Sephora’s selling a new, inappropriately-named lipstick and it’s all sorts of creepy
I’ll come clean: I’m a Sephora junkie. I love the bright lights, the beautiful rainbows of eyeshadows and nail polishes, and the always-surprising amounts of glitter-eyeliner options (because you need those in silver, green, and turquoise. . .OK, maybe that’s just me)—and heaven help me, I can get lost in the free samples. So it’s more than disappointing when news strikes again that Sephora is displaying poor judgement and selling yet another creepily-named product.
The product in question is one of Von D’s new Studded Kiss Lipsticks titled “Underage Red,” which has everyone on social media raising eyebrows. Is the lipstick shade targeting underage girls so they might appear older, or for older women to appear like modern Lolitas? Either way, we’re not amused. And BTW, there’s also a shade called “Lolita,” as one Twitter user commented after the initial tweet calling out “Underage Red”:
This isn’t the first time the L.A. Ink star has offended folks with her lipstick shades. Back in 2013 Sephora publicly apologized and pulled one of Von D’s lipsticks for being offensively named “Celebutard.” Despite the backlash this caused, Von D responded a bit flippantly with a tweet along the lines of “at the end of the day it’s just a f*’n lipstick,” before reportedly deleting the comment. Sigh.
Von D stand in a long line of brands who have used offensive lingo (or should we call them bizarre—and gross—marketing tactics?) to push products, like Love’s Baby Soft, which told us in the 70s that “innocence is sexier than you think.” And Business Insider points out that MAC cosmetics also has shades of lipgloss called “Underage” and “Kinky.”
Are stores like Sephora simply ignoring the names of the brands they sell, or are brands trying to convince us (in a modern society where we can, you know—vote, shave or not shave our armpits, and generally rule the world?) that women need to look like underage girls to feel attractive? We think not! And we genuinely hope Ms. Von D considers more appropriate names for her products in the future, because we love those shades, and all those eyeliners, and, and. . .
