Jaclyn Hill apologises after Morphe confirms Volume II palette is no longer vegan

3 March 2020, 15:16

By Jazmin Duribe

Jaclyn and Morphe have both confirmed that she was not aware that the palette ingredients would be changed.

Jaclyn Hill has insisted she was completely in the dark about Morphe changing the formula of her Jaclyn Hill x Morphe Volume I and Volume II palette after the brand confirmed that it had been altered following backlash.

In February, Jaclyn launched her Jaclyn Hill x Morphe Volume II palette. The 35-pan eyeshadow and brush range was the follow up to her successful Volume I palette, which was released in 2017. In a YouTube video swatching the colours, Jaclyn gushed about the formula of her new eyeshadows which she claimed had not been changed.

READ MORE: Jaclyn Hill launches new Morphe eyeshadow palette after it leaked online

"This is the same-loved formula as the Jaclyn Hill original palette and people ask me about that all the time. Morphe has their standard formulas and I created my own formula," she said. "There's actually been other people who have collaborated with Morphe who have asked if they can just use my formula and they're like, 'Sorry, that's Jaclyn's only.' I signed papers, that's my formula that I worked very hard on a couple of years back to develop."

However, it has now been confirmed that the formula has actually been changed – and apparently, Jaclyn didn't have a clue.

Review YouTube channel Jen Luvs Reviews (who has 280,000 subscribers) was the one who pointed out the formula issues. She initially shared how much she liked 2017 Jaclyn's Volume palette but she later unlisted the video because her sister-in-law compared the quality of her recently-purchased Volume I palette to Jen's and it was completely different. So, she emailed Morphe's customer service team, who claimed that the formula had not changed at all. With that in mind she bought Jaclyn's new Volume II palette and swatched everything side by side in a YouTube video, mentioning some noticeable changes.

Well, it turned out that it had changed considerably. In fact, the newer version of Jaclyn Hill's Volume I palette and Jaclyn's Volume II palette are not vegan. One of the listed ingredients is carmine, which is a red dye that comes from crushed bugs. Other new ingredients added include shea butter, coconut oil and jojoba oil.

Understandably, people who had bought the palette upon Jaclyn's advice that the formula had not changed were incredibly disappointed.

Following the backlash, Morphe released a statement on Twitter. The tweet was captioned: "We have seen several concerns about our original Morphe X Jaclyn Hill palette formula modifications and ingredient changes and want to set the record straight."

The statement then reads: "We have seen several concerns about our original Morphe x Jaclyn Hill palette formula modifications and ingredient changes and want to set the record straight. We also want it to be clear these formula improvements are out of our collaborators' control. Jaclyn was not made aware of the specific ingredient adjustments to her palette and was told only that we worked to improve the performance and payoff.

"While it is common in the beauty industry to make formula adjustments and improvements to keep up with the industry standards, it is not customary to announce them. The ingredients in our products are always posted on our website, however we hear our customers' request for more clarity and promise to work to increase transparency in any formula modifications for the benefit of our customers.

"It has also come to our attention that a member of our customer service team shared incorrect information with @jenluvsreviews. We are using this as an opportunity to confirm that we indeed made formula modifications to Jaclyn's original Morphe palette. We apologize to @jenluvsreviews and our customers for this miscommunication and will work even harder to ensure our teams share accurate information.

"We value everyone's feedback and will continue to always improve on your customer experience."

While Morphe took the blame for not explicitly stating that the ingredients had changed (they are availabe on their website, however), Jaclyn released a statement of her own.

She said: "In regard to all the conversations round my collaboration with Morphe, I would like clear the air on a personal level. I was aware that they were increasing the performance of the product (pigmentation and creaminess) but not made aware of ingredient changes. (For those of you who don't know you can change the performance of a product without ingredient changes.)

"I apologise to those of you who can not use the palette due to the fact that it's not vegan. Although I am not vegan, I do understand the frustration and I am sorry to those of you."

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