L'Oreal's 'eye shadow boss' urban decay was accused. Why is it controversial?

Urban decay, a cosmetics brand well-known for its eye shadow, is redefining its brand in the Chinese market through brand-new retail channels and makeup technology in recent years. Recently, this "eye shadow boss" has caused controversy because he was accused of ignoring consumer health and safety overseas.

According to the public information of entorno law firm, urban decay, an American cosmetics brand, was accused by environmental health advocates of selling eye shadow discs containing inhalable titanium dioxide on October 11. As of the press release, L'Oreal Group and Urban Decay brand have not made any statement on this event.

Environmental health advocates (EHA), represented by entorno law, filed a lawsuit in the high court of Alameda, Calif., accusing urban decay of selling eye shadow palettes containing titanium dioxide, especially its stoned vibes eye shadow, which contained unbound particles of inhalable size, which violated California Proposition 65. The plaintiff tried to correct Urban Decay's failure to inform the public of its exposure to titanium dioxide, a known carcinogen.

EHA claims that Urban Decay is aware of the violation, but still intentionally exposes its customers to this known carcinogen. "Urban Decay refused to remove titanium dioxide from its products, even after receiving notification, and put profits above customer health and safety."

According to EHA's lawyer, this lawsuit aims to "stop endangering the buyer's life for economic benefits, and stop mistaking its products for consumers when they may cause cancer".

Enterno Law is investigating other manufacturers who have also failed to warn or remedy products containing titanium dioxide that contain unbound particles of inhalable size.

It is reported that titanium dioxide is widely used in all kinds of cosmetics due to its low price and excellent concealer and isolation effect, while nano titanium dioxide products with high inhalation risk may cause harm to human body.

But when it comes to the harm of ingredients, we must not neglect the dose. A voice pointed out that since the "dioxane" incident, both the industry and consumers should view ingredients from a scientific perspective. "After all, talking about the harm of the dose is all hooliganism".

There are also voices that, in order to fully consider the health and safety of consumers, beauty brands should inform consumers of the existence of "risk ingredients", so that consumers can make their own judgments on whether they are able to buy products with knowledge.

Born in the mid-1990s, Urban Decay is not only the "largest eye shadow brand" and "third largest cosmetics brand" in the United States, but also the first independent cosmetics brand to go to the global market. Once launched, it quickly became popular around the world with its unique color trend. For more than 20 years, adhering to the free and distinct "California spirit", the brand has encouraged the use of color makeup to show personality and express attitude. It has been highly praised by global consumers on social platforms and has become one of the most socially influential beauty brands in the United States.

In 2012, L'Oreal Group announced the acquisition of the urban decay brand shortly after the release of the brand hot eye shadow disk naked 2.

Although compared with other brands of L'Oreal Group, Urban Decay entered the Chinese market a little later, the brand has never stopped exploring the Chinese market. In the past few years of the rapid rise of social networks in China, Urban Decay has started to grow grass in the Chinese market from online celebrity to ordinary consumers.

With the cancellation of China's mandatory animal testing policy on imported cosmetics, many international beauty brands with zero cruelty will now enter this market. In this context, in April 2020, Urban Decay launched the flagship store of Tmall Global and held Tmall Super Brand Day, officially entering the Chinese market, and expanding to offline stores of Sephora in 2021.

When entering the Chinese market, Urban Decay and Virtue, a creative hot shop, jointly completed the global brand remodeling plan and advocated a new brand concept of "I have different views on the United States". Under the new brand concept, URBAN DECAY also announced Deng Ziqi as the global spokesman.

L'Oreal said when the brand entered China that it hoped that the introduction of Urban Decay would promote the recovery of the Chinese cosmetics market after the epidemic situation was controlled. This is just the beginning. L'Oreal China plans to launch 100 new products.

It can be seen that as a popular online red cosmetics brand on the social platform, Urban Decay is expected by L'Oreal. However, judging from the current market performance, this "trump card" seems to be "thunder and small rain", and the brand traffic has not yet caused the expected outbreak in the Chinese market.

The reporter of cosmetics Finance Online has noticed that the best-selling item on tmall is not a eye shadow plate, but a spray with a fixed makeup price of 245 yuan. It is reported that the brand currently has nearly 200 SKUs, but the product portfolio of the official flagship store of Urban Decay Tmall, which has 230000 fans, is relatively simple, most of which are brand hot selling eye shadow and spray.

Although Urban Decay has many "tap water" before it entered the Chinese market, which is highly praised by major beauty bloggers, it also entered the Chinese market in a challenging market context.

On the one hand, since 2020, affected by the epidemic, the overall development of the cosmetics market has been slow; On the other hand, under the encirclement and suppression of a new generation of Chinese cosmetics brands represented by Perfect Diary, Huaxizi and Kelaqi, overseas cosmetics brands have begun to lose their "filters".

A local new head of cosmetics said that the local cosmetics brand has established a strong exclusive advantage in terms of both the control of the operation team over the Chinese market and the reaction speed of the factory. "The new generation of Chinese consumers growing up in the Internet era are more pursuing cultural connotation, technological content and cost-effectiveness, and local brands have begun to sink offline and into the market. Compared with before, overseas cosmetics brands have no obvious advantages."

Previously, Estee Lauder Group GLAMGLOW withdrew from the Chinese market this year because of the single product. Also, depending on the large products, Urban Decay becomes the acquisition target of the beauty giant. Will Urban Decay repeat the gold digging story of GLAMGLOW in the Chinese market?

Obviously, L'Oreal does not want Urban Decay with good congenital genes to keep a low profile in the Chinese market.

Recently, Urban Decay launched a series of star products through tourism retail, which are sold in Hainan Tourism Center duty-free shop and Global Premium duty-free shop. L'Oreal said: "We launched Urban Decay in a dynamic market like Hainan, further strengthening the group's strong cosmetics brand portfolio, aiming to provide products for all travelers."

At the same time, L'Oreal is still trying to enable Urban Decay with more diversified digital means. For example, cooperate with KOL to increase live broadcast marketing. "Because eye makeup needs more guidance and demonstration, it is very suitable for live broadcast environment, especially online sales, and consumers need more technical guidance."

In a flash event in Hainan, Urban Decay provided a virtual reality activity to increase the sense of experience. Consumers can use Naked CyberPalette colors to create their own augmented reality avatars, and receive professional transformation in an interesting environment characterized by the striking giant NakedPalettes. Not long ago, Urban Decay and Paris Hilton, the founder of Internet celebrity, launched a meta cosmic activity.

For players with digital strategies, the digital marketing of social platforms is the advantage of Urban Decay. However, compared with the online red cosmetics brand 3CE, which was acquired by L'Oreal, Urban Decay is still far from detonating the Chinese market.