What the duck is happening in the world of Beauty?

2018 hasn’t really been a good year.  We lost Anthony Bourdain, Kate Spade and now the beauty world is also in a shipwreck mess.  Its like 2018 is the Titanic and we’re all watching the shit show slowly unravel.  The past month has been a mess and I thought I would cover it for the hell of it.  I think the biggest story has to be Deciem which all of a sudden just shut down all operations as of two or three days ago. On top of that, there is a chance that Skinfood as a brand might not exist because of financial issues.  And because I’m festive in the spilling hot tea department, I thought I’d throw a what the duck Kaja cushion blushers having a “dupe” under the I’m meme line which is all under the same company Memebox.  I’m so confused with everything that I will have to spell everything out, mostly because I can’t wrap my brain around what is going on.  So let’s get into it.

Okay Deciem has been a shit storm since last year I think and it just gets worse and worse.  It might be last year, it might have been the beginning of 2018 but anyways… I tried to ignore the drama since I have respect for Brandon and if he really does need therapy, please do so.  From inappropriate harassment towards customers to very bizarre Instagram posts on the official Deciem tweets, their followers were dropping like dead flies and I guess Estee Lauder (they bought out 28% of Deciem shares back in 2017) didn’t get the memo to step in and do something about it.  I’m trying to make a super brief timeline of what happened throughout 2018 but if you want to read into it, click here.

From the CEO taking over the Deciem Instagram page to shading Drunk Elephant, everything is honestly just a mess.  I was going to go into it from event to event, but it is just WAY too long and no point in me giving you spark notes if you can just read the article.  There were even events of panic on the Instagram page where he is pleading people to call 911.  Fast forward to two days ago, he announced on Instagram that all Deciem activities will be shut down.  I don’t know what “shut down” means but I know all physical stores have been closed as of right now.  This makes me sad because I was really starting to warm up to the Ordinary products sigh.

And last but not least, Kaja.  I really don’t want to shit on the brand since they are a Memebox brand and Memebox has a special place in my heart.  But this just doesn’t make sense.  So if you didn’t know, Memebox created a whole new brand called Kaja and their products look really cute honestly.  Their price point is quite reasonable (ranging from $14 USD – $24 USD) and if you’re a frequent shopper at Sephora, you’ll feel like this is drugstore pricing.  But something caught my attention while I was scrolling through the magical world of the interweb.

This isn’t sold in North America I know that, but if you are a K-beauty lover and a K-beauty shopper, you’ll find ways to get this.  This is the “I’m meme” brand under Memebox as well and right off the bat you can see this is the same product.  The packaging is the same, the sponge is the same.  The shades might not be exactly the same and then I’m meme blushers only has 3 shades compared to Kaja which has four.  But these retail for 11,232 won ($9.83 USD) and there might also be a coupon you can use.  I mean I have seen some brands where they have a high-end division as well as a mid-range or lower-end brand but I’ve never seen the absolute exact same product but just sold at a  higher price just blatantly like this.

Wow, how do drama channels do this?  It is way too much explaining and so not fun.  I’m going to stick to what I do best, giving my opinions and recommendations.  Haha but thought I’d give the “tea” thing a try.  Hope you had fun reading and getting up to date with the beauty world, both Western and Korean. <3