Saturday, February 20, 2010

I Touch Roses Review

My feelings on I Touch Roses are somewhat mixed. First, let's address the website. The homepage has a "color chart" of all their eyeshadows. If you go to the page labeled "Eye Shadows", however, there is a different color chart. Color descriptions are listed below, and include many shades not on the second chart. This confused me, and I ended up not ordering a couple shadows I would have liked, because I wasn't sure if they were actually being sold or not. The foundation, blush, lips, and skin pages are all straightforward. There is also a page of scents, none of which I ordered, because of the very vague descriptions. When you click the purchase button you are taken to your cart, which shows you the shipping price, and updates it as you add more items. I thought this was a nice touch. My products arrived in a package from Klaus Franz... one of my pet peeves for companies is when it has the person's name on the package, instead of the company name. I have lots of orders coming, so I don't know which order this is until I open it. And who is Klaus Franz? The company owner's name is Ahna. My samples came in a little purple organza bag. You can't order individual samples (you have to order x amount, but you do choose your colors). I got 2 sets of 7 eye shadow samples, a set of 4 lip samples, and a set of 3 blush samples. The lippies were in a little plastic baggie, and the blushes and shadows were all together in another baggie. I couldn't remember which ones were the actual blush, as it wasn't stated on the bag, and no invoice was included. My e-mail invoices didn't list what colors I had chosen either. This note was included. I understand people have personal issues, and I appreciate the extra lippie sample, but this was just another thing to add to the confusion of the website. The baggies the samples come in have a typical amount of pigment in them, but are awkwardly small. Here are 3 I Touch Roses sample baggies compared to one each of Morgana Minerals, Aromaleigh, and Detrivore. The first thing I noticed was that there were a few colors that looked exactly like some of the colors in my Hello Kitty lunchbox of repackaging shame. I decided to do some comparison swatches. From left to right: Heavenly Natural Beauty "Pixie", vs I Touch Roses "Moody"; HNB "Nymph" vs ITR "Perfection"; HNB "Diva" vs Pure Luxe "Grape" (these are both believed to be TKB's Grape Pop) vs ITR "Fantasy". As you can see, they are not the exact same, but all these colors are very similar. I would not say I Touch Roses is a repackager, but I would say the colors shown above are not unique or creative. I also though ITR's "Herbal" (left below) was the same as Pure Luxe's "Vibe" (right below), but I was wrong. Here are the rest of my swatches. From left to right: Tears, Unreal, Carisa, Best Friend, Love Me, Calm, Escape I, Whisper You can ignore that random purple up top, it's just Pure Luxe's "Grape" again. Tears was an included free sample. I actually like this shadow the best out of all of them. It's difficult to tell from the pictures, but Love Me is basically just a pink iridescence, and Calm is a blue-green iridescence. They look just like pictures of the Sparks! on the TKB website, but I can't compare for sure as I don't own any TKB micas. Here are more swatches. From left to right: Reason (free sample), Going Home, Twilight I, Twilight II, Rose Dust, Amorous, Mercy Amorous is actually a very glittery pink, the other color I particularly like. Twilight I, TWilight II, and Rose Dust all turned out to be the blushes. I could tell by the way they blended, and I checked the website to be sure. I think Twilight I is a very flattering color. Here are the lip samples compared in size to an Aromaleigh lip sample. They seem to contain slightly more product than the Aromaleigh sample, but are still in the annoying teeny bags. From left to rightL Ever After, For Love, Tease, Princess, Crystal In case you couldn't tell, I have just discovered the macro setting on the camera. All the bags but one had handwritten labels, not printed, which could be rubbed off in all of 2 seconds. I rubbed the label off of the Ever After lippie. Some of them had already gotten a little rubbed off during shipping. So I Touch Roses has a few colors, lippies, and blushes I like, but nothing that really stands out. The website is confusing to order from, and I don't like the size of the sample bags, or the writing that comes right off. I think maybe in time, with some more unique colors, I Touch Roses could improve a lot. Right now though I'm not too impressed.

22 comments:

  1. LOL when i found the tulip thing that makes your pictures sharper, i was so excited too! I love your haul!

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  2. One of the things I've noticed is that repackagers don't tend to have a lot of different purple shades (since I'm addicted to purple, I pay attention) and I Touch Roses has a ton.

    I do agree with you that the website should be updated. Some of the colors I ordered were no longer available so I ended up being sent substitutions chosen by Ahna. I did email back and forth with her and she was very nice and helpful. She did have one of the most unique colors I'd ever seen in Siren Spell (a sea green with magenta sparkle).

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  3. That's a bummer. I've never ordered from them so I don't have anything to add. But this seems to be an issue with a few other customers.
    Yes, MACRO IS VERY IMPORTANT! With most cameras you have to put it on macro every time you turn it on when you need to do close ups. So just keep that in mind. :-)
    I like playing around with cameras and finding other neat things they do too. You probably have other cool settings you can use.

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  4. Huh. When did you get this order? I got Hint in mine like 2 days ago...So far I've been liking the colors, although for some reason they look way better in swatches than on my eyes (weird lids, grr!).

    Anyways I'm trying to be all partial before I review...so I wasn't even gonna read this, but the note got me confused!!

    Also, I agree that the baggies are poopy. The eye ones are fine, but the blushes are also packed in them and can you IMAGINE trying to fit a blush brush in there??? (I did...it didn't work XD)

    Oh! And I found my Evil Shades Burlesque blush! I forgot how awesome it is!!

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  5. To be honest, I'm pretty freakin' shocked that she told you the site wasn't updated due to her "sudden divorce" - if you click the blog link on her website, she was talking about her divoce in April of last year! I went reading it to doublecheck for a hint of how long the company has been around for my review, and she talked about the divorce in quite a few entries!

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  6. Oh, and I forgot, if you would like a little sample of TKB Grape Pop to confirm those dupes, I'd be happy to send you one. Just let me know. :)

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  7. @Y: I feel so lame just figuring all this out, haha.

    @Phyrra: Purple is my favorite too. The ones I got were ok, they were just all kind of meh. I really like Best Friend though.

    @Blix: I'll make sure to keep using the macro for close ups!

    @Lisa Kate: I got mine 2 days ago too, on Thursday. That's weird... I'm looking forward to your review! I can't believe the blush is in those teeny baggies too! I just got my Evil Shades order in the mail today, and I got the Burlesque Blush since you suggested it for me :D I haven't tried it yet but it looks really nice!

    @Shattered: Huh, that's really odd. I just looked at that too. What I need to do is just freaking place a TKB order with a million samples! I have no idea why I haven't yet at this point...

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  8. Hm. Interesting review. I have to admit the website turned me off a bit, so I haven't ordered anything. Have you tried any eye looks with them yet?

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  9. I don't mind if a company's shadows aren't too creative- although I gravitate towards more unusual shades, they're supplying a demand... But unprofessionalism and confusion is just annoying. You can be a personal business, like Aromaleigh- Miss K has a blog so you get to know her, definitely not a faceless company, but there's no confusion over orders or what's actually on sale.

    It just makes me wonder if the quality of the products could be comprimised if nobody knows what they're doing, and I havn't got money to spend on bad batches of things!

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  10. I was originally turned off ITR by their horrible website - it looks so unprofessional and like some hot Geocities mess. But now that I've read yours and Shattered's reviews I definitely wont be ordering from them anytime soon.

    It sounds like she needs to close down shop for a bit until she can get the website up to scratch and make listings clear and get her shit figured out. It all seems REALLY unprofessional :( especially the way she sort of just let you know at the last minute that she'd replaced some of your stuff or changed the formula - that should be sent out via email and stated on the website, because I know I like to actually get what I ORDERED.

    Is it just me or was mentioning the divorce in the letter a bit TMI? And considering the previous comment that she has been talking about it since April last year, it seems really weird and shady.

    Ugh I also really dislike the small baggies and the fact that she writes on them with sharpie. Honestly, shell out for some decent sized baggies and some printable labels! It's not going to cost that much compared to making all the products.

    Sorry my comment was so ranty and tl;dr XD

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  11. The bags do look very small and the eyeshadows do look similar in the comparison's swatches!

    I had no idea that Twilight and Dusk Rose are blushes until you mentioned it later. All I was thinking was they are a bit less pigmented compared to the others.

    I will be hesitant in ordering after reading this.

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  12. I had bad encounter with her before I even ordered anything. I can't comment on her products as I never have and after what happened never will buy from her. I randomly added her to twitter so I could keep up with an makeup sellers sales etc.

    She randomly contacted me talking about repackagers on etsy which I knew but didn't know whom and when asked she didn't say who they were but stated some of the colours on my blog from other sellers were the same as hers but I saw nothing in pictures or my products in real life that looked close.

    She then got really mean because I couldn't tell which out of about 20 different yellow colours was the same as hers. I told her I couldn't see and that it might be down to the fact that the products were photo graphed by different people in different light and on different screens. She also told me I should give my opinions because I am not a professional in the industry.

    It just really got under my skin that she would randomly attack a potential customer over something so trivial and I have never even tried her stuff nor ever commented on them. Defiantly avoiding thanks to how she treated me.

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  13. @Kira - Ouch! That really is just nuts.

    On another note, seems like twitter is a bit of a mmu drama cesspool; I'm not sure why.

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  14. @Painted Moogle: Not yet, I will later this week most likely.

    @RaeRae: Agreed. Oh how I love Aromaleigh <3

    @SilhouetteScreams: I think she probably should close it down for a couple days until all the product listings amd everything get sorted out. It does seem really unprofessional. And yeah, I did think talking about the divorce in the note was kind of weird.

    @bowsnhearts: I definitely can't recommend this company :(

    @Kira: WOAH, that's crazy. Thanks for sharing your story!

    @Shattered: I know! I keep hearing about so much twitter drama in companies! I don't have one, I don't see the point...

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  15. I asked her for some suggestions-purple or blue duochrome colours she got.I said photos on her website don't show any differences to me,so I'm a bit confused about colours.She didn't make any suggestions,she said I should check the colour chart at her website.Is it too hard to make a few suggestions? Maybe I'm overreacting but I did't like her response:S So I decided to not to order from her and stick with more professional companies.

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  16. Thanks for the review and swatches. Its also a peeve of mine when you order something from a company and a persons name appears on the package. I have no idea where it came from. Great blog btw!

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  17. that's really not acceptable, changing the samples you wanted and all that. just because personal issues are bothering you doesn't mean they should neglect their customer service. if anything, if i were in the same position i would have waited till i could change the website before deciding to stop making and selling certain shades. the free samples don't really make up for anything.

    i feel sorry for the trouble that company gave you. they probably don't deserve your business.

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  18. This was a great review you really hit it on the head about the website. I agree that if your running a company personal problems shouldn't get in the way unless they have to do with health. Also I always get really annoyed when I can't see the depth of swatches on websites. I haven't bought from a few places because of how bad their color descriptions and photographs are. Really great job I look forward to more reviews.

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  19. @bohemian: Yeah, that doesn't seem too friendly to me...

    @Swtest2Lips: Aw thanks babe! Glad you like the review and my blog :)

    @Porcelaine: I just find it weird that Lisa Kate and I got our orders about the same time, and she got the color that I didn't... I agree, if you are running a business, you need to focus on that and not let it slip.

    @Pixie_a_la_mode: I'm really glad you liked the review, I tried to make it very thorough this time! I think if the website were updated it would improve my opinions of this brand so much.

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  20. Twitter is a great cesspool of drama defiantly. It was just so very random and without provocation that made me wonder if she is doing this to me now what would it be like if I ordered from her. So I am abstaining from ordering or mentioning her in any form on my blog.

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  21. Great review! I came across this website a week ago & was also put off by just the color board. Some of the colors looked interesting but I didn't order cause I'm currently overloaded on samples. Don't think I'm missing out on anything after reading your experience.

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  22. @Kira: Wow, yeah, I guess that would be the best thing. Hearing about this makes me NEVER want to order again.

    @Marcey: Thank you! I am overloaded on samples too :P My little eyeshadow drawers are filled to the brim. You're not missing out on much here!

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