What I'm Not Buying: Morphe x Jaclyn Hill The Vault

Morphe and influencer Jaclyn Hill have teamed up yet again on a collection of four palettes that are available to purchase individually or together as a set called "The Vault."

And I won't be buying. 

I know that I'm pretty late to write this post, but I figured it was probably still worth writing since these palettes are currently "out of stock" and will be restocked soon. 

If you haven't read my last post, I recommend doing so for all of my thoughts on the current drama in the beauty community and how much influence we consumers give to these YouTube influencers. I'll touch on some of that throughout this post, but for a more comprehensive post, I recommend reading that. 

I have a lot of thoughts about this collection, but I can simply them into two categories:

1. In terms of color selection, I have a fair amount of positive things to say
2. In terms of how this launch was handled, I have mostly negative things to say

Let's look at the palettes.

Ring the Alarm:

Bling Boss

Armed & Gorgeous:

Dark Magic:

Let's start with the positives. 

One thing that I can say about Jaclyn Hill is that she really knows how to curate a color selection. I don't think it's a coincidence that many brands want to work with her, and I also don't think it's a coincidence that Morphe set their sights on her when they first came to market. 

These palettes are quite pretty, in my opinion, and most of them don't look like things that we've seen ad nauseam from brands like Tarte, Too Faced, and Urban Decay. With that said, Ring the Alarm looks like a mini version of her big palette with Morphe, but we will get to that in a bit. 

Another positive about this collection is that it is inclusive. All of these palettes can work with multiple skin tones, and there is not a brow bone shadow just for light skin tones in every single palette. 

I think it's also good that you have the option to buy each palette individually, so if you are only really attracted to one color scheme, you can buy that for $15 instead of buying the entire vault, which retails for $49 plus tax and shipping (unless you buy in-store from Ulta). 

And that's where the positives stop for me. 

Thing is, if these palettes were high quality, I would probably have a lot of praise for them. It's a good price point and an interesting, inclusive color selection, so there is a lot to celebrate if the quality is there. Unfortunately, that is just not the case at all. Even if this palette had the same quality as the bigger Jaclyn Hill x Morphe palette, I would still say that the quality would need to be higher because darker mattes are really where this brand struggles, and this collection is full of them. 

Not unsurprisingly, this collection was met with delay, which has happened with every single Morphe and Jaclyn Hill release. To me, that is a huge cause for concern with supporting a brand because when you are a functional, professional brand, you shouldn't have to delay multiple projects. 

The PR statement that was fed to consumers was that there was a "pressing issue" and that ALL of the palettes were going to be destroyed and repressed. The "pressing issue" was apparently the cause for the negative reviews the vault got when PR packages were sent out, and the brand wanted to "correct the issue."

For what it's worth, this alone should speak volumes about the manipulation of swatches that brands provide. Let's look at Morphe's swatches:

Personally, I think all of these swatches look to be photoshopped onto the models' arms. I could be wrong about that, but at the very least, these swatches look visually enhanced. And when you look at these swatches, there is no reason to think that there is a quality issue or that the colors would be patchy and lacking pigment. But, since the brand acknowledged that there was a quality problem, it really showcases that swatches from brands are really worthless in a lot of ways. 

Before I get into the other problems with this collection and its launch, I just want to quickly discuss why I personally decided against buying any of these palettes before I even knew of the controversies surrounding the launch. 

Ring the Alarm:

This palette is essentially a condensed version of the bigger Jaclyn Hill palette:

So if you own this one, you don't need the smaller one. I wrote an anti-haul post on this palette, but if you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll know that I received it as a gift. My overall thoughts on it are that the quality is slightly better that the other palettes I've tried from Morphe, but it is still not great. The color selection is also too repetitive, and it didn't need to be 35 shadows. I don't like that there are so many pink shimmer shades but no pink matte shades, so it feels like your only option is to have a pink/brown look or a pink/red look. Finally, I only use a handful of shadows in this palette since so many are just repetitive, so it isn't worth the price for me. 

Due to this, I think Ring the Alarm is a better option overall if you don't already own the bigger palette, but I still don't like that there are two pink shimmers with only a whole bunch of matte browns. No one needs that many matte brown shadows. 

Bling Boss:

Out of all of the palettes, this was the least interesting to me. You've got three taupe shimmers that look exactly the same, two brown shadows that everyone already has a dozen times over, and then some purple/berry shadows that you also probably have in other palettes. 

This is the least inspiring to me, and while I appreciate that it largely leans cool-toned, which is different for Jaclyn and most brands, it just isn't that interesting of a color selection for me. 

It reminds me a lot of ABH Norvina:

Which, frankly, while I also find this palette to be pretty boring, is a better execution of this color scheme. 

Natasha Denona Lila:

Morphe 35P:

Violet Voss Hashtag:

And Lorac Desert Sunset:

Armed & Gorgeous:

This palette appears to be the most popular, but I really don't see why. It's the same palette that we have seen so much over the past year, except that it has a green color thrown in. 

It is essentially Colourpop Yes, Please!:

With a bronze and a green. 

The shimmers in this palette are a white (which most people have many times over), golds, and a bronze. Most people, even if they aren't makeup hoarders, will have a gold and bronze shimmer. The mattes are even more browns plus a mustard, orange, and green. I assume the the reason this palette is so popular is because of the mustard, orange, and green mattes, but those can easily be purchased as singles from brands like Colourpop and Makeup Geek.  

This palette also reminds me of ABH Subculture: 

And I personally think Subculture executed this color scheme in a more interesting manner. 

Dark Magic:

This is the palette that is most interesting to me because I haven't seen it a dozen times over, and interestingly, it is the only palette that did not sell out. And I assume that's because it is different (and people tend to buy the same thing over and over) and has green and blue shades as opposed to browns, golds, and pinks, which have been popular for years. 

With that said, I still already own all these colors and there is still too much brown. 

This palette reminds me of Melt Gemini:

And Viseart Dark Matte:

And I think both of these palettes executed the color scheme better than Dark Magic. 

So, although I do like the color schemes of the palettes individually when compared to what a lot of the major brands have available, I think as a vault, there are still too many repeated shades, especially browns. 

I counted 14 matte brown shades between all of the palettes, which means that only 26 of the shadows in the 40-shadow vault are not brown. And I can guarantee you that no one needs 14 shades of matte brown. I can also guarantee you that those 14 shadows are not all unique from each other. 

Now I would like to discuss to some of the controversy surrounding this launch. As I mentioned above, the launch of this collection was delayed following negative reviews about the quality and performance of the shadows. 

If you recall, the launch of the bigger Jaclyn Hill palette was also delayed after a picture of a cake surfaced that essentially spoiled the palette's color scheme, and Jaclyn promised that the cake did not have the real color selection. And then the palette finally released and we saw that the cake did, in fact, have the correct color scheme and Jaclyn lied about it. 

Suffice to say that when Jaclyn announced that the vault was going to be delayed due to quality control, the existing palettes were going to be "destroyed" and new ones made, and then those "new" palettes were available for purchase less than two months later, no one believed her. 

And then it surfaced that weeks earlier, following the PR launch of the palette, Becca had sent Morphe a cease and desist letter because the packaging of the vault palettes:

Looked very similar to the Becca and Jaclyn Hill collaboration:

And by "similar," I mean nearly identical. 

When the "new" vault palettes were released, they received negative reviews, and people cited the same problems that people had in the PR launch. People who worked in manufacturing then weighed in to say that it was essentially impossible to remake all the palettes and ship them from China (where the palettes are made), in the time between when the palettes were "destroyed" and when they were available for purchase. 

This led many people to believe that the delay had nothing to do with wanting to improve quality and everything to do with getting a legal plan in place for the eventual lawsuit Morphe launched against Becca, claiming that they have every right to move forward with the design. 

What is so disappointing about this is that Jaclyn Hill went out of her way to say that quality was the issue, acknowledging the problems people noted in the PR launch. She admitted that the quality was bad and that they were fixing it, and it seems pretty clear that they released those same palettes everyone knew was poor quality.  

And, because it has Jaclyn Hill's name on it, they knew they would sell. And they did. 

This relates to my last post about the predatory and manipulative nature of marketing with influencers. Due to the platform of YouTube and social media, the audience feels like they have a more personal and substantial connection with the person than they do with a celebrity they watch on television. And with that comes a certain amount of trust and loyalty that makes people want to "support" the influencer, buy whatever they had a hand in making, or believe them when they swear the quality is great. 

There has been a common thread lately of YouTube personalities in the beauty community sharing their "truth," and Jaclyn Hill was the latest person to jump on this trend. But honestly, I just don't know how much of any of it I believe. Because right now, everyone is acting in their own best interest to protect their current income and lifestyle. And acting that way while presenting it as the "truth" is also very predatory. 

In the end, I think the current beauty industry marketing model is one that preys off of people who are vulnerable and susceptible to addiction as well as people who have fear of missing out or who idolize people with a certain amount of fame. And I can tell you that I was absolutely someone who fit into the first two categories at the height of my addiction. 

But, as consumers, we need to be smart. We know that these palettes are poor quality—the creator blatantly admitted that. So we shouldn't buy them just because Jaclyn would "love it" if we did. 

Personally, while I do like the color scheme of these palettes and think that Jaclyn is very talented at curating a color scheme, the palettes still aren't anything that I haven't seen before and don't already own. Added to that. Morphe just doesn't have great quality—they just picked the right people to pay as advertisers. I already own all of these colors already and have no space in my life to add more palettes that are poor quality, so I won't be buying.  

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What I'm Not Buying: Jaclyn Hill X Morphe Palette

Jaclyn Hill teamed up with Morphe for yet another collaboration—the Jaclyn Hill X Morphe Palette. 

And I won't be buying. 

This is an odd post because I feel like most consumers are going to be grouped in one of two groups:

• Those who love Jaclyn Hill and will buy anything she had a hand in creating 
• Those who aren't tempted by this palette at all

I belong to the second group. 

And I feel like this is an odd post because I don't think the majority of people are going to be evaluating whether they should buy this palette or not or if they think this will be a good buy for their money. I think most people will probably have already made up their minds on if they will be buying or not. 

For some background, Jaclyn Hill is an incredibly popular person who makes beauty videos on YouTube. She has collaborated on several products, most notably with Becca and Morphe. Morphe released the "Jaclyn Hill Favorites" palette a few years ago, which was a selection of Jaclyn's favorite shadows from Morphe's collection:

This newest palette, according to Jaclyn, took two years to make and has a brand new formula, so it is supposedly different from all other Morphe palettes and shadows. 

The palette has been teased for months (maybe even a year), and the release date kept getting pushed back. The palette was leaked earlier this year when a photo of a cake commissioned for a celebratory party surfaced: 

But Jaclyn insisted the palette looked different from the cake. 

When photo of the palette released, it was obvious that it was the same as the cake (down to the message on the lid). 

I personally think it's pretty terrible when people's work is leaked for the sake of hype and attention, and while I think Jacklyn lied by saying it was not the same, I can understand how much it must have sucked to work on a project and have the first reveal be from a damn cake. 

To be completely honest, this palette does not interest me at all, and despite the fact that it has a "new formula," I think this palette is a complete ripoff. 

Let me explain. 

This palette has 35 shadows, like most other Morphe palettes. And Morphe palettes with 35 shadows typically cost $23. 

This palette costs $38, which is a considerable increase. And, here's the thing. Morphe wants consumers to think that this palette is $15 more expensive because of this supposed "new formula," but the reality is that the $15 price increase is the "collaborating with Jaclyn Hill" fee. 

I've explained this many times before, but when brands collaborate with someone, they are selling the product in large part because of the name attached. Therefore, the name attached will earn a nice percentage of the profits. In these cases, brands have two options if they don't want to sacrifice on the profits they would normally earn without the collaborator. They can:

Lower the quality of the product so that it is cheaper to make but keep the price the same

Or

Charge more.

It looks like Morphe chose the second option. 

But, wait, there's more. Morphe shipping rates are very high, especially considering how light the products are and that if the product comes broken and the buyer did not request to spend extra money on shipping to insure it, they will not replace the item. 

With shipping, the Jacklyn Hill X Morphe palette costs around $48 in the US, meaning that it is considerably higher for international customers. 

That is insane to me, especially considering that this is a Morphe palette. 

I have owned two Morphe palettes: 35T and 35OS. There is a store in NYC that sells Morphe palettes and allows you to swatch in store, so I purchased my palettes there. When I swatched in store, I was impressed with the shimmers (for the price), but as I've said before, it is really easy to make a shimmer that looks good swatched. I ended up decluttering the 35T and most of the 35OS. There are a few shadows from that palette that remain in my collection that I depotted and put in a custom palette. 

I am not a fan of Morphe. I don't like their business practices, I don't like some of the people they associate with, and I don't like their products. I think the quality of their shadows is quite poor, especially the matte shadows. Now, I understand the shadows in the Jaclyn Hill palette have been reformulated, and I think it's great that some reviews have said that the mattes are, for the most part, pretty okay. But, I highly, highly doubt that the mattes are as good as (or better than) ones that I have from Makeup Geek, Anastasia Beverly Hills, Kat Von D, Melt Cosmetics, Viseart, or even those in my Milani Earthly Elements palette. 

In terms of swatches, most that have surfaced from Jaclyn look like this:

The colors look like they pack a lot of pigment, which is something that I have found with a lot of Morphe shimmers. But I think it is also evident that the colors have been pressed incredibly hard into the skin. Looking at the brush in the second photo, for example, that is much, much more pressure than I would ever use on my eye. 

These swatches from Samantha Ravndahl look what I consider a little more true to life:

(Each color has been swatched twice. On the left, it is a finger swatch; on the right, a brush swatch.)

You can watch Samantha Ravndahl's review video here. 

Apparently Jaclyn recommends applying some of these shadows with a finger, which is not surprising considering the pigmentation in the above photos. A lot of foiled/metallic shadows apply better with a finger. I have some shadows by Natasha Denona that look like complete crap when applied with a brush and incredible applied with my finger. However, on the whole, I think most people would like a shadow to perform well with a brush. 

Let's look at the colors:

From my understanding, this is supposed to be Jaclyn's ultimate palette, or something like that. It's not meant to be an innovator or on trend or anything like that. It is literally just what her ideal custom palette would look like. 

And when I think about it like that, I realize that this palette looks a lot like all of my custom palettes as well, meaning I already have all these colors. 

Here are some of mine:

(I have two others that are all round pans, but I am still recovering from surgery and cannot stand long enough to take photographs of them.)

Let's look at the Jaclyn Hill X Morphe palette as just pigments:

Do you know what I see here? A whole lot of colors that look either the same or very similar. This is something that I find happens in a lot of Morphe palettes. Take the 35O for example:

This palette was SO hyped, in large part because of Jaclyn Hill, and for the exception of the last two columns, this palette just looks like a whole lot of browns to me that won't look all that different on the eye. That's the reason I decluttered the majority of the colors from the all-shimmer version of this palette: so many of them were duplicated in the palette. 

And, here's the thing. The Jaclyn Hill palette will be so hyped—it's already so hyped. And it will likely sell out. Or the Morphe website will crash. Or something like that. And that's because Jaclyn has a huge following of (primarily young and impressionable) viewers, I don't think it matters if the quality is meh, the colors are repetitive and generic, or if it is overpriced. People will buy this because it has Jaclyn's name attached to it. 

But for nearly $50, there are so many better palettes one could buy, like everyone's favorite: ABH Modern Renaissance:

Or Juvia's Place Masquerade:

I don't fit the targeted demographic of this palette, and this is an easy pass for me. I have all of these colors somewhere in my collection, and I certainly don't need or want a huge Morphe palette with all of them. So, I won't be buying.