Anastasia Beverly Hills

Hey everyone! I'm sure I'm not the only person in this community with nut allergies and who has to be careful about ingredients in makeup... I wanted to share this to make more awareness about this issue and to make more awareness about how it's not taken seriously by some companies.

A few years ago i had an anaphylactic reaction that hospitalized me from my lips just brushing against some peanut particle (my boyfriend had forgotten he ate something sprinkled with peanuts and lightly pecked me at the train station). So you can imagine I'm very careful with ingredients and I've learned much more about them, especially their use in cosmetics.

A lot of products have "lecithin" or "hydrogenated lecithin". Usually, this is derived from soy. However, it can be derived from other things, such as peanuts. I always inquire with companies if it's not specified as soy lecithin. For example, Colourpop and Physician's Formula use lecithin, and both companies, when I asked, verified that they used soy-derived lecithin.

I picked up the "Sultry" palette by Anastasia Beverly Hills a couple of weeks ago, and their eyeshadows have hydrogenated lecithin. When I contacted them about it: 1. they took forever to answer my email, and I had to send several over the two week period, 2. their response was "The product ingredients can be found on the box. Please note that ABH does not provide further information regarding specific ingredients, raw materials, blends, or percentages. That type of detailed information and our process is proprietary information that we keep private."

I have a huge issue with this. I wasn't asking some question that would somehow be stealing their formula or violating their proprietary rights. I had a valid health concern about the product. This leads me to believe that ABH doesn't necessarily care about their customers. It's such a terrible attitude and policy for a company to have... why aren't they held to the same standards that food companies are?

Anyway, I just wanted to make other makeup lovers aware of this lack of ingredient transparency, should they have a concern regarding an allergy. I also wanted to call out ABH... it's not unreasonable for a customer to ask about an ingredient on a health basis, and it kind of shows that they don't care all that much about their customers. And yeah, I get that nut oils used in cosmetics are usually very pure, but there's a nonzero chance that an allergen might be present and very sensitive people like me could react to them. Allergies can be extremely dangerous for some people and it puzzles me that ABH does not respect this.

Take this with a grain of salt! Recently we've had a lot of discussion about ABH and Norvina, and on a recent discussion of the Lauren Mae video posted about looking into ABH's glassdoor reviews and how bad they were. Curious, i decided to look into the reviews and they are really bad. I'll be posting screenshots in imgur but posting quotes that involve any tea or Norvina. Take this with a grain of salt as glassdoor reviews are anonymous HOWEVER i did check other beauty brands such as MAC (1.k reviews) and colourpop (5 reviews) and they averaged at a 61% approval and 41% approval and both averaged over 3 stars.

ABH scores at a 2 star, 27% approval with most reviews at a 1 star rating (59 reviews). Heres the tea:

"Once in a while you get free products AFTER all the influencers the company need to suck up to get theirs. Priority- Profit gain before employees...During one of the company meeting someone ask about the culture here... Anastasia didn’t even understand what or how to answer it so she compared ABH to the movie 300 because their suite is 300. What a joke. Culture here is “fake it till you make it” with a side of “Mean girls”."

"The success that the company was experiencing is faltering and employees are beginning to suffer. The owners, investors and top management team are always concerned about their jobs, plans and decisions, especially now that the company’s revenue is dropping. Because they are unsure what to do, their direction is unclear to their teams. Business processes defy common sense. The owners do not know how to run processes so that everything is properly reviewed to ensure projects for a launch run smoothly. Their input typically upsets the process, and results in failures while they blame others. The President needs to learn how to separate friendship from management. The result is employees who are feeling little faith in management, frustrated and concerned about the downturn."

"This place is a ridiculous joke. People hate each other here, and this hatred is fueled by Top Management! HR don't exist here, it's more like a personal snitch for Claudia (President). The pay is a total joke for the amount of work you do. Company functions according to HOROSCOPE (not kidding), Mercury Retrogrades and so on. To much drama for a boring place like that. This place is full of people that feel like that's their "peak" in career, the fun thing that these people are disposed of quick"

"Wow, where to begin: Highly erratic and childish "President", who makes crutial decisions based on astrological charts, and takes a vacation every month to Costa Rica. Rehiring fired employees (sometimes they are fired for a logical reason, most of the time they are not). Very little time off granted, (and you will need it, because working in this place is like working in a sweatshop). Constantly reshuffling employees positions and desks around the office. Zero workflow consistency. Everyone looks and acts miserable, and toxic gossip abounds."

"The owners are ruthlessly childish and mean. So disappointed with the erratic behavior they display, bad mouthing ALL their employees "family" is NOT excluded from the negative feedback. DO NOT mention you are pregnant or ever want to be. They frown upon children and family life, as it will take away from your work. This is not an ethical place to work. They often lie to vendors about deliverables (shipments being "stolen") due to their disorganization and lack of competence to run a business efficiently. I cannot post what is really said about customer complaints by management...that foul language would be inappropriate. Disturbing to hear such negative feedback, customers are what keep the brand alive. Respect them!!! Secondary lab testing is NOT performed on the product to determine true content of ingredients. FDA has no regulations in the US, so they can get away with it. Use at your own risk! I really wish I had better things to say, but I struggle to see a lot of positive attributes in this company."

it goes on, the usual pros for the lists are "occasional gratis" but most of the reviewers go onto long tangents about how horrible the workplace environment is. These are recent reviews from the last 3 years. While i did post some of the most inflammatory I really encourage you guys to take a look through and form your own opinions! thoughts?