I have wanted to do a review of Virus Insanity for awhile, but wanted to have time to play with everything for awhile before giving y'all a final verdict. They offer Super bright to super dark colors, mattes, shimmers, and glitter. They've got unique names, funny names, to down right dirty names... in the good kind of dirty I promise! What more could a girl ask for! So here's my 2.5 cents!
Packaging
Everything that I have purchased from VIE has always been packaged very nicely. my last order was a larger one, which is usually where companies have had issues with packaging, in my opinion. So here's what I recieved yesterday:
This was the box, fresh off the mail truck. It was sealed up tight, and there was no damage to the box at all. I could shake it and there was little to no movement of the items inside.
The top of the box upon opening it was packed with tissue paper to pad the top which was very nice. It helped protect things from shifting in shipment to me. I love this because that leaves less chance for things to break or open!
And finally, my order there are 55 shadows, 6 samples, and 6 of the shadows were one of a kind "experiments". I know how some of you feel about receiving experiemnts but let me tell you something that sets this company apart from the rest of those that I have used...
Every single one of the experiments has an ingredients list on the back. Even though they were experimental, VIE made sure you still knew what was going on your face. Not a "May Contain" list that most experiments have, an ACTUAL list. Did VIE earn brownie points for this in my mind? Heck yes! I have NEVER seen a company do this far with experiments if they weren't to become real colors.
VIE Packaging grade: A+
The Products
So, we all differ in opinion of color choices and such. So the first ones I am showing you are the above experimental ones as swatches. Other companies I had gotten "experiments" from were not anywhere as good as their usual products. I was a little worried when I saw experiments written on the bag, but hey, everything deserves a chance.
They do not have names, and I haven't had the creativity in the past 24 hours to name them yet. These colors are all beautiful, and I love them. This picture doesn't do some of them justice, trust me. They were just as good as all of VIE's other products. They went on smoothly, they were easy to apply, and took little to actually get this type of pigmentation. These were done over just a NYX eyeshadow pencil in milk, and applied with a clean q-tip, so I was impressed that they came out this bright without use of primer and such.
This is the best thing ever. Sifted Stickers. Prevents spillage in shipment, which makes me happy because that means I get more product to play with. These are the experiments, so they do not have colors names on them but behold:
All of VIE's None experimental colors have these little top stickers on them. These 3 colors are from the Goddesses Collection in case anyone falls in love at first sight with them. <3
When I applied the product to my face, there was little to no fallout on my cheeks. Loved that. Less clean up makes me happy. The colors themselves, even from different color groups blend together nicely. For example, this is my EOTD today:
These two colors are on my list of faves right now. The green is "Blow Me" and the purple is from my custom collection and is called "Heavens Mirror". They went on nicely and have lasted all day so far. I only used an NYX pencil to put them to the test so this is, again, without primer. I am again Impressed.
VIE's Product Rating: A
Customer Service
Here's the biggy. We all want to see stellar customer service out of Indie companies. I will be honest, my order was incorrect when I got it yesterday. I had ordered a custom collection with 6 colors: Noble Team, L'cie, Albion, Heavens Mirror, Assassin, and Subject Delta. Noble team was missing, but I had 2 jars of Subject Delta. I contact Jennifer Sherrodd right away about the mix up. She apologized right away and asked that I please check the rest of my order to make sure it was correct. I did, and told her this was the only error. She assured me that she would send out a replacement tomorrow, which would be today. I found this on my facebook moments ago:
So not only did she keep her promise of sending it today, she sent me a confirmation number to track it and informed me that she sent it priority. She went the extra mile to make sure I was happy. This speaks volumes to me about how dedicated she is as a business owner. Other companies where I received incorrect products I got the runaround, then was sent something I didn't want, was never sent anything, or was sent something sub-par.
VIE's Customer service grade: A
Overall: A- for AMAZINGLY AWESOME! <3 I will order again, and I will recommend VIE to anyone and everyone. Link to their FB fan page/shop is in the sidebar!
To finish this off, I sent Jennifer and asked her a few questions about her company, so here's what she said:
Q: What made you decide to make MMU?
A: This is a pretty generic answer, but honestly I was sick of spending so much money on eyeshadows so I decided to start making my own. I did a lot of research first and ended up buying the TKB Pop Color's kit to start making myself eyeshadows because I tend to go for really bright colors. I slowly started buying more ingredients and my friends caught onto what I was doing and wanted to try them too! So eventually I made a Facebook fan page and figured out how to go about selling my eyeshadows.
Q: Is there any meaning behind your company name?
A: Virus Insanity is a name I thought of when I was a teenager. I was full of angst and thought it sounded cool ;) It kind of stuck with me for a long time, and I wanted something kind of edgy for my eyeshadow line so I decided to use it.
Q: What is your goal as a company?
A: When I first started out, my goals were to make incredible colors that no one had ever seen before. Much more recently I've been concentrating on making sure I have great customer service because I honestly consider my customers to be friends. Eventually I would love for this to get big, I want VIE to be successful.
Q: To you, what is amazing customer service?
A: I would consider amazing customer service to be admitting your mistakes and making it right. Everyone messes up once in awhile. Occasionally I will forget a color or send the wrong color, I'm only human. Once I marked an international package as goods instead of a gift and the girl ended up having to spend nearly $23 to get her package. I immediately sent her the money through Paypal, no questions asked. If I forget a color or send the wrong color, I send out a package the next day (or as soon as possible) and include extras. I think that as a seller you have to live up to your mistakes, admit that you messed up, and fix it. The customer is always right, because as a small business owner my customers are EVERYTHING.
Q: Out of your product line, what are your favorite colors?
A: My all time favorite color is Becca-ecca! It's named after my best friend so it definitely has a soft spot in my heart! Becca's favorite color is suuuper bright green so I had to make a crazy lime color for her. Some other favorites of mine are Smoked Lilac, Mohawk, and Ocean Mystery. And another color I really love is Ferris Wheel, it's a hot pink with green iridescence and lime green glitter. For some reason it reminds me of pink puke, but in a really GOOD way!
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Love ya!
EDIT: A little disclaimer. I have become an Admin on the VIE page. Jennifer did not pay me for this interview, she didn't give me free product or any compensation at all besides a thank you after reading it. I bought from her before becoming admin in order to do a review, not imagining that she would ask me to be an admin on her fan page to help her out. I spent roughly $130 on all that you saw in the photos, and that was all I got. Jennifer also did not ask me to write this review, and did not know about it until I asked her to answer the above questions for my blog.
