Sephora & Pinrose cancel production and distribution of “entry-level witch kit”.
Due to backlash on the internet, Pinrose (the company behind the $42 witch kit) habe cancelled production of it.
In this post, I told you all about the witch kit that Sephora planned to sell and I urged you all to shop small instead, because I felt that a multibillion dollar company had no place selling such a niche product. Why did I not want people to support this endeavour of Sephora’s? Because it would be taking business from esoteric shops that likely have a small customer base as it is, and thus taking away some of their income.
My main issue was the aforementioned, but in talking about Sephora being the big bad capitalist corporation that it is, I never mentioned Pinrose - the actual company behind the creation of the kit.
Pinrose is a small company owned by women who primarily make hypoallergenic and cruelty free perfumes. Their aim behind making and selling this witch kit was “celebrating wellness, personal ceremony, and intention setting with a focus on using fragrance as a beauty ritual”.
There was also a huge focus on the appropriation of Native American culture, but if you take a look here, no appropriation was found as the term “smudging” was never used. And actually, they sourced their White Sage ethically. Take a look at this excerpt from their statement:
Also take a look at this screenshot of their FAQs and company information:
I think we owe it to Pinrose to say thank you for heeding concerns, and we as a community also awe them an apology for the accusations of appropriation and unethical practises. They were supporting Native American businesses and livelihoods, and their kit was free of appropriated hokum.
I still stand by my original point in the first post I made about this: don’t support multimillion dollar companies when they are knowingly taking custom and income from small businesses.
However, it is important to note that Pinrose has done nothing wrong and have proven so in their statement. They had a license for the art on the tarot deck, sourced their sage from Native American businesses, never tried to use the term “smudging” and included their own perfumes to promote wellness and beauty as a ritual.
Don’t boycott Pinrose on principle. It is a small business run by women, that did everything right and deserve to be supported.
