What I'm Not Buying: Lime Crime Venus XL

Lime Crime has released their latest palette, which is an extra large version of their popular Venus palette, aptly named Venus XL. 

And I won't be buying. 

I have never received so many requests to write an anti-haul post, and I'm sorry it has taken me a while to get to it. However, it was thrilling to receive so many requests, and I just want to thank everyone who either messaged me, commented, or tagged me in a post on Instagram. 

Part of the reason that it took me so long to write this post is that when I first saw the Venus XL, I really, really wanted to purchase it. And I wanted to make sure that I was confident in my decision not to before writing this post. The original Venus palette has been a favorite of mine (though it has since been depotted), and the expansion of the XL palette is really gorgeous. 

Lime Crime has definitely been one of the most controversial brands in recent years (we will get into that more later), but they produce some of the most beautiful makeup items. And Venus XL is no exception. 

I knew I shouldn't buy this palette, that I had all of these colors already, but I was still tempted by it. And despite everything that I have learned and that I have written about in this blog, I still felt pulled in by the color scheme. But then I faced reality. Yes, this is a gorgeous palette. But I truly have all of these colors already. 

Let's look at the original Venus palette:

And Venus XL:

What's nice about this palette is that there aren't any repeat shades from the original Venus palette. So if you already own Venus, there won't be any overlap. But with that said, I think there are several shades in Venus that absolutely should be in this palette, especially since this is a "Venus XL" palette. Most specially, I think "Venus", "Rebirth," and "Muse" should have been included. There are certainly shades that are comparable in Venus XL, but I think it's really lacking those deep red shades and a bright coral. 

The most obvious palettes in my collection that dupe this color scheme are my duped/edited Desert Dusk palette:

And my duped Just Peachy Mattes palette:

Between these two palettes, I have every single shadow in Venus XL duped. And this is obviously why I was so drawn to it—it's clearly a color scheme that I love. These two palettes are arguably my top favorites in my entire collection, and it would be so pointless for me to buy another palette just to have all these colors again. 

Let's look at swatches:

It's funny because swatches are supposed to help sell a palette, but I've recently found that they do the opposite for me. When I see pictures of the palette and see the colors organized in a certain way, I feel so drawn to it. But when I see swatches, I feel like I am brought back into reality. Because these are all very basic colors. In fact, I would say that my two palettes above easily have more unique colors than this palette. 

Added to that, there are so many colors in here that look incredibly similar. My guess is that "Passion", "Aphrodite", "Nu Classic", "Celestial", "Triumph", and "Supreme" would all look very similar once applied onto the eye. Same with "Eden", "Inspire", and "Goddess." 

And when you look at it that way, it seems there are only 10 unique colors in Venus XL: dark pink, bronze, berry, mauve, hot pink, brown, orange, light pink, cream, and dark brown/plum. Meaning, there are about eight shades in this palette that are repeats. And even then, there are three different shades of pink included in the "unique" shade count. 

There are countless palettes that look like Venus XL, including, Jeffrey Star Blood Sugar:

Huda Beauty Rose Gold:

Huda Beauty Mauve Obsessions:

Coloured Raine Queen of Hearts:

Violet Voss Hashtag:

Violet Voss Holy Grail:

Natasha Denona Lila:

And Colourpop She:

My guess is that due to the success of palettes like Huda Beauty Desert Dusk:

And, of course ABH Modern Renaissance:

Lime Crime wanted to be included in the conversation again. I've said this previously, but before Modern Renaissance was released, Venus was a huge hit and was sold out for long stretches of time. However, Lime Crime has not been included in the conversation in a while, and while some of that had to do with Lime Crime being a slightly lesser known indie brand, it was largely because they had a huge string of controversies, and big influencers publicly boycotted them. 

And so when everyone was praising Modern Renaissance for having this really unique color scheme, people weren't really hearing about Venus, which came first and has a similar color scheme without all the boring (in my opinion) neutral shades. 

It's common knowledge that when one brand has a huge success with a new product that is trending, most brands will scramble to come out with something in a similar color scheme. A few years ago, when the major palettes were Urban Decay Naked and Too Faced Chocolate Bar, having an orange shadow would have been "too bold" for a neutral palette. But after the success of Modern Renaissance (which has an orange shadow), Urban Decay came out with Naked Heat, Tarte came out with Tartelette Toasted, and we even have Colourpop Yes, Please!, which is a palette I can't see being popular only a few years ago. 

But I think Lime Crime is just too late to this trend, which is interesting because, in a way, they started it. When I first learned of the original Venus palette and heard it was popular and selling out, I looked at it and thought, Who would ever want to wear those colors?! I would constantly look like I have pink eye!

Little did I know that in a few years, those would be my "go-to" shades. 

But I kept looking at Venus and wanted to know why it was so popular. And eventually, I wanted it too. Even after I had it, I didn't know what to do with it. I was so used to only wearing light neutral shadows (I even remember when I started wearing gold and thinking I was so bold!) that the colors in Venus were so intimidating. But now, those colors have been trending for a while, and I don't think Lime Crime could just say, "Hey, remember us and our Venus palette that's several years old?" Instead, they came out with a new one that was only different because it was bigger, repeating shades several times over. 

I think a lot of this has to do with Lime Crime trying to come back from controversy. It's worth investigating if you don't know the story (I recommend this Racked article), but Lime Crime founder Doe Deere has had a tremendous amount of controversy surrounding her, and everything culminated in a 2015 data breach that compromised thousands of consumers' personal and financial information. 

Doe Deere also started attacking consumers on social media and in private messages, including this well-known message sent to a customer:

Following this, the boycotts began, and eventually, Doe Deere stepped away from being the public face of the company (though she is still the CEO). To my knowledge (I could be wrong), Lime Crime hasn't had any recent controversies, but they are certainly one of those brands who you need to make a personal decision regarding if you want to support them or not. 

Personally, I have owned the Venus palette. It has since been depotted, and I only kept a few of the shades. My palette was purchased before I knew about all of the controversy surrounding the brand, and it was purchased from Urban Outfitter, which is an authorized retailer of Lime Crime makeup. With that said, I personally have difficulty buying from Lime Crime. 

Lime Crime has made a point to say that they have greatly improved their security since the 2015 breach, but, whenever shopping online, I aways recommend paying through PayPal or a similar service instead of directly entering credit card information. I do feel that the brand is moving in a generally more positive direction, especially since Doe Deere isn't directly in charge of social media and isn't personally attacking consumers, but I have to admit that is an incredibly low bar. 

I also know that it is nearly impossible to find any brand that doesn't have something ugly in its history. I'm not excusing that, just saying that it is a sad reality. And people need to make personal judgements on who they support and who they don't. 

It has been a few years since the height of Lime Crime's controversies, but I am still left with poor feelings toward the brand. 

Brining it back to the Venus XL palette, I feel largely the same way I felt about the Jeffree Star Blood Sugar palette. It's a color scheme that I am certainly drawn to, but it is also one that I already own. And at this point, you probably do too. I also feel like this palette will only be able to create a few distinct looks. And for $56 plus tax (shipping is free for orders over $50), I would want to create a variety of looks. 

Frankly, if you are willing to buy from Lime Crime, love this color scheme, and don't already own these colors, I would instead recommend buying the original Venus palette. It's $38, has all of these colors, and doesn't repeat any shade. You can also purchase Venus through a few third-party retailers if you don't want all of your money to go directly to Lime Crime. With that said, those retailers also have problematic histories, which brings me back to the point about almost every brand having something unsavory about them. 

Overall, I think the best option would be to buy a few singles from Make Up For Ever, Makeup Geek, or Colourpop, such as Come and Get It, 143, Making Moves, Stay Golden, Wait For It, and Slim Fit. 

In general, I found that I'm not too impressed with this release by Lime Crime. And I know I said that I wanted to purchase it when I first saw it, but when I think about Venus and Venus II, Venus XL feels uninspired and lazy. The Venus palettes were ABH Modern Renaissance and Subculture before those palettes even existed and the color schemes were made popular. I always felt Lime Crime was ahead of all the other makeup brands and trends, but now it seems they are trying to undo some of the damage caused by the 2015 boycott and are pandering to the makeup-obsessed who will continually buy what they already own. I have certainly fallen into that category in the past, but I am happy to say that I no longer feel that way. 

Venus XL doesn't bring anything new or different to my makeup collection, and if I had to choose between it and my duped/edited Desert Dusk palette, I would choose my palette any day. There are too many options available at a lower cost for me to spend upwards of $60 on this palette. I don't need it, and I'm not going to buy it.