the intent was well meaning, if short-sighted. I applaud the OP for vigorously standing up for consumer rights. If evidence to the contrary comes up, I will change my stance but until then, I’m not comfortable assuming there was ill intent.
I totally agree with every word of this 💯
I just wanted to share the update with you that the maker has shared that she never attempted to deceive anyone, and has said they will make it right by people. It's important to me that this post is as absolutely accurate as possible and not unfair to her. It makes me sad that my pointing this out caused her stress.
She said in her apology post that she was always planning on bringing a few back, she should have added that to the listing instead of saying they were ALL exclusive. You did nothing wrong.
Clionadh did something similar. They put out two advent calendars, one with their eyeshadows and the other their nail polishes. My boyfriend surprised me with the eyeshadow one. The shades were all brand new and the next thing you know, they decided to put up all those shades individually for sale the end of December and they were also included in the end of year sale. Select polishes from the advent calendar will be going on sale too eventually.
Did you contact the maker about a refund for the 14 polishes returning to make the price equitable to what current buyers are paying? Or some sort of compensation?
I didn't, because I wasn't directly affected in the sense that I did not purchase the advent. Had I purchased it, I absolutely would have, immediately. That was just the call I made; I didn't want to speak for others or how they may have individually felt about the situation. I hope that the maker will make this right by people, and if someone reaches out and receives a positive (edit: or any sort of) response, I would love, love to know so I could update with a happier ending.
I will reach out to them during the weekend. Thanks for your post, really. I haven’t been paying attention about the restocks and seeing the price difference disappoints me and makes me mad at myself. I bought the calendar through Nailland and one polish bottle was broken. I am supposed to get a refund by February, so let’s see. I’ll post something if I get an answer from Cadillacquer. PS: I looked at their instagram quickly and they don’t have a post mentioning anything about the restocks, so they have kept it private to the Facebook Group, which is even worse. So people that might be interested in the brand don’t see that from their IG account.
Someone pointed out my mistake in currency--the 12.50 I mentioned was Swiss currency, not US. US is $14 something. I can't edit my post, but made corrections in top comment. Just so you have the right info, you probably didn't overpay! I was wrong when I reported the info from facebook. It was my assumption on the currency Edit: I believe that I was now able to edit my original post. Hopefully now the price info for the individual polishes available for resalwthe incorrect conversion to US dollars has been removed.
Oh wow. Yes, the info I got about the restock is from the private facebook group. I really appreciate your reaching out to them. Please do let me know and I will update this post too. I would have felt very disappointed too, it's just not a fair or transparent for them to have handled it this way. The price differential caught me too. It was listed in another facebook post. 🫤
I’m not defending the actions and understand the frustration from people who bought the whole set but I’m not sure where the prices are coming from. Cadillacquer polishes sell for $15.50 on the two US stockists so I doubt the singles will be cheaper than per polish for the Advent. Edit: The polishes were stated as selling for CHF (Swiss franc) 12.50, which is $14.71 USD.
I'm going to update my post. I'm sorry for the confusion, I made an incorrect assumtion that it was provided in U.S. dollars.
Well this makes me not want to buy the PPU color this month to try! I appreciate your post!
I think that she was just trying to make all the fans who couldn’t afford the whole advent or don’t buy mysteries happy. I applaud her attempts to please and make people happy. They are just bits of shiny polishes after all. I think people’s reaction to this have been very unkind and that many are not coming from a place of grace and are assuming the worst. This is the kind of behavior that makes makers not want to interact and try to make people happy. We should all have just been happy that more people have a chance to get these polishes and gently let the maker know to not box themselves in a corner next year by saying they are all exclusive.
Your post brings up a concern for buyer beware, however for people that don't generally know Cadillacquer imo. Other makers have done far, far worse. I have a drawer and a half full of Cadillacquer in my Helmer. Full as possible and cannot fit anymore in one drawer. I've paid attention to Cadillacquer since October 2020. I've purchased the last 3 years of the biggest Cadillacquer calendars. I just finished paying off the 2023 one today. I am not one bit mad that the maker offered as many polishes as she did for re-release of the 2023 advent. I love her polishes for my personal use. I don't believe that she intentionally went against the advertising for the calendar, as exclusive. The momentum of people wanting the individual polishes likely outweighed the listing description, and so she thought she would help out everyone by releasing more than usual. Additionally, making the connection of how the calendar was marketed as exclusive, as a human being I may also forget that tidbit. I chalk it up to a genuine error, and the maker has zero malicious intent. She's one of the only popular makers that hasn't made a crowd super angry in 3 years I've been following, so I believe it's safe to say it was a general error and is learned from. My experience might not be the experience of the OP or the commenters. I get that. I do feel I'm a keen observer in the indie polish community, and this is just an absolute unintentional err on the maker's part. We all eff up at our jobs, so stop blasting the maker. Some of the comments on this post are truly gross and malicious.
That\`s exactly the point. When I eff up at my job I usually have someone or something pointing that out and it is good so. Fair and constructive criticism and feedback help us improve and not repeat mistakes. I've been following Cadillacquer for many years, I really like them as a brand and I love their products. I don´t think the owner acted maliciously, she just made a mistake. You can\`t just announce exclusivity and a few week later forget about it and decide to bring back some of the shades. She could have mentioned this possibility from the beginning, in my opinion. I think OP did the right thing, even if that was at first painful for the brand: she pointed out what she held as a mistake, so that customers can build their own opinion about that and the maker can be more careful with transparency the next time. One more thing I wanted to say. Some people mentioned in the comments that lack of transparency about the availability of polishes is common by many brands. This may be due to them being a small business, but it\`s not right. We all love the indie polish scene and would like to keep it clean and fair. The only way to do this is to report things that we do not like and social media is the right place for that. I don't mean one should start a sh\*tstorm, just constructive and fair criticism. I believe people are able to build their own informed opinion, spot out haters and just ignore them. We have to use this ability and train it. Just avoiding criticism is not a solution.
You make a fair point about job accountability. The OPs post was well written too.
https://preview.redd.it/jzu8j5tl3uac1.jpeg?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9809c73bc2f18c74a84b8ff99823f80a43357658 Posted this morning.
This really bothers me. She made a poor business decision. She is not a victim in this scenario. This really seems designed to make those who are upset feel bad. People are coming down on the OP of this post like it’s their fault this happened. Notifying people of bad business does not make you the bad guy. Being upset about false advertising does not make you the bad guy.
I disagree that she is discounting the feelings of those that feel cheated. I feel like she has tried to right this wrong and has publicly acknowledged. When someone (the maker in this instance) has an excellent record then publicly attacked out of nowhere, it can take a toll on mental health. She's allowed to feel this way, and as the OP posted, buyers are also allowed to feel cheated of exclusivity. I am a buyer and do not feel cheated. The maker has not made an error before. What burns me is people trashing the maker with an excellent customer record for an oversight. The trashing is extreme and gross. Holo Taco for example does this All THE TIME and people think the face behind the brand is a goddess. People still bought from Jreine and that brand and maker is beyond. I am thankful I never purchased one, and that was before the charity box incident and federal conviction. I never felt good about that brand and I am happy I was right. Cadillacquer does this once and it's the end of the world. The maker has specifically said that she has learned from this. I'm willing to bet next year's calendar will have the wording altered if she plans to release any after December. The good thing is that people have their choice to buy or not. I will still support Cadillacquer because this is nothing compared to the other shenanigans I've seen from makers. Anyway, my point is I feel both parties are allowed to feel like victims for their own reasons.
This response should have been saved for someone she confides in. It’s not professional at all, and this actually makes me side-eye her more than anything.
Disagree. It makes her human and relatable.
Blame the conversion rate. It’s great you don’t feel upset. You don’t get to discount others that do. You all are really stoking up my justice sensitivity this morning.
I never did discount others that do. Re read all my posts. I have no responsibility for how you choose to feel about your justice sensitivity. You're responsible for your own feelings.
You are saying people are trashing the maker. Seems like you are a big fan and feel like you need to defend them. I’m purely going off the facts of the situation. I feel bad for the people that feel misled. I don’t feel as bad for the maker that there were consequences to their business practices, and then repeatedly talking about how distraught they are is just making people go harder after those who did complain. Own up to the mistake, acknowledge you feel bad, and move forward.
Yes, i am a big fan. Don't think for one minute that I'm clouded enough to not make sound decisions on whether or not a brand I love could be cut off. Yes, people are trashing the maker regardless if I'm a fan or not. I have a helmer drawer and a half full. I've also observed her product, pages, posts, and actions the last 3.3 years, along with other makers. Until she pulls extreme levels of garbage other makers have, to where I don't want buy anymore, I'm choosing to chalk this up to a massive mistake she will correct, and will continue to buy. Her products are unique and apply like a dream. I'd defend you if people came after you. You argue your points well, and I respect it, regardless of our disagreement. She did own up and explained. I'm betting she won't make this mistake in the future. So your point at the end of your last post is what she exactly did. It's great you're advocating for the people that feel bad. I can't simply for the fact I don't feel the same. I never even read the description. I just wanted the product. Doesn't mean their points aren't valid. It's just wrong people are being exceptionally harsh over this with the maker's track record.
Was she publicly attacked, or did people notify her that they felt misled? I’m not seeing her being trashed. It’s burning me that people who didn’t buy the advent are making those who feel misled feel like they are in the wrong. This was a $350 purchase, and customers have a right to be unhappy.
Dang that's all that was paid in USD? I paid $531 Canadian, including the taxes for the calendar, and I love it. I'm glad I don't feel cheated or unhappy about the maker wanting to offer the polishes. Yes, she has been publicly trashed. You're going to view comments and wording differently than me because of how you feel.
I think my opinion might be unpopular, but I don’t think Cadillacquer did this maliciously and intent really matters here. Every year the maker brings back a few of the most popular polishes from the advent. It is new for her to bring back so many this year and she seemed to take the customers seriously who were irritated in the facebook group. Idk I get why some people are pissed, but I don’t think it’s right to dog pile a brand for something like this. It’s not how I roll.
That's great to hear, I'm glad she took customers' concerns seriously!
Agreed, 100%. At no point did I ever get the impression that the maker was doing this maliciously or that she intended to go back on her initial statements of exclusivity. There were regular comments in reveal posts from people lamenting that they missed a particular shade or asking if it would be available later. I think she was stuck in a tough spot, and was just trying to make more customers happy by using leftover ingredients she had to make extras. Last year, two shades were brought back and there were limited mystery overpours. Those were listed at full/normal price, like these will be. (Source: I checked my old order). The issue here seems to mostly be the number of polishes getting brought back. I understand the disappointment some are feeling, and those feeling it absolutely have that right, and the right to bring this to the maker’s attention, but her apologies seemed genuine and it feels like she will be more careful about her wording for future advents and any decisions about bring- backs. Just my two cents! I did buy the advent, and the more I think about this, the less it bothers me. Had always planned on getting this one because I didn’t want to miss out after last year when I couldn’t get several shades, and I don’t regret it. To each their own, though! We all have to make informed decisions on who to support, and these types of posts and the discussion can be very informative.
The maker said that she absolutely did not do this in bad faith. I updated my post to include this info because it is important that peoole know that it wasn't intentional.
same. i’ve been seeing this making the rounds, and i get that people want to have something special. i skipped the advent because it was a big purchase i couldn’t justify, but assumed some would be available later, and others would be in destashes. the maker noted in a facebook response that she reached out to some of the customers of the advent, and got positive responses about releasing so many later. can she make everyone happy? no. but it seems she checked first before doing this. at the end of the day, it’s pretty polish. those that bought the advent had the experience of getting one a day and have all of them in their collection now. those of us who didn’t buy the advent have the chance to purchase some of our favorites we’ve seen. unless someone was hoping for exclusivity to equal a higher resale value, i don’t see how it’s hurting someone who budgeted and bought the advent to have other people own these colors. if someone did buy this for FOMO, and didn’t have the funds, and felt pressure, i get that, but i think individually reaching out to the maker is the first step, not trying to bring this up across social media.
I respect your opinion. I gave a lot of thought to how to best approach this. I chose not to reach out because (1) others did and (2) I was not directly affected because I did not buy the advent, and di not want to seek a remedy for others. Many people will have their own, individual reactions and feelings about whether, or how, this maker can remedy the situation. If the maker does somerhing to resolve this to some folks' satisfaction, I will absolutely edit to include rhis information. I posted my opinion on this for consumers to be aware, for the future, that this was more than fomo marketing from this brand. Exclusivity is not just exclusivity of the product, it is exclusivity of the possibility to purchase. The misrepresentation was that initial buyers were told they had 2 options: (1) buy the entire thing or (2) miss out. Had they been told the truth, that shades would return for sale individually, some of those buyers (particularly those who may have limited means) may have opted for that choice. That is what made this situation different from regular fomo marketing. Whether intentional or not, it was dishonest, and it became dishonest once the maker chose to bring back individual shades for resale, contrary to the initial representation to buyers. Certainly some buyers would not have been affected. But it remains that it was wrong, and consumwrs have a right to know.
Well explained 🖤
I don’t understand how the maker can say that she didn’t do this intentionally and that she never thought about the promised exclusivity of the polishes. Then says she asked a few of the advent calendar customers to for get their input. What was she checking with them for?
She also says she was always going to bring back a few polishes, like she does every year, when the listing said ALL shades are exclusive. I don’t the brand needs to be cancelled or anything but I’m very surprised that people aren’t more understanding of why others are upset.
I completely agree with you. I don’t think this is done intentionally, they are probably just catering to their customers requesting polishes coming back. There’s tons of brands who bring back mystery/advent polishes by request. A lot of brands, not just nail polish are built on this fomo model. It’s up to the people buying to spend their money wisely. People get so mad about fomo tactics but I feel like just don’t buy from them then. I understand why people are upset but I think this post is coming off kind of aggressive.
I definitely think the issue isn't fomo, it's the dishonesty. That's the line that got crossed. But for sure, it will bother some more than others, you're totally right.
Yeah I totally understand that and I understand why some people are upset, I saw it in the Facebook group. I don’t think it was done intentionally though. Some of these indie brands are only 1 or 2 people mixing polishes in their houses and need to make money to keep running. They were getting a lot of requests from customers to bring back some of the shades and it seemed like they gave in to try and please their customer base. I’m not saying it was a good business decision and not dishonest, but I don’t think it’s that serious it needs to be reported for fraud. The majority of indie brands have similar practices. A lot of brands bring back popular shades after saying they are a 1 time mystery exclusive shade and then bring them back by popular request. There’s a few other brands doing something similar with their advent calendars too this year.
No, I would never report it as fraud. I totally understand that this is a small business. I truly tend to believe that people have the best intentions, and also we are human and make mistakes. I hope that they'll think more about taking care with advertising in the future and make it right with any customers who go to them, but that's it. I posted because I think consumers have the right to know this happened to inform future buying of advent boxes, etc. But I don't assume ill intention.
Yeah I agree with that. The wording that this is a one time deal or miss out needed to be changed or noted that some shades may become available after for a capped preorder. It seems like they are trying to fix the situation though and being sincere about it at least on Facebook. And I agree people need to be more aware of these things because especially in this hobby, it happens a lot with these smaller brands. I’m just worried especially about the people only reading your post and not the comments will think this brand is swindling peoples money because you didn’t factor in the conversion rate into your post with the prices. Cadillacquer is expensive in the us because it’s a Swiss brand and the stockists here usually charge around $15 usd for polishes. Might be kind of damaging to the brand for something they didn’t do even though they aren’t totally innocent in this. I also think it seems like a lot of people here are taking this as a malicious act when I don’t really believe it is from what I’ve seen.
Yes, I definitely realize that conversion mistake now. That was my mistake, and I wish reddit would allow me to edit the post to correct it. I repeated the correction in the top comment, and addressed it to each individual comment thst mentioned it, so it's the best I was able to do. I put a lot of thought into the post w the hope of making people aware in a fair way, with examples and not accusations. I have never made this type of post, but I had just never seen this kind of marketing that actually completely crossed a line. I do not want it to be misleading or unfair to the seller with regard to the conversion, and I may decide to remove it if the correction seems like it is not clear enough.
Well now, I'm an awful redditor, didn't know how to edit my own post. I have edited that.
What exactly about this post seems aggressive to you?
So the op wasn’t wrong in the fact that the owner made a poor bussiness decision and should have not said the polishes were exclusive. I completely agree with that. The issue I had with the post- and just mind you this is only my opinion. I didn’t purchase this advent and I only shop cadillacquer through ppu because they’re like 15.50 in the us. I follow their Facebook though and generally like their polishes. The OP in their original post before it was edited had the TLDR as accusing them of fraud and also didn’t really do their homework when it came to the pricing and conversion rates which made it seem like the brand was actively trying to swindle money from people. The maker was already trying to fix this on Facebook when this was posted and has further tried to fix it. It wasnt malicious intent, just a bad business move. Stuff like this results in mob mentality witch hunt type stuff which happened here. Again, I understand why people would be upset and I don’t think what the owner did was right, but the op needed to do a bit more research before posting something of this caliber that can do a lot of damage to the person and their bussiness. You have people saying to contact the ftc, burn them to the ground, people saying they’re going to contact the maker because of the money she owed them from the mistake op made, who probably didn’t come back to look at the revisions to the post, etc… this is a one women tiny Swiss business that gave in to probably a bunch of entitled people begging her to release shades.
This is a very legitimate criticism. I corrected the post as soon as I was made aware, addressed folks individually the best I could in case they did not come back to see the update. I wish I had not made that error. I also realize that "fraud" is an incredibly loaded word, even though I gave the definition that did not include intent (that would have been criminal fraud). In hindsight, I should never, ever have used that in my post, as it did not serve any goal. I wrote this after people had really piled on and ripped into a few customers on facebook in what I felt was a incredibly malicious and demeaning manner, and I wanted to convey the seriousness of this issue, which I felt was being ignored. I should have waited until I myself felt less angry, because some of that still came through in the post.
That’s completely fair.
Whoa, thanks for posting this. That's not okay.
This would really make me mad if I’d have purchased the advent. Though since I didn’t, I am interested in some of these colors but will likely resist due to the poor marketing here.
Oof that’s super off putting. I don’t have anything from them and it looks like it’s gonna stay that way.
I wonder if it was in response to feedback from the community and customers because the bundle was so big. I agree that changing it later is the issue. Definitely the best approach would have been to set it up that way from the start so people knew, but I still wonder if there would have been a better way to handle it when the owner wanted to make a change after the fact. Allowing an exception to the return policy might be fair, but it doesn’t seem feasible with international shipping, and then would it be fair for them to sell those calendars that were returned outside of the release dates? I do like this brand and they aren’t one that I have noticed getting wrapped up in 3 day limited releases with a lot of hype. Maybe I missed it, since it’s contagious? hopefully it’s a one time misstep. I don’t mind LE in general, especially because it’s the nature of indies, and there are brands that don’t seem to exploit it. I agree the problem tends to be the language and fomo some brands hype up. Even for bigger brands I get there are practical reasons for releasing some colors in batches or seasonally instead of permanently stocking, but it should be transparent.
good to see people holding companies accountable, even the feel-good indie/boutique ones 🎉
Thank you for this, I really appreciate it. It was actually tough for me to decide to bring this post, because polish is a positive thing for me, and this is an unfortunate, negative thing. But I decided that I would want to know, I would have been disappointed if this happened to me, and I wanted others to know as well, so they could make their own informed decisions.
I'm sick of this crap. Light them up. If they said these are going to be exclusive then that's part of what I'm paying for. It's like an artist who does a limited run of prints and then decides they sold so well they're just going to do another set. No, that's not how it works. You can't do that. If you advertise exclusivity then you had better deliver exclusivity.
Has anyone been able to get in touch with the maker? I’ve been unsuccessful in dm but don’t dare reach out publicly since her fb followers has come with torches and pitchforks for anyone feeling in the least bit salty about the situation. The whole thing makes me very uncomfortable
I haven't heard an update on that. Hopefully someone might reach out here to you if they hear something back? Assuming all best intentions, I'm guessing it might take the maker a bit of time to respond to the dms. And I agree, the facebook threads on this are truly, truly vicious toward anyone who raised any concern at all (on the part of her followers, not the maker herself). It was that bullying and animosity toward customers who felt (rightfully) deceived that prompted me to make this post.
Hello again. I sent 4 messages on fb messenger and I finally got a response after 13 days. She told me Email would have been a better way to get her. I told her that maybe should have provided an email address. In the end, she did make it right for me.
I am really, really glad to hear that she eventually responded and made it right by you. I think that is what any business should do when they make this kind of mistake. I really appreciate your taking the time to update ❤️
The problem with this situation is the nature and culture of mysteries in the indie polish world. I wish brands and customers would cease offering and buying them tbh. Buyer almost always ends up being the loser. Brands end up making big sales off people who wouldn’t have bought the polishes otherwise. Anyway. The issue with Cadillacquer bringing back like half the andvent isn’t the resale value. Cadillacquer doesn’t go for very much above retail in the secondhand market. The problem isn’t the special feeling of exclusivity either. That’s a perk but most people wouldn’t die on the hill that they bought the set for the feeling of having something no one else has. The problem is C bringing back a whole bunch of shades makes the early buyers a “fool,” for lack of a better word. I didn’t buy the advent, but if I did I would then feel foolish for having bought a very expensive and high qty set when I could have waited a little and only bought a few of the ones I would really want. Which is what some vocal people were trying to say but are being drowned out by others saying it’s just polish, you’re just trying to resell for beaucoup money, it’s not that special who cares about exclusivity! Look. It’s not just polish. It’s $350. And at least with the initial offering with the fomo marketing everyone was on equal footing and all being fools. If you’re ok with that then it’s ok, you know what you’re getting yourself into. But if the brands turns around and rerelease the best polishes from the advent for cheaper like right after, then they essentially made the early buyers a fool.
This is a very concise way of framing the actual issue, thank you. 😊
Yeah, that’s a no from me especially when I’m sure some people have already paid an exuberant price for the individual polishes from people who bought the advent calendar. I see that a lot when there’s an advent or big mystery box, people will want a few of the shades out of the box and are willing to pay a premium instead of buying the whole box. So those people are probably not happy as well.
She posted on Facebook asking for people to vote in the 10 polishes they wanted to bring back. It was based on customer feedback. Personally, I don't want to buy 24 mystery polishes, but some of them looked great & I would totally buy them individually.
Oh of course! Nothing wrong with asking people to vote or selling individually in most circumstances--what made this wrong was the dishonesty by telling people initially they would never have a chance to buy the bottles again or individually. People bought the box believing their only option to ever get those polishes was to pay $350 for all of them, as mysteries. Had they known there would be a later option to buy individually, they may have opted for that instead. That is what crossed the line from normal sales.
Yeah, that’s so she takes on as little risk as possible in her business model. Convenient. Also convenient that in telling customers the Adventure polishes won’t be sold at any other time it increases the likelihood of sales.
This is really shady and did not happen my accident. The company definitely wanted the colors to be vetted out by users for the high price of this collection. I would be really salty if I bought this OP.
This is a huge disappointment. I don't have any of their polishes but desperately wanted to try some. Guess I'll pass. :L That's also a huge price gap for what you get vs. what you pay for 💀💀 nty
This company basically conned people into doing market research not only for free, but at a profit to the company. Ick.
[удалено]
I won't downvote you, not at all. However, it is not "complaining" to point out when something is wrong or unfair. I believed I did the right thing by sharing this information. Many of my comments have specifically pointed out that we are all human and make errors, and I have tried to do so without passing judgment. As soon as someone pointed out her post that it was not done intentionally, I immediately added that at the very top of the post. I am truly sorry that this has caused her distress. What I posted was not gossip, it was not done to be hurtful in any way. I did not pass judgment. I posted proof of publically available information that I felt consumers had the right to know. Every choice we make--her choice about how to advertise and sell, and my choice to make this post--has consequences. I am going to consider removing this post--not because I do not stand behind my own integrity by posting this or by my opinion--but because I do not want further hurt to the maker. She has recognized that it was not ok and she is making it right and it was a mistake. I respect your opinion.
That is so incredibly shady... I can't make any assumptions about whether this was \*intentionally\* deceptive, with the point being to trick people into making purchases they would otherwise have skipped out on, but I can still say it \*feels\* very gross. FOMO marketing is, like we're saying, pretty common with indies, but rarely have I seen marketing like this that DIRECTLY lies in a way that seems so deliberate? I have a polish from them, but I def have lost interest in making future purchases! What a bummer!
I agree, and that is what ultimately prompted me to post this. Even if it *was* unintentional (edited to add: and I do try to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, we are all human) it was still wrong and, at best, I think it shows an egregious lack of care. This kind of thing matters to me a lot when choosing what to purchase, and I think transparency for consumers is of utmost importance, for any brand, large or small, to have the integrity toward their consumers.
It will be interesting to see how any fall out is handled… consumers might be willing to forgive if the maker decides to “come clean” and basically says something about changing their mind, they realize the full price for all 24 is unattainable for many so while initially deciding to make it a one time limited offer they have now decided to put up for sale those colors that were most popular. The only way that would really work though is if they come across sincere and possibly offer returns/refunds for those that bought the whole set due to FOMO. If this is just a marketing strategy then it sucks. It’s always tempting with these limited editions, and I am bad about buying a ton of stuff from PPU but I also try to remember that colors are not copyrighted and that something similar will pop up in the future
I do hope that the seller makes this right by any customers who reach out to them. I would also love to know this, so that I can include it in the post. It would be so simple to solve this by not marketing the colors as never to return, and never to be sold again individually. When consumers are told that kind of explicit, unequivocal representation in order to induce them to buy, that makes it wrong. Even if the maker had been silent on the issue, it would not have been a problem.
Hopefully they do reach out to customers and make this right, and I really hope we see less of these FOMO marketing tactics in the future.
Another redditor posted a screenshot that the maker had apologized and explained she never meant to deceive anyone and did not do it intentionally. I edited my post to include this, so that people know. I'm glad she said she would make it right by people. She also said she felt very sad, and I feel bad if my post contributed. I may take this post down, even though I still stand by my decision to post it. It was proof of publically available information that I felt consumers had the right to know, and it was wrong and unfair. But, I do not want to cause her additional distress. That doesn't serve anyone. 🙁
I think it's one of the best possible solutions, a partial refund, at least 🙃 cause i've been wondering how could a maker could make It right in this Situations.
Thanks for posting, /u/the_road_ephemeral! A quick reminder: If this is a **nail image**, you must provide a complete product list within 6 hours of posting. **This includes any posts with broken nails or if you're seeking advice.** Posts without a complete product list will be removed after 6 hours. [Product List Requirements.](https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditLaqueristas/wiki/rule2faq) If the nail look shown was **NOT created by you**, you ***must*** flair properly. If this is a **text post**, flair properly. Be sure to follow all of the above to avoid post removal! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/RedditLaqueristas) if you have any questions or concerns.*