Key Takeaways
- Leak 001 changed few minds about the founders. Of 62 people who described their own history with them, 10 said the launch or the response did it, 20 had stopped trusting them earlier and 32 never trusted them
- The top complaint about the Flexi powder was that nobody could see what it was for. 48 of 103 comments criticizing the product said so, more than twice as many as named the $34 price
- The paid-testing idea did more damage than the product, and "focus group" shows up in 90 comments, nearly always to say that testers get paid and don't pay
- The founders' response made things worse for most commenters, while the refund offer barely registered: 14 comments out of 4,400+ mention refunds
- First reactions to Leak 002 go back to an old eyeshadow review before they get to the new product. 16 of 56 comments bring up pearl pigment
Leaked Labs is the beauty brand started by the creator couple known as The Lipstick Lesbians, who built a following by explaining how makeup is made and marketed. The idea was to release early formulas straight from partner labs, let buyers react, and then decide what to develop. Leak 001, a bendable "Flexi" powder disc that you wet to use, launched in March 2026 at $34 for four small discs in a tin. People complained about the price, the mess and the results, the brand offered refunds and took a break, and Leak 002, a pearl eyeshadow, is planned for November.
So I wanted to know two things. Can a brand built on transparency survive a failed first product? And what would people need to see before they'd try the next one?
We analyzed 4,400+ comments about The Lipstick Lesbians and Leaked Labs. Of 62 people who described their own history with the founders, only 10 said Leak 001 or the response changed their mind. The other 52 had already stopped trusting them or never did. Of 103 sampled complaints about the product, 48 said it had no clear use.
About this study
- Corpus
- 4,400+ public comments from 43 discussions about The Lipstick Lesbians and Leaked Labs, from before the brand was announced to the Leak 002 reveal in September 2026. We sorted random samples by hand: 450 comments from the launch period, 300 from before it and 170 about the founders' response. We also sorted all the comments on the Leak 002 reveal. Same for every comment where someone described their own history with the founders or said what the brand should have done
- Communities
- Beauty creator commentary communities, makeup enthusiast forums and a skincare brand fan community
- Themes coded
- Trust before the launch, complaints about Leak 001, the paid-testing model and the founders' response. Also whether criticism landed on the product or the founders, and early reactions to Leak 002
- Analysis
- We sorted each comment into themes by hand. One comment can fit more than one theme, so the percentages only describe their own section and don't add up to 100. Treat them as rough guides, not exact measurements.
- Quotes
- Every quote is word for word. We only fixed broken characters, so the wording, spelling and typos are the commenter's own.
I should be upfront about three things. About 9 in 10 of these comments come from one community that exists to discuss beauty creators. It leans critical, so read this as what the brand's sharpest public audience thinks (not its fans). I also expected to hear from buyers, but in 4,400+ comments only one person said they'd received the product. One. And they hadn't used it yet. Buyer feedback mostly went to the brand's own social accounts, which aren't part of this set. So almost everything here comes from people judging Leak 001 from videos and other creators' reviews. And since many comments make accusations about the founders, I've quoted opinions about the product and the brand and left the personal allegations out.
The research question
After Leaked Labs built its promise around beauty-industry transparency and letting buyers shape products, how did Leak 001's price, mess, weak results and refunds change trust? And what would make people believe in the model again? Short answer: Leak 001 mostly confirmed what this audience already thought of the founders. The bigger new damage came from the paid-testing model and from how the founders answered the criticism. And judging by the first reactions to Leak 002, a better product alone probably won't fix it.
1. The trust they started with
What people said about the founders before the brand, ranked by how often they mention itI took a random sample of 300 comments written before Leaked Labs was announced, and 207 of them gave an opinion about the founders. Most were negative.
Most threads from this period are "what do you think of them?" posts. People who start those usually have a complaint, so the negative side is probably bigger here than among their followers. Still, 24 of the 207 said they used to like the founders and had stopped, which shows the slide had started a year or more before any product existed.
Two complaints matter more than the rest for what happened next. Number 4 and number 5 are both about expertise. The brand's whole pitch was "we know how makeup is really made", and a good part of this audience already thought that knowledge was thin.
"Yes! I started being interested in them because I thought they were giving in-depth knowledge about products and why they worked. And then I realised she was just repeating the information on the packaging and giving no further insight!"
"Same here!! I didn’t believe it at first until she spoke about a product I just bought, and I looked at the box. Word. For. Word."
"I liked them at first.. it was interesting to hear about ingredients and formulations. After a while I stopped trusting her because of her obvious brand affiliations - like, go ahead and get your bag, but I trust your recommendations less."
"i can't take makeup talk seriously from someone who can barely apply her own."
The eyeshadow in number 6 is the one that keeps coming back. In a video from before the brand, one founder reviewed a pricey eyeshadow duo sold on its pearl pigment. As commenters describe it, a pan fell out on camera and she kept praising it. It's a small moment, but it comes up in 54 comments before the launch and it's still there in the Leak 002 comments, as you'll see in section 6.
"How can you trust someone that used Patrick Ta's eyeshadow and the eyeshadow fell out of the container on video and she glossed over it?"
"they’re trustworthy to me and they way they review products is so refreshing in a world where most influencers rave about products without justifying why they like them."
Audiences don't reset. A creator's audience brings its opinions with it when the creator launches a brand. Before a creator brand launches, it helps to look at what the critics already say about the founders, because the first product will be judged against that. Here the doubt was about expertise, which is exactly what the brand was selling.
2. What people said was wrong with Leak 001
Six complaints about the product, ranked by how often people mention themFrom a random sample of 450 comments written after the launch, 103 criticized the Flexi powder itself. The brief for this study expected price, mess and performance to lead. They're all there. But the top complaint was simpler: people couldn't see why the product needed to exist.
"Gimmick" alone appears in 92 comments, and another 39 compare the discs to food (lasagna, deli meat, fruit roll-ups, American cheese). Lasagna came up a lot. A lot of people pointed to cheaper products that already do the same job, like water-activated shadows, cream sticks and baked powders.
"I’m really struggling to understand the value proposition of this product lol"
"ah yes, just what i was looking for. powder i can bend."
"I was excited about the idea of “innovation first” but now I’m like “oh they meant GIMMICK” like maybe brands didn’t launch these for a REASON"
"Ok am I the only one who doesn’t see anything innovative about this product?? It’s just water activated cake makeup ?"
Price comes second, and I think the reason is that it made the first complaint worse. A few people said they'd happily try a strange product, just not at that price for a sample. Fair enough.
"It’s the $34 price that’s my biggest hang up."
"I don’t even mind crap packaging for a test product. Or a small quantity (again, test product). But I would pay £5 for this. Not $34!!!"
"For $34, I would expect finished packaging at LEAST."
The practical complaints (color, mess and ease of use) mostly come from watching other creators try it, since almost nobody here bought it.
"No color payoff when dry, slimy mess when wet, brushes don't really work with it"
"It also looks so unsanitary if you have to apply it directly to the face like that."
Only 6 of the 450 sampled comments said anything good about the product. Six. The ones that did usually liked the idea of a powder that can't shatter in a travel bag.
"I think the flex powder tech can be great for larger powder products like bronzer to prevent shattering when traveling but the formula has a long ways to go before that’s possible"
Lead with the problem it solves. When you launch something new, people need to know what it's for before they care how new it is. "No more shattered powder in your travel bag" is a reason to buy, and "the world's first flexible powder" isn't one yet. The price question gets much easier once people can see the use.
3. "Paying to be part of a focus group"
Three objections to the business model, ranked by how often people mention themThe launch sample had 60 comments about the business model itself, separate from the product. Most of them came back to one thing: in their experience, testers get paid or at least get the product free.
The words "focus group" appear in 90 comments across the whole set, every one of them after the launch. Several came from people who said they run or join research studies for a living, which gave the point extra weight in the threads. I think they have a point.
"Baby, focus groups are usually PAID TO DO IT."
"I am literally doing a laundry detergent study right now. They provide the product free AND a stipend. As a marketing professional, it it wildly inappropriate to charge fans to do a focus group."
"If you’ve bought the first iteration and it goes back to the lab, they tweak it, and rerelease it, do you now have to repurchase the product?"
The second objection turns the brand's own story against it. The founders talked about giving a home to formulas nobody else had picked up, and many people read that as a warning. A smaller group made a sharper point: if every product is a test, every bad review can be answered with "that's what testing is for".
"They keep saying they’re rescuing formulas and I’m just like no the brands that know what they’re doing passed for a reason."
"Their marketing strategy sets them up to be absolved of negative feedback."
The model did have defenders, though. Most of them work in product development themselves, and they said labs come up with good ideas all the time that never reach a shelf because a big brand didn't want them. Another brand also announced a paid "lab release" during the backlash, and opinion on it was split. Some called it the same problem at a lower price, but others said a small brand selling nearly finished products felt different.
"I think the opportunity of releasing innovative formulations is ok, I have also been a buyer/product developer who see lots of potential developments from the suppliers."
"I just don't like this concept of paying for unofficial formulas for the sake of feeling like I'm "part of something special." It's just so manipulative."
If you want people to test products for you, give them something back, like free samples, a discount or credit toward the finished version. Shoppers already know how testing works, and asking them to pay full price for it reads as the brand moving its own risk onto them. The free samples study found the same thing from another side: people treat what the brand owes them very literally.
4. How the response landed
Reactions to the founders' videos and emails, ranked by how often people mention themThe founders answered the criticism in a video soon after the launch, then in an April email that offered refunds, then in a later video about the "word salad" comments. I sampled 170 comments from the discussions about those responses, and 75 of them reacted to the response itself.
The first video explained the model again and repeated the focus group line. So the most common reaction was the section 3 objection, now aimed at the founders directly. The tone complaint came next, and it has a specific shape: a brand that asks for feedback looked annoyed when it got some.
"Who thought aggression was the correct tone for the first follow up??"
"If you release a makeup brand asking for feedback, then you act all offended when customers DO give you feedback, that's a no in my book."
""word salad is a personal attack" is absolutely WILD."
I expected the refunds to be a big theme. They weren't. Only 14 comments in all 4,400+ mention refunds, and a couple of those said the offer was buried halfway down the email. My guess is that most commenters never bought anything, so a refund didn't apply to them. What they wanted was an admission, and the email's language of being "humbled" and having "learned a ton" didn't read as one.
"The part about this that bothers me is the customer has to reach out and it’s buried partway in the email."
"I don't want you to learn, I want you to think things through before you charge money for them."
"They love to just use words. Words on words on words. Your first launch sucked. Just say that."
One person liked a later video. Their reason is useful.
"I think this is actually better than their past responses. I'm still most likely never going to buy their products but it seems like they've finally understood that customers really did get the idea of Leaked Labs, they were just pissed at the price tag for the tiny amount of weird product."
5. Where the doubt landed: the product or the founders?
Two ways of measuring itI most wanted to test this part of the brief, because the guess was that a bad product would make people doubt the founders' wider knowledge too. So I checked it two ways.
First, in the launch sample, 274 comments criticized something about the brand or the founders. 126 of them went after the founders (their tone, their makeup, their honesty or their expertise), but 109 of those 126 never mentioned the product at all. Only 17 tied a complaint about the product to a complaint about the people, so the two mostly ran side by side without the product being the cause.
Second, I pulled every comment from the launch period where someone described their own history with the founders, and 62 people did. The split is in the chart.
Not many. Only about 1 in 6 said Leak 001 or the response is what changed their mind. The people who'd already stopped trusting them gave the section 1 reasons, like paid promotion or a review they didn't believe. Half said they never trusted them at all. So in this audience the failed product didn't create the doubt about the founders' expertise. It gave people who already had it a big, public example to point at.
"I watched a few of their shorts for a bit on YT and got bored quick. They lost credibility with me with their ridiculous product launch."
"I'm so bummed because I found their videos to be really helpful in terms of understanding how products worked, but now I feel icky watching their reels."
"I used to admire it, I used to think it was just confidence, but it's just unnecessary. I've lost so much respect for these two"
"But I eventually unfollowed a while before this drama"
"Did not change my view of the LL, because I never liked them in the first place LOL"
There's one way the product and the people did connect, though. The founders appeared in their own launch ad, and the comment that got the most upvotes in the first-impressions thread was about exactly that.
"I’m not buying makeup from someone whose makeup looks like this in their own ad"
6. Leak 002, and what people say would have worked
First reactions to the reveal, then the fixes people suggestThe founders revealed Leak 002, a pearl eyeshadow called Sexachrome, in September. The discussion about it is small (56 comments that react to it), but the reactions are easy to read. Mostly, they're about pearls.
The top reaction to the second launch is about a video made before the first one. Any pearl product from these founders sends this audience straight back to section 1. Next comes the old section 2 complaint, because multichrome shadows are everywhere and you can find them at drugstore prices.
"This is a really really bad idea for them because almost every critic of them would have the association between the word pearl to that Patrick Ta debacle so we’re not starting off strong… already had an air of dishonesty."
"I forgot the brand even existed after the first flop."
"They look like the same multichrome shades and finishes that have been out for years by indie brands."
A few people noticed the brand seems to have dropped the testing idea, after a commenter quoted a reply from one founder saying they were no longer asking for feedback. That removes the main objection from section 3, but it also removes the thing that made Leaked Labs different from any other creator brand. One comment did like the shadow.
"She commented “we are no longer asking for feedback and no one is testing any product”"
"the actual product looks very pretty, really cool for a fun night out or the holidays."
Across the launch period, 43 comments also said what the brand should have done. They're plain counts, since the group is small.
| What people say would have worked | Comments |
|---|---|
| Give testers something back (free samples, a discount, credit toward the final product) | 12 |
| A different model, like a sample box, small batches or a subscription | 9 |
| Charge a sample price ($5 to $20) | 7 |
| Own it: apologize, refund and accept the feedback | 7 |
| Give it a clear use, like travel or single-use for makeup artists | 6 |
| Better basics: separate tins, single shades, consistent discs | 4 |
"You know, they really could've had something if they actually committed to the focus group bit."
"If they offered it at like $15 or $20 shipped, I don’t think the reaction would be as bad."
"i’d be hella open to paying $XYZ for 5 sample products with one full size product being redeemable later once its perfected and produced"
"they should drop the "focus group" "lab sample" lingo, it's too distracting, and just go with cutting edge innovative products."
Most of the fixes people suggest are about the deal, and only a few are about the formula. If a creator brand wants a second chance, the first job is to show what the buyer gets, then to stay away from the old moments the audience remembers. A pearl product was always going to be read through the pearl video.
What the brief got right, and what it missed
The brief guessed that Leak 001 changed how much people trusted the founders' broader expertise. For this audience it mostly didn't, because that trust was already low, and only 10 of the 62 people who described their history said the launch moved them. So the brief was right that trust is the real problem. But the cause sits earlier than the product.
What it underrated was the business model. Price, mess and weak results were all real complaints. But "you pay to be our tester" is what people kept repeating, and they brought it up again when the founders responded. Maybe a good product would have softened that, but I'm not sure it would have made it go away.
There's one thing I can't answer. The people who actually bought Leak 001 are almost absent here. So I can't tell you whether buyers were happier than the commentators, or angrier. Their comments went to the brand's own accounts, and maybe those tell a different story (the brand did say it paused to rethink after reading them). For the nearest study on this site, see what Mielle customers said after the P&G deal, where a beauty brand's loyal audience also argued about what had changed. For why listening to conversations like these often beats running a focus group, see Reddit versus focus groups. And for testing an idea before you launch it, see our guide to product validation.
A customer glossary
The words people actually useThese are the words that came up most in this discussion.
| Term | What people mean | Signal |
|---|---|---|
| Leak | The brand's name for each product drop. Some found it clever, more said it made them think of period products or lab accidents. | objection |
| Flexi | The Leak 001 powder disc that bends and is used wet. Usually mentioned next to a food comparison. | product |
| Focus group | The founders' description of buying Leak 001. Commenters use it to point out that people in focus groups get paid. | complaint |
| Gimmick | A product that is new but not useful. The most common one-word verdict on Leak 001. | complaint |
| Lab sample | What many reviewers called the product, meaning unfinished and overpriced. | objection |
| Word salad | Long, technical-sounding explanations that people found hard to follow. The founders called the phrase a personal attack, which made it spread. | complaint |
| Pearl slurry | A running joke about the old eyeshadow review. Brought back for Leak 002. | objection |
| Beauty queens | How the founders greet their audience. Some followers like it, and critics read it as talking down. | tone |
| Product developer | The founders' description of their background. Commenters argue about whether it means lab work or marketing. | credibility |
Frequently asked questions
What went wrong with Leaked Labs' Leak 001?
The biggest complaint was that people couldn't see what the product was for. In a random sample of launch comments, 103 criticized the Flexi powder itself, and 48 of them called it a gimmick or said the same thing already exists. Price came second with 20, then the small amount and basic packaging (18). Weak color, mess and hygiene, and how hard it was to use came up 14 times each.
Did Leak 001 damage trust in The Lipstick Lesbians?
Less than you'd expect, because a lot of the trust was already gone. Of 62 people who described their own history with the founders, 10 said the launch or the response is what changed their mind. Another 20 had stopped trusting them earlier, and 32 said they never trusted them at all. The launch gave old doubts a new example more than it created new ones.
Why did people object to paying to test Leaked Labs products?
Because testers usually get paid. The phrase focus group comes up in 90 comments, almost always to say that people who test products get paid or at least get the product free. Of 60 sampled comments about the business model, 35 objected to paying to be a tester. Another 17 said the brand was selling formulas other companies had passed on, and 15 didn't believe the innovation claim.
How did people react to the founders' response and refunds?
Mostly badly, and the refund offer barely came up. In a sample of 75 comments reacting to the response videos and emails, 22 pushed back on the focus group line. Another 21 complained about the tone and 15 said the wording was hard to follow, while only 14 comments in the whole set of 4,400+ mention refunds at all.
What would make people try Leak 002?
The first reactions to the Leak 002 pearl eyeshadow mostly look backwards. Of 56 comments, 16 bring up an old eyeshadow review about pearl pigment and 14 say similar multichrome shadows already exist for less. Separately, 43 comments say what the brand should have done. The most common ideas were to reward testers with free product or credit (12), try a different model like a sample box (9), and charge a sample price (7).
Want this run for your brand or category?
This is a public sample of how we work. Insightios reads Reddit, Amazon reviews, YouTube, and the communities where your buyers actually talk, then delivers a report with the exact language, objections, and use cases behind your product.
This report analyzes public comments and what commenters said and believed about Leaked Labs, its products and its founders. It doesn't establish any facts about the company, its products or the people behind it, and any criticism or accusation in a quote is that commenter's opinion. We have not checked claims about the product's performance, safety or ingredients. Brand and creator names appear only as commenters mentioned them.