Black Beauty Brand Juvia’s Place Gets Dragged For Reposting Racist Jeffree Star, Ignoring Ebony Influencers

Source: Tajarirah Watts / EyeEm / Getty

This. Is. Bad.

Juvia’s Place Blasted For Mistreating Black Beauty Influencers, Reposting Jeffree Star

A black beauty brand that’s been celebrated for its highly pigmented palettes and celebratory African imagery is doing some SERIOUS damage control after a cosmetics conundrum.

Over the weekend social media users balked when Juvia’s Place reposted YouTuber Jeffree Star picking up some their foundation at his local Ulta. The extremely popular social star with over 15 MILLION subscribers posted a vid praising the brand for being full coverage and recommended it to his followers.

 

“If you wanna try something that’s very full coverage this year, or you want to look sickening all summer and look like a doll then try it out and let me know how you feel,” said Starr. I’m thoroughly impressed.”

His post caused Juvia’s Place to repost Jeffree on their Instagram, thanking the mega-popular influencer for the positive review. “We’re speechless,” wrote JP.

That caused a firestorm of backlash, however, because if you’re well versed in beauty bloggers you KNOW that Jeffree has a sordid history of racism. He allegedly called makeup guru Jackie Aina a “gorilla” and he’s been accused on multiple occasions of using the n-word (with the hard ER)— so with that in mind, people are wondering why JP would gleefully repost him—even IF he’s apologized and denied the (obvious) racism.

That’s not all, however, a legion of black beauty bloggers pointed out that they’ve had numerous issues with Juvia’s Place and claimed that when they voiced their concerns some of them were BLOCKED.

View this post on Instagram

The NEW! Complexion Line #IAmMagic 🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏼🙌🏻 This Collection was created to celebrate and elevate our Definition of Beauty. include: 1. #Foundation Velvety Matte in 42!! Shades!!! 4 different undertones $20 / 30ml each a full coverage foundation that melts into your skin while giving a radiant and velvety Matte finish. *Made in Italy with top of the line ingredients and technology. Nubian Kingdom➡️Deepest Dark , Deep Dark , Dark , Rich Tan… Medium Kingdom➡️Tan and Medium Light Kingdom➡️Light and Very Light . #CrueltyFree #Vegan Oil Free, Paraben Free. 🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏼🙌🏻. 2. 24 #Concealers $14 / 10ml each Shades are Divided into 6 Families. Formula is Full coverage, Light weight, Super comfortable and easy to blend. Conceals Under eye circles, hyper pigmentation, redness and blemishes . Darkest Complexions to very light, pale Complexions . And that’s not all.. There are 5 NEW! Loose #SettingPowders And a NEW Face Brush @trendmood1

A post shared by Juvia's Place (@juviasplace) on Jun 15, 2019 at 12:25pm PDT

Ya hate to see it.

Hit the flip.

Youtuber/beauty expert Alissa Ashley called out the brand for their unsavory behavior behind the scenes.

According to Alissa, the brand ignored her and several other beauty influencers in favor of white ones—until it was time to release the foundations. She also said that the brand’s owner “dogged out” several of them, including herself but is now BEGGING for reviews.

The brand responded and said they’re “praying for Alissa’s healing”—-REALLY?

The founder of Juvia’s Place has since spoken out and she’s issuing an apology and promising to “make this right.”

“My name is Chichi Eburu, Founder of Juvia’s Place. I am originally from Nigeria, but I’m based in the United States with my family. I’d like to start off by 🙏🏾thanking our beautiful customers who have supported us throughout the very long and difficult years. I’m honestly a very private person but I wanted to speak out and address some of the issues that have come up.

The first issue we’d like to address is the Jeffree Star review. We are always excited when customers and bloggers organically love our products. Jeffree tweeted that he was going to do a review and we were excited. He then filmed and reviewed the product. Out of excitement, like we do for our other supporters, we reposted him and thanked him, but soon realized a portion of our followers weren’t happy about it. Jeffree Star was not paid an outright fee nor given commission. As a person of color, and an immigrant I, understand the brutality and struggles faced by our kind, and for those reasons I do not support any racist remarks and Ill treatment in both actions and words made towards people of color, particularly black women. We understand there are disagreements, but everyone deserves mutual respect and love as we are all fighting our unique battles and challenges daily. We apologize to our customers . We can only ask that you give us the opportunity to make this right.

Secondly, we absolutely love to work with influencers of all races, especially black women, as this brand was created as an expression and celebration of the Black Diaspora. I personally believe in the economic empowerment of women of color that are normally marginalized in corporate America, so at Juvia’s Place, our very small team is made of up of all women of color ranging from different ethnicities.

Also, for the record, our foundation launch was our very first full scale campaign; and for our first full campaign, we wanted to make sure we included the very people for whom Juvia’s Place was created. We have not and would not ever ignore our black influencers. We hope to continue to grow, and continue to pay black creators who work with us, but we can’t do so without your support. Thank you.”

Rapper Chika (@Oranicuhh) says she was blocked for commenting on Juvia’s Place’s page.

The beauty influencers are emphasizing however that they’re not telling people who to order from, instead, they’re simply sharing their own personal experiences which is fair.