User:Kaliwines/sandbox

Lime Crime is an American cosmetics brand that was founded and launched by Doe Deere. The brand is well-known in the beauty community for its eccentric and colourful products, as well as the controversies surrounding Deere and the company. In addition, the brand was independently owned by Deere until its acquisition by Stacy Panagakis and the Tengram Capital Partners in 2018. Lime Crime is also certified as vegan and cruelty free by both PETA and the Leaping Bunny. The brand is currently stocked

at retailers such as ASOS, Revolve, Cult Beauty, Ulta and Bloomingdale’s.

Launch
In 2004, Doe Deere (previously Xenia Vorotova) initially launched Lime Crime as an original, handmade fashion line, which was exclusively sold from her eBay account. Deere was 23 years old at the time of the launch. The original aesthetic of Lime Crime fashion was Lolita-inspired, presenting vibrant colours and abstract patterns. The official launch of Lime Crime Makeup was in October 2008, which featured a small collection of colourful glitters, loose pigments, brushes and blush. The original prices of these products ranged from $12USD to $25USD.

Products
As of May, 2019, Lime Crime has a wide variety of cosmetic and beauty products, which are separated into the following categories on their website: Lips; Eyes; Face; Hair; Bundles; Accessories. The brand is reported to offer 24 shades of its hair dye and 102 makeup products.

Lip Products
Their lip products include liquid cream lipsticks (“Lip Blaze”), matte lipsticks (“Plushies Soft Matte Lipstick”) and metallic lipsticks (“Velvetines Liquid Lipstick”), lip liners (“Velvetine Lip Liners”), lip glosses (“Wet Cherry Glosses”) and iridescent lip toppers (“Diamond Crushers”). Their lipsticks are either in a liquid lipstick tube with a doe foot applicator or the traditional lipstick tube (as seen on Lime Crime's diamond lipstick). Whilst there are quite a few shades from the lipstick collections that are eccentric (such as tangerine orange and bright fuschia), the majority of the colours offered for the lip products are neutral and conventional (for example, taupes, soft pinks and nudes) to appear more commercially appealable for a wider demographic.

Eye Products
Lime Crime’s eye range features various eyeshadow palettes (including the “Venus” grunge eye palettes), pocket-sized eyeshadows (called the “pocket candy”), as well as their “diamond dew” liquid eyeshadows. The company also sells pressed-pigment eyeshadow quads called “plushies.” These eyeshadows are one of the best-selling products on the Lime Crime website and feature many shades and finishes (including matte, satin and metallic finishes for many shadows).

Face Products
According to the Lime Crime website, the company also offers soft matte blushes, glow blushes, and “Hi-Lite” highlighter palettes. These products are much more reminiscent of the original intentions of Lime Crime due to their colourful hues, particularly through the “Hi-Lite” palettes that are mermaid and unicorn themed.

Hair Products
Lime Crime’s hair range includes glitter and pastel hair colour sprays, full coverage hair dyes, colour tints, hair colour mixers, as well as sample dye packets. Their range of semi-permanent hair dyes has been praised for being one of the only vegan hair dye formulas in the market.

Bundles & Accessories
Lime Crime offers various bundles for their hair colours, eyeshadows and lipsticks in an attempt to encourage their target market to purchase more products at a slightly discounted price. Moreover, the brand also offers accessories such as makeup brushes and makeup bags, which perpetuate the brand’s unconventional image with shimmery brush handles, vividly-coloured brushes and the holographic material of the makeup bag.

Marketing
Lime Crime utilises customer engagement, public relations and marketing strategies that revolve around creativity, individualism and uniqueness. Due to the fact that the brand could only be purchased online until recently, Lime Crime had to employ online marketing and develop a significant social media presence in order to highlight their products. Their products are positioned as tools for self-expression, especially as they encourage creativity through the consumer’s creation of unique looks with their brightly-coloured products. Additionally, the brand’s motto is “makeup for unicorns”, which emphasises how the company believes in cosmetics as a method of self-empowerment and creative expression.

On social media, the brand actively encourages fans to post photographs of their makeup looks that utilise Lime Crime products. The brand reposts these pictures to simultaneous support their customers and inspire other followers to use their products creatively.

Lime Crime's Cyber Security Leak
On the 15th of February, 2015, Lime Crime reported on their Instagram account that their website had been infiltrated by credit card hackers. This security breach was active from the 4th of October, 2014, to the date of the Instagram announcement, supposedly exposing customer data such as names, credit card details and addresses. However, many patrons of the site claimed that Lime Crime was responsible and that they dishonestly handled this credit card leak. Some claimed that the company had knowingly been using an expired SSL certificate in order to secure and store customers’ credit card information. Furthermore, the plaintiffs claimed that Lime Crime had been aware of these security breaches since November of 2014, but have concealed this knowledge from consumers by ignoring early customer reports of the issue.

In December, 2017, Lime Crime faced continuous negotiations between counsel and mediation sessions with a retired judge before agreeing to a $110,000 class action settlement. This funding was to be allocated among qualifying Class Members who submitted timely and legitimate claims. The potential award for these Class Members was a payment of up to $44 as well as entitlement to a fifteen-percent discount off future purchases from Lime Crime makeup. This discount was redeemed through a coupon code, which was sent to each class member, and was valid for approximately one year.

FDA Scandal
On the 29th of July, 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reviewed the Velvetines Liquid Matte Lipsticks and issued an official warning letter for the shade “red velvet.” This letter stated that Lime Crime’s use of ferric ferrocyanide and ultramarines in the formula of this particular lip stain violates the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. Lime Crime’s social media pages articulated that this violation was because of a misprint on the product’s packaging. Megan McSeveney, an FDA press officer, claims that the FDA investigation was launched as a result of receiving six complaints from consumers within a period of two months.