Clearing up rumors regarding Sobe Botanicals new Swatches

Normally I wouldn't post about something like this but I feel it is necessary. Recently I read a review for Sobe Botanicals. The review from what I could tell, was fair and based on her personal experience (check out her blog here). However, comments from another user, were not completely truthful. And yes, I felt it necessary to post a comment in my defense and I did.

Some of you may remember my post regarding myself working with Morgana Cryptoria and Sobe Botanicals on product swatches. I have been eye and lip modeling for both companies the past couple months (also was working with Kristen from Aromaleigh before it went out of business). In an attempt to attack the honesty of Lex (owner of Sobe Botanicals) and her products, my work was trashed. Not only have I been working really hard on these swatches, but I have experienced eye/lip irritation and loss of lashes (um hello, that's why I started wearing false lashes!). This is due to applying, wiping off, applying, wiping off, over and over on a daily basis. I have to neatly apply a product, photograph it, wipe it off and move onto the next colour and repeat the process. I swatch at least 4 eye and 4 lip products a day when I have the supplies.

Basically my work of swatching, photographing and photo editing was trashed to the point of saying these photos were not real and were actually 1 photograph re-shopped multiple times to look like various colours.

What was stated:
"After several hours of working with transparent overlays in a photo editor, I found that the 25 lipstick swatches on that site are color-shopped versions of only 4 images. One photo alone was shopped over & over to represent 10 different shades."

 This is a false statement.

So while saying she's done all this "research" to find these things out, she failed to notice that in the product listings with the MY eye and lip swatches, Lex thanks "Em" (that's me!) for the photos, swatches and lists links to my stores and my blog. But some how Lex is the dishonest person behind the photographs. She is not and neither am I. We have not been dishonest about the photos displayed on Sobe Botanicals website and etsy store.

 Here are some of the lip swatches that were stated to be manipulations of just 4 photos (I made a screen shot of these from my personal work folder). While I did my best to keep the angle exactly the same in each photo, it was impossible. Even an untrained eye can see that while they are extremely similar, angles, shadows, shape of my lips and even fullness of my lips are different. None of them are duplicate photos altered to look like another colour AT ALL. However, a small handful of photos were adjusted to better represent a colour. This was done so by me, not Lex.

My natural lip colour is very pink and most lipglosses and lipsticks look darker on me than most other people's lips. So I asked Lex to add in their descriptions that the products may look different based on your own skin tone and of course your monitor. This was not added to be dishonest.

My eye swatches, like the lip swatches, were each done individually. Shape, width and angle of my brow make it easy to notice.

With all this being said, you don't have to like my pictures, you don't have to like my swatches or the quality of my photographs and photoshopping skills. I am secure enough in myself that I can handle criticism. However, do not provide misinformation on the internet because you're upset. Just be honest, share your experience and people will listen and appreciate it.

Makeup is supposed to fun, creative and beautiful. Let's keep it that way. :-)


While working with Sobe Botanicals products, I learned that I really like them and that is why I have been doing looks with the products provided to me by Lex, and have shared the looks with you. I also have really enjoyed working with Lex as she has been very kind and amazing to me. She changed a few product ingredients due to allergies, so that I could use them. Not too many companies would do that or even respond to my asking about it, and she did it for me. :-D 

Also, Melissa from Morgana Cryptoria changed her lipstick ingredients so that I may wear them. It just shows that there are some wonderful people out there.

***UPDATE:

So the person who provided misinformation replied to my comment.

Her reply:
"@BLIX
Sorry to say, but on the current edition of the site, there are 10 color versions of a single lipstick swatch image. Overlaying them transparently, every single line & detail match up, & there is not the slightest difference in the angles & mouth position, which lip lines & “anomalies” are emphasized over others, the tension of individual facial muscles, & the shape, placement, & details of the light reflection on the bottom lip. The *only* difference is the color, including a rainbow of skin colors around the mouth, which screams color manipulation. An example of this, is that ‘Harlequin’ & ‘Purple Rain’ are the exact same image, & the color-shopping was obvious even before I over-layed them, due to the skin around the mouth being yellowish-green in one & pale pink in the other.
I have no doubt that you did swatch all the colors, but it appears that, for whatever reason, whoever designed the site, only used 4 of your shots, & color-shopped only those 4, in order to represent all the lipstick colors, without telling you. Having worked as an artist, art model, & writer, I am well aware of how incredibly common it is for an editor/site designer to disregard an artist’s creations, & just completely alter the works, without the artist’s knowledge or permission. I am very sorry that’s what appears to have happened here, showing no respect for your extensive work efforts."

Again, this is false.

My reply:
 "If you have software that can provide proof of what you're saying, then back it up with screen shots showing every single layer including the "original" photo. If what you're saying is true, you should be able to provide it easily."

Anyway...
I am posting the exact pictures I took that I can see with my own eyes that Lex added to her site. LOOK at them.

Here is Purple Rain with Harlequin below it.

You can see brush strokes on my upper lip in Harlequin that aren't in Purple Rain.  Angle is different, shape is different and there are sparkles in both that aren't in the other. Even the shine on the lips is DIFFERENT. What the hell? Am I going insane or something? Clearly someone has too much time on their hands.

She also stated in her original comment, regarding the photos, that these were the same as well, but they clearly aren't.  

Copper Pipe with Coppering below it:

 

Main difference I notice right away is my lips are fuller looking in the top one (my lips were really dry and irritated in the bottom one, thus resulting in smaller and sort of wrinkly lips)  and the top one is more sparkly. These are not the same photo, obviously.

There is a colour difference in the skin as a result of my "poor photo editing" which she says is proof of what she's trying to claim. 

Again, everything she is saying in regards to my photos is completely false.

I am not posting to be mean or pick on anyone. It is to educate you and clear up any rumors. Thank you for reading.

~BLIX

RANT update: Apparently hell froze over...

...because eBay went in her favor. Why? No clue. Here's their response:

I figured this would be the case. eBay doesn't give a crap about sellers. They cater to buyers all the time. Sellers aren't even allowed to leave neutral or negative feedback for buyers. Even if they are committing fraud. WTF? Not only did I give them all the emails, but my reporting her for harassing me and calling me names, did nothing. I bet she was just emailed a warning and that's the end of it.

Crazy lady also must be coming back to check up on me as she followed up on her feedback she left, "warning" my customers to run.

You can see it here:

Ha! How is it a red flag to be concerned about poor feedback? All eBay sellers are concerned about it and no one wants to have poor feedback, so naturally it's a concern. It's like she's trying to insinuate that I'm a bad seller because I don't want poor feedback. Huh? No, I want my buyers to be happy and I don't want poor feedback because it hurts my power seller rating. Duh. And if I was such a bad seller, I would not even be a power seller. But I am! So she's just making herself look as stupid as she probably is. Sorry, I'm not being nice about it anymore. She can suck my butt.

So the only thing I could think of to do in regards to her idiotic follow-up was to reply to to them through other comments around it so people can see she's psycho. She's totally crazy if she thinks she can run off my buyers with her tantrum. Again, she's still just pissed because I blocked her. Whatever.

You can see I accidentally hit enter before I was finished with one. Dang it! At least I can admit when I screw up and laugh at myself. I was just in a rush to post the replies. XD

Here's another of my replies below her negs:

She is seriously nutso. It took a lot of strength for me to not call her a 'brain dead ass clown' in the replies. That's my term for someone is clearly dumb and acts like an ass. Feel free to use it! :-D

Oh, and I harassed the crap outta some eBay customer support person on live chat. I have the transcript but didn't want to post it unless people were interested in reading their lame excuses for helping buyers commit fraud. Totally lame.

~BLIX

RANT: I don't understand some people...

Warning. This is sort of long!

So I have this buyer that is probably the most difficult buyer I've had in a long time. This "lady" bought 4 items and upon receiving them, one item was broken but said she was able to fix it. I apologized for the inconvenience and I asked her how it was broken because I need to know whether or not it is a quality supply issue or if it is something on my end that I need to fix. Regardless of which, I need to know this information so I can try to keep stuff like this from happening in the future. I asked and thanked her for her input.
What does she do? She turns around and opens a dispute with eBay saying that my items are poor quality, I offered her no compensation for the damaged item and that I'm protecting myself by blaming the problem on my supplier, so she wants "some sort of compensation". Um...that's not even true and how am I supposed to know the item is actually damaged without seeing it? Normally I would offer to fix it or replace the item if it is shipped to me so I can do that.  I honestly didn't know what else to offer her since she said she fixed it. I have never had a buyer open a dispute against me before and I've been selling on eBay for almost 8 years. So I was caught off guard.

After receiving the info about a dispute being opened against me, I sent her a message asking her why she opened a dispute when I was communicating and working with her, corrected her on what I said to her and asked what kind of compensation was she wanting. She said she's just protecting herself and compensation was up to me. I have no idea what she's protecting herself from and she never even bothered to tell me why she said something I never said. Anyway, I figured it would be best for her to return the now fixed item and I would refund her money. So that is what I submitted in the dispute.
She gets upset and said she never wanted to give the item back she just wanted some sort of compensation for it. Well honestly, I would like to see the item to know it's actually broken before I issue a refund.
She basically wants to keep the item and get a refund for it. I don't think so. I emailed her asking her that if she wanted to keep the item why didn't she just say so when I asked. Seems pretty easy. I got no response and she escalated the dispute to a case so that eBay can review it. I guess she's hoping it will go in her favor or something and who knows if it will or not?

Because she was being so strange, I blocked her. That totally pissed her off when she tried to bid on more items. But then again she said my items were poor quality so why was she trying to bid on more? Again, she was being strange. It's as though she likes my items but wants to be mean and difficult at the same time. I don't get it.

Here are our emails, read starting at the bottom, Click to enlarge if you need to:

another set, read starting at the bottom:

 another message from her once she realized I blocked her:

Shortly after that, she left me four negatives for all four items she won. You can see her feedback and my replies:

Shortly after that, she sent me this last message:

 

So I replied with:

What the hell? Am I crazy or something? It just seemed like she was playing games and being very wishy washy about communicating with me when all I wanted was to help her. Which is why I blocked her. With the insults and name calling, I reported her to eBay for harassment. I have no idea how that works or if anything will even happen to her.

I guess I'm stuck with negative retaliation feedback. Oh well.
I didn't bother hiding her ID because you can see it on my feedback page anyway. But I hid her first name from one message.

I'm not really looking for anyone to agree with me on this. You might think I dealt with her incorrectly. But after all, I'm not a huge money hungry business with lotsa CS training or anything. I'm just one person here and I try to treat other people as they deserve while being as fair as possible. I feel confused as to why some people just won't let you help them but they want to throw tantrums about whatever it is that they are unhappy about.

Rant over. :-)