Kylie Jenner's skin-care brand is only a few weeks old and it's already gotten a huge heap of backlash for a number of different things. It sort of fits the KarJenner brand to have negativity surround a launch, but I'm unsure how well that bodes for the success of a skin-care brand specifically. The latest controversy surrounding Kylie Skin is its vegan status.
Is the brand vegan, as it claims on its official website, or is it not? A few critics think it may not be, and they have some questionable receipts to back it up. Let's dive into this thing and settle this debate once and for all.
Before Kylie Skin even launched, fans had an issue with its walnut scrub.
The beauty community lit Kylie Jenner on FIRE for releasing a walnut scrub with her skin-care brand. Professional estheticians and general beauty consumers alike all flamed her for having a product with walnuts, which are considered to be too harsh for the skin. Because scrubs have the potential to exacerbate hyperpigmentation and tear the skin, lots of estheticians also warn against people using grainy scrubs altogether and recommend they find gentler exfoliants like foams and liquids.
After the great walnut backlash, Kylie Jenner released a video of her "morning and night" skin-care routine that left fans scratching their heads and roasting her once again.
People had SO MANY questions after this video. Like, why did she only wash her face for 0.2 seconds? Why is there still a tag on the wash cloth? Most importantly, why was there still foundation on the cloth after you were done?
In short, the video left people questioning whether or not Kylie Jenner knows anything about skin care at all. Seriously, if you don't even know how to properly wash your face, then how can people consider you to be a reliable skin-care peddler?
But now critics think she might have committed an even bigger offense with Kylie Skin, as in allegedly lying about the fact that the brand is vegan.
"Everything is cruelty-free, vegan, gluten-free, paraben-free, sulfate-free, and suitable for all skin types," the Kylie Skin website states on its About page. Since we're in an age of more people seeking out brands that do not test on animals or include ingredients that come from animals at all, this statement actually means a ton. It's not just a "description" of the products. Some consider it to be a statement of morality, and oftentimes a brand's cruelty-free and/or vegan status (or lack thereof) can be the sole determining factor in whether or not a person buys that brand.
Translation: When you make claims about your brand being cruelty-free and vegan, then it better ACTUALLY be cruelty-free and vegan.
Unfortunately, a few critics are suggesting that Kylie Skin may not be 100% vegan.
Critics' concerns are based on two products in the Kylie Skin lineup. One is the Vanilla Milk Toner ($22, Kylie Skin). The product has an ingredient called squalane in it, which is an oil that was "traditionally sourced from the livers of deep-sea sharks in the South Pacific," as explained in a DermStore article. Teen Vogue specifically questioned the use of this ingredient and described it as "not vegan" in an article.
However, the DermStore article also confirms that squalane is now harvested from many plant sources, including olives, rice bran, and sugarcane —providing an environmentally friendly and cruelty-free option."
So there's that. It's very possible that Kylie Jenner added 100% plant-based squalane, which is an ingredient sold on its own by skin-care brands like The Ordinary.
The other ingredient in Kylie Skin products that has some fans concerned is "Hydroxyacetophenone."
Hydroxyacetophenone is listed as an ingredient in the Foaming Face Wash and the Vanilla Milk Toner. One fan tweeted Jeffree Star concerning his infamous Kylie Skin review. "@JeffreeStar in your recent video with Shane Dawson, you said that kylie’s products are vegan and crueletly free [sic]. Kylie said that too but it’s not true… take a look," the critic wrote along with screenshots of the Kylie Skin ingredients.
The fan paired the tweet with a photo of what appears to be the definition of hydroxyacetophenone, which reads, "3-Hydroxyacetophenone is a chemical compound. It is a component of castoreum, the exudate from the castor sacs of the mature beaver," per Wikipedia.
But before you get all up in arms about Kylie Jenner lying about her skin-care brand's vegan status, check out what this fan pointed out about that definition.
"Ah yes, let’s ignore the 'three' since that changes everything," the fan quipped. The fan is pointing out that the definition the critic provided was for 3-hydroxyacetophenone, which is a different ingredient than actual hydroxyacetophenone, which is derived from berries and not beavers.
In other words, ya gotta be careful with these scientific terms people. We also gotta be careful about jumping to negative and false conclusions.
There is nothing wrong with going over ingredients with a magnifying glass and a fine-toothed comb.
It's actually important to do that since it helps you make sure you choose beauty products that agree with your body and your morals. Still, we want to make sure we read and share the proper definitions and terms to avoid spreading inaccurate information. Kylie Jenner may be problematic to many, but so far the accusations concerning her lying about Kylie Skin being a 100% vegan brand are 100% false.
Unless it's proven otherwise, we can assume she's using the plant-based squalane and that's that on that.
