SKIN

How Should Kosas React To Social Media Allegations That Its Concealer Is Moldy And Smelly?

Released in 2020, clean beauty brand Kosas's Revealer Concealer became a smash hit last year as plastered-on complexion makeup was sidelined in favor of natural-looking, skin-enhancing foundations and concealers. TikTok has been instrumental in Revealer Concealer's success, and a #YourSkinRevealed campaign the brand ran on the platform from September to October last year …

Rachel Brown·February 13, 2023·2 min read

The 30-second read

Released in 2020, clean beauty brand Kosas’s Revealer Concealer became a smash hit last year as plastered-on complexion makeup was sidelined in favor of natural-looking, skin-enhancing foundations and concealers.

TikTok has been instrumental in Revealer Concealer’s success, and a #YourSkinRevealed campaign the brand ran on the platform from September to October last year to promote the product racked up more than 13 million views across 115 videos. Large TikTokers such as Meredith Duxbury, who has 1.3 million TikTok followers, Mikayla Nogueira, who has 14.4 million TikTok followers, and Stephanie Valentine, better known as Glamzilla, who has 1.7 million TikTok followers, plugged it, and shout-outs from Hailey Bieber, who has 11.1 million TikTok followers, didn’t hurt. One of the concealers was being sold every minute.

But social media love can be fleeting. A TikTok user with the handle @danihidaa shared on Jan. 30 that her entire FYP or For You Page was about the Kosas concealer “growing mold, expiring fast, smelling like crusty feet, and causing acne.” She chucked the product in the trash. The TikTok stir follows allegations made on Reddit in June 2022 by a self-professed fan of Revealer Concealer who discovered a sample had a “blue cheese” stench after nine months. Worse, it later had “black spots” and caused a burning sensation when applied.

In its reply to journalists seeking comments on the allegations, Kosas is directing them to a product FAQs section on its website, where it says, “We use safe, effective preservatives and antimicrobial stabilizers which prevent against mold, yeast and pathogens.” The brand isn’t ignoring criticism on social media about possible problems with preservation that could’ve led to mold. On Instagram, it wrote, “As a clean makeup company, we take the quality of our products very seriously and everything must pass rigorous testing to bring a product to market.”

We were curious about beauty, public relations and marketing experts’ takes on the Revealer Concealer ordeal and Kosas’s behavior during it. So, for the latest edition of our ongoing series posing questions relevant to indie beauty, we asked 11 PR professionals, marketing specialists, cosmetic scientists and doctors the following questions: How do you think Kosas should respond to this situation? What lessons should indie beauty brands draw from it?