Zoe Bee Beauty

[Opinionated]

Drumming up hate without drumming up hate

 

[JellyWobbles]

I bought from her before she got really popular, back then it was 4 small jars for £25 Her price hikes now are ridiculous.
So, I found the best one was the Gold Cream.. the problem is learning how little to use because it does get greasy if you overdo it and you really only need a tiny tiny amount. it’s pleasant enough but it’s not a miracle cream by any means! The thing that irks me about her is that she absolutely uses FaceTune on her selfies, she hasn’t had the creams dermatologically tested either.. pretty stupid because of someone has a reaction they can sue and she’ll be in the shit..plus I thought it was law to have it tested when selling

 

[Bigbluebox]

I’m normally on the Hinch thread but after seeing this thread at the bottom of my screen I had to have a look.
I suffered with cystic acne for nearly 15 years so I tried her green cream, back when the prices weren’t a complete rip off. I was told my skin would purge for 6 weeks then become clear. It took six months to become fully clear but it worked, so I stopped using it. A few days later my face broke out again so I messaged and was told I had to constantly use it if I wanted my skin to stay clear, which I did. I purchased one pot when she put her prices up which made my skin purge again only this time I was left with red pigmentation, I messaged and asked if the ingredients had changed and Kim told me they had but wouldn’t say what they were, that it was Zoe’s secret recipe. This was last year and I’m still marked

 

[whathastheworldcometo]

I’m normally on the Hinch thread but after seeing this thread at the bottom of my screen I had to have a look.
I suffered with cystic acne for nearly 15 years so I tried her green cream, back when the prices weren’t a complete rip off. I was told my skin would purge for 6 weeks then become clear. It took six months to become fully clear but it worked, so I stopped using it. A few days later my face broke out again so I messaged and was told I had to constantly use it if I wanted my skin to stay clear, which I did. I purchased one pot when she put her prices up which made my skin purge again only this time I was left with red pigmentation, I messaged and asked if the ingredients had changed and Kim told me they had but wouldn’t say what they were, that it was Zoe’s secret recipe. This was last year and I’m still marked

Maybe you can file a claim for compensation?

 

[littlepup]

I was sure her ingredients in her creams don’t warrant their price tags. She claims to source her Shea butter from Ghana and has also mentioned there will be price changes due to sourcing better ingredients she must think people are completely thick as shit!
I do so hope she gets investigated one day over her little potions that could potentially harm someone since they’ve not been dermatologically tested and she and staff give out skin advice without any kind of cosmetology knowledge other than what they’ve read on Google!

Ghana is one of the biggest producers of Shea. It’s only grown in a specific climate so it’s not like she’s getting a superior product. There is a difference between West and East African Shea, Eastern is better for skin care.
I’d assume she’s using 100% ingredients (because she’s not breaking down the ingredients further which would be very wrong) so she can rely on the manufacturers’ safety. They’re stable ingredients to mix together so I think the liability would go back to the producer of the components, she probably can’t be touched and has a disclaimer. When I say these are simple mixes, I mean they are very simple.
If you go on amazon or Holland and barret, get yourself a 100% Shea, a bottle of almond oil, orange oil, some zinc oxide powder and charcoal powder you’ll pretty much have her product. This is the kind of thing you would buy at a craft fair, or a hippy shop, just cleverly marketed.
Again, these are proven ingredients, they will be good for many skin types and most people couldn’t be arsed to DIY but we’re not talking about scientific research and technical ingredients, clinical trials that cost the money in other skin care so there’s really no justification for the price.

 

[Mokie]

I can’t stand Hirons but that post is so pass ag

 

[Oppyonion]

Do you know if she has her creams certified?
I agree with you, shocking that she didn't list ingredients and still survived!



Yes, I don't think that she could legitimately threaten anyone.

I just thought that the beauty market was so crowded, I really wonder how she managed to scoop so many sales.
There are so many established brands that are competing AND her stuff is not cheap!

Hype...and more hype...
Sell (gift ) to a few desperate Z listers.
Get yourself in the papers for absolutely anything (and I mean anything! Can’t get a mortgage? Do a ZB and her hubby and go to the papers )
Once a bit of interest starts building, film rows of lots of jars you’ve just made, claim you’re selling hundreds that week - see the thing is those rows of creams could of been made up and shipped out at any time, not necessarily when she just made them, but she could still pretend she was selling mega amounts.

Open an online shop a few times a week at set times, do the 3-2-1 countdown, people start getting itchy for it, claim you’ve sold out (even if you haven’t) the next week comes around, do the same again...people start getting desperate and set alarms for it, hype builds, purchase followers so it seems like it booms quickly within a few weeks.

Stand next to piles of boxes or post bags - just don’t be a donut and post the exact same photo of yourself next to said post bags a month after the first time you posted it, claiming to of sold thousands

And the biggest win for any of this, hire your husband with extensive marketing knowledge and proceed with all the tricks of the trade.

It was clever, I’ll give her that.

No idea about her creams being certified by the way. Not sure how you find that stuff out either?

 

[MakeMineADouble]

Her latest video has made me cringe so much

 

[whathastheworldcometo]

I always make my own face masks and scrubs, Zoe bees coffee scrub would be so easy to make and it wouldn’t cost you a fortune

You can even use the leftovers from your morning brew (allegedly fresh is best, but I think leftovers do), take the same amount of brown sugar, mix it with coconut oil and there you go.

 

[Ohgetoveryourself]

Lies…..

 

[MakeMineADouble]

HERCREAMSAREOVERPRICED BASICBUTTERS

 

[StrawberryCream]

I’m glad there is a thread here as I follow Zoe bee and have been thinking of buying her eyelash serum, not interested in any of the creams but the before and after she post for the eyelashes are good I hope they aren’t photo shopped ?

 

[Sunshine01Snow]

I’m sorry, I’m still trying to pick myself up off the floor since discovering her new product and the price tag. * mouth wide open * £46.99 for the beetox box.

My dislike towards this company has rapidly grown. I feel like she is the queen of rip off. And it frustrates me how many people are being sucked into this.

Apparently it took a year for her come up with designing the bowl, spoon and brush. So she says.

Well, from a 3 minute search I found the exact bowl and spoon is available on Alibaba for a pittance- simply send the factory your logo and good old China will manufacture it. Not sure I would call that ‘designing’ packaging but okay…

Apparently the head bands are ‘hand stitched’. They definitely are not stitched by hand. The logo on the head band is clearly machine embroidered.Just your standard mass bought head bands that have been personalised. Same principle for all of the packaging. All readily available from Chinese factories which advertise on Alibaba and Aliexpress. (I wonder how ethically they are produced by the way? different topic…)

But what REALLY got to me is the bottle of oil in the box. It’s not a formulation she has created- she has made no effort to create a unique facial oil. It’s just plain jojoba oil on its own. She’s just purchased an oil in bulk and decanted it into bottles. But hey that’s okay because it sounds like she went to the mountains of Mexico to get this oil
Quote from website- “pure jojoba oil sourced from the mountains of Mexico”. Dear lord .

All this for just shy of 50 quid.

Worst thing is… it looks like a complete copy of another small business (who has been doing these clay/oil mask sets for much longer and has actually created a unique oil formulation- not just poured jojoba into smaller bottles).
Zoe is even using the same packaging for the bottles and cream tubs.
I wonder if she’s seen what Zoe has done with these mask sets. Poor gal

 

[whathastheworldcometo]

Thank you for this I would love to make my own soap and things I never thought to use a spatula for pots of creams either

Go for it! You will need to buy some ingredients initially, but if you store them correctly they will last for a long time and essentially you will save money and also have nice gifts for birthdays or Xmas.

Re spatula: If you use organic skin care without preservatives you will add bacteria to the pot every time you use the cream if you use your fingers. If you use L'Oreal or something like this you don't need to do this as there are preservatives in the cream.
And heat and sunlight can also damage organic skin care, therefore it is best to use dark containers (eg brown glass).
The shelf life of a home made organic face cream is only around 4 weeks.

 

[bellebear]

That post on the 29th about anxiety. In her words "I suppose I had a mild form of acrophobia"

Pretty sure she means agoraphobia given the context, but I eyerolled so hard my eyes are probably never coming back out of my sockets. I've had agoraphobia; being afraid of leaving the house in a global pandemic is really not the same. God she pisses me off.

 

[Holdnoprisoners]

Her following is a lot of BOT accounts. Definitely face tuning her photos while pretending she sells thousands of products every week and can only open the online shop twice a week as can’t manage all the sales.
She has moved to a bigger property recently and reckons she will be able to produce more but there is no way on earth she will keep her online shop permanently open and it’s nothing to do with her now being able to cope with the sales, by opening the shop a couple times a week she can make more money by people desperately trying to get in for something that really has no desperation about it.
Pretty good marketing technique to make her products look hot and gets all the desperate dans flocking for the ‘miracle’ creams.
Her friend Kim who ‘works’ for her has absolutely no interest or qualification in skincare and made the very public mistake of advising someone to put on SPF under the creams. She was swiftly corrected by a beauty therapist who spotted the error and now when someone asks what creams are best for them she will very often tell them to privately message her to discuss their skincare needs.
Zoe Bee has been creating creams since 2012, yet states she had Botox a few years ago. She now states she created one of her creams to be like Botox in a jar, but it begs the question is she still getting Botox? And why didn’t she try to ‘create’ a miracle Botox cream before getting Botox if her creams were that good?
She talks a lot about her breast implants and how she had to have them removed due to breast implant illness. This is a woman who rants and raves about keeping it natural but has been plastic and happy to use surgery and enhancements throughout her life.
Unfortunately people seem to buy in to the story. There is a lot more than meets the eye to this company as a gut feeling and as someone above has commented none of her products have been dermatologically tested so it’s a sinking ship waiting to happen

 

[bellebear]

She's not even allowed to make sweeping claims like that. Ordinary cosmetic assessment doesn't allow for it. It must be classed as medicine because 'healing psoriasis' or whatever is not a COSMETIC function. Cosmetic functions are things like making your hair soft, moisturising your skin, making you smell nice. So she can say her creams are moisturising, but she cannot claim they treat or even cure specific medical conditions.

The only way she would be allowed to do that is if they are actually classed as medicine, and that's a whole new kettle of fish. I somehow doubt she's gone this route else she would be labelling them as medicine, with all the trappings (and cash) that comes with that. But, quite simply, shea butter with a few additives WILL moisturise you, but it WON'T cure anything like psoriasis, so she would never get certified in this manner.

I'm giving her information for free right here, since we all know she's reading. Feel free to send me the cash for doing your work for you ZB- though, you should know all this already, right?

There's no way that tiny bit of titty psoriasis had her quitting school, so where was it? If people who knew her had no idea then she wasn't 'head to toe' in it, and there seems to be no evidence for that claim. Just like her other claims, really: see above

And while I'm here, might as moan more, I wish she'd stop using her daughter to advertise her products. The wee one doesn't look very happy in some of the photos she posts. Maybe she'd rather her mum actually play with and spend time with her, rather than trying to monotise every move she makes?

 

[MakeMineADouble]

I see this is an old thread but I just stumbled upon it because I was considering buying some of her products. My dad has quite a severe case of psoriasis and has damaged the skin on his legs by using a steroid cream treatment for too long. I was very much hoping Zoe Bee creams might work for Dad, but have become increasingly suspicious that the hype is BS, for several reasons:

1. Zoe posted somewhere about her daily skincare routine, and stated that she double cleanses. “Double cleansing” refers to the practice of using an oil-based cleanser followed by a water-based one (or the other way round; I can’t remember which). However, Zoe mentioned the two cleansers she used, and they were both oils. It appeared she thought “double cleansing” simply meant “cleansing twice”, and that got me questioning how she would have the knowledge to make these miraculous creams if she could make that basic of an error.

2. When I ran out of moisturiser a couple of years back, instead of buying a new one I dug out an old tub of Shea butter from my bathroom cabinet. I loved the rich, luxurious texture and how I only needed to use a teeny bit, otherwise my skin would be super greasy. Seeing all the comments that Zoe and her customers would make about how “you only need a small amount because the creams are very rich…” made me suspect that they are essentially just Shea butter with a few drops of other ingredients. In which case, the “miracle cream” stuff seems a little suspect, because shea butter isn’t a cure-all for skin complaints.

3. I’d always questioned why a skincare product would contain amethyst or rose quartz, but I thought hey, no big deal, some very sensible people I know believe in crystal energy and other stuff I would characterise as “woo”. When she introduced her Queen Bee cream by talking about the supposedly amazing Swiss apple stem cells it contained, however, my scepticism increased. I looked up apple stem cells and there didn’t appear to be any good evidence supporting the idea that applying them to the skin has any benefits. I began thinking that if her creams were so effective then why did she add an ingredient that sounded impressive and science-y but was probably useless? Were all her creams, all her ingredients, similarly just smoke and mirrors?

4. One thing that had impressed me was how her skin always appeared to have this beautiful glow. Call me naive if you want, but I thought it was all real and natural, as she seemed to position it as the result of using her creams (“that Zoe Bee glow”). However recently she posted a video demonstrating how her morning makeup routine creates the “glow” effect. I guess I can give her credit for finally being honest that the glow shouldn’t be attributed to her creams, but it struck me that the products she was using didn’t appear to have similar “caring” credentials to her own brand (plastic free, vegan etc), and even if they did, she was using a lot of products just for one aesthetic outcome. The video just seemed like a window into a disconnect between the professed “natural, Earth-friendly beauty” values of her brand and the reality behind the scenes.

Maybe that last point is a little harsh. I dunno, maybe everything I’ve said here is a little harsh. Maybe the hype is real. I am just inclined to be extra sceptical given the price point of the product. If her creams were £10-15 a pop I’d have bought one by now, without even caring if they were mostly just Shea butter and pseudoscience, since I love using Shea butter on my skin anyway. It’s the big claims and the big prices that have made me think twice.

Edited to add, for anyone who’s looking for an alternative to Zoe Bee, Facetheory products tick the vegan and minimal plastic/eco packaging boxes.I’ve just started using one of their serums and I am blown away by the result. My face is so soft I can’t stop touching it (ironically this will almost certainly lead to a breakout!).

I bought a small jar or her gold cream and avocado and aloe (back when they were cheaper!). Both did exactly the same thing as it was essentially whipped shea butter. It also went rancid after about a month. She has posted lots of claims that she has since retracted (one being that her creams are a natural SPF!). She also removes negative reviews and promises giveaways for positive reviews. Overhyped and a complete rip off

 

[Curtaintwitcher45]

I wonder if she sent this to herself

 

[takeabreakfakes]

Thoughts on this!?

‘Told off’ for posting too much self love, or told off for all the filtered vain selfies........orrrr just reading your thread on here ZB!?