Simply Smuglogical: Not Like Other Youtubers, Just Like Other Ass-holos - Part 3

[Elyezabeth]

Her collections often look so....mainstream. Like the new metallic flakes ones don't look bad (although I personally don't care for that effect/finish at all) but they look like something a drugstore brand would bring out for the holidays for $5-7 each. Not double that. The birthday polish also almost looked like something I might have gotten from Pure Ice 10 years ago for $3 at Walmart (although sometimes I think that about other indies too). And I know she cites wanting versatility as the reason not everything is holo, but to me as someone interested in more unique indies, they look totally not worth what Holo Taco charges for them.

[[halloweendarlin]]

Why are her color stories the same every single time? It feels the same colors in different finishes.

Came here to say the same thing!

[Aquietnightmare]

So something i noticed is she released like a nail toolkit, but it includes two nail clippers? Doesn't she go on constantly about how she doesnt like them and you should file your nails?

Have a bit of integrity cris

[this.on]

So something i noticed is she released like a nail toolkit, but it includes two nail clippers? Doesn't she go on constantly about how she doesnt like them and you should file your nails?

Have a bit of integrity cris

She's saying it's for toenails or people who like to have short nails...but I think she's just trying to cover up the fact that she's stamped her branding on a pre-existing kit. Otherwise, why wouldn't she have put a slot in for the nail file too

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

[dahlia_13]

Her instagram stories of her toenails reminded me of that ''how long does toenail polish last?'' video.
It is utterly unbelievable and disgusting to me how can someone go on for two months without cutting their toenails?
I cut mine every 15-20 days.

[ValEerie]

She raised prices for the second time... (with the own-ahole-licking attitude of "this is for THE PEOPLE'S SAKE, not mine!") Maybe holo taco is not as succesful as they hoped?

[dahlia_13]

She raised prices for the second time... (with the own-ahole-licking attitude of "this is for THE PEOPLE'S SAKE, not mine!") Maybe holo taco is not as succesful as they hoped?

I also think it's not doing as well as they thought it would.
Not surprising, considering that she puts out the most lackluster stuff.

[Elyezabeth]

So something i noticed is she released like a nail toolkit, but it includes two nail clippers? Doesn't she go on constantly about how she doesnt like them and you should file your nails?

Have a bit of integrity cris

She's saying it's for toenails or people who like to have short nails...but I think she's just trying to cover up the fact that she's stamped her branding on a pre-existing kit. Otherwise, why wouldn't she have put a slot in for the nail file too

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

It totally screams "premade kit" to me. And people on insta are acting like she personally designed the manufacturing process for the tools. They look EXACTLY (even down to that anodized color look) like tools I buy at TJ Maxx for $2-3 per tool in sets.

Re: pricing, I wonder how many of each new collection they're selling. There definitely seems to be a pretty vocal group who just absolutely rabidly fangirls over everything she does, but I can't imagine there are actually tens of thousands of people eagerly buying everything she makes. I don't know anything about getting stuff manufactured on a larger scale, but I wonder if raising her prices is because she's selling fewer of each new item which means the cost to make each one goes up.

[ValEerie]

So something i noticed is she released like a nail toolkit, but it includes two nail clippers? Doesn't she go on constantly about how she doesnt like them and you should file your nails?

Have a bit of integrity cris

She's saying it's for toenails or people who like to have short nails...but I think she's just trying to cover up the fact that she's stamped her branding on a pre-existing kit. Otherwise, why wouldn't she have put a slot in for the nail file too

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

It totally screams "premade kit" to me. And people on insta are acting like she personally designed the manufacturing process for the tools. They look EXACTLY (even down to that anodized color look) like tools I buy at TJ Maxx for $2-3 per tool in sets.

Re: pricing, I wonder how many of each new collection they're selling. There definitely seems to be a pretty vocal group who just absolutely rabidly fangirls over everything she does, but I can't imagine there are actually tens of thousands of people eagerly buying everything she makes. I don't know anything about getting stuff manufactured on a larger scale, but I wonder if raising her prices is because she's selling fewer of each new item which means the cost to make each one goes up.

She claims to be so "transparent" but is it even profitable? Is it struggling? I wonder for how long can she keep up this "i am not in it for the money, now pay more for my shit" charade. I bought some because of the novelty of it, but it wore out pretty quickly, and the polishes are fine, but nothing extra. They will have to get in line with the indies and come up with some unique stuff and make it available worldwide, OR go as the luxury brand and raise prices even more and launch max three times a year, because this whole "this is basic maybe but LOOK! A fancy BOX!" will not keep them in the business for long i think.
(Also the views on the videos are dropping instead of increasing, isn't it? That can't be good for them)

[Elyezabeth]

She claims to be so "transparent" but is it even profitable? Is it struggling? I wonder for how long can she keep up this "i am not in it for the money, now pay more for my shit" charade. I bought some because of the novelty of it, but it wore out pretty quickly, and the polishes are fine, but nothing extra. They will have to get in line with the indies and come up with some unique stuff and make it available worldwide, OR go as the luxury brand and raise prices even more and launch max three times a year, because this whole "this is basic maybe but LOOK! A fancy BOX!" will not keep them in the business for long i think.
(Also the views on the videos are dropping instead of increasing, isn't it? That can't be good for them)

Yes! I believe that she doesn't have huge margins, but it's not because she's selfless, it's because she's not a businessperson. She probably had all these "extras" like the fancy packaging that she insisted on, with not enough regard to how that would affect her pricing. For instance, the "savings" on her whole collections probably is literally that all they can afford to "discount" it is around the same price as the cost of the fancy custom boxes. So the company is getting less money on those, but unless the customer keeps the box (and it does seem like a lot of them do), they're not actually getting any more value to the product for their money. With the price increases, the cost to produce them probably went up or something, but the actual products haven't gone up in value to the customer, unless you just endlessly value Cristine's personal backing of a product. Her pricing is on the mid-high side of indies, but her polishes look relatively mainstream. Holo pigments are way more expensive than mica or dyes, but they're not THAT expensive even on the scale that I buy them (I've made about 750 bottles of polish so far, and sold 250 on my Etsy, and even I can sell them for more like $11-12/bottle). I think as it goes on, she'll especially struggle to keep coming up with "innovative" mainstream-style products, and I don't think she can really make polishes like an indie brand, because she doesn't actually know anything about making polish, all she knows how to do is gush about HOLOOOOO.

[tacobeard]

She claims to be so "transparent" but is it even profitable? Is it struggling? I wonder for how long can she keep up this "i am not in it for the money, now pay more for my shit" charade. I bought some because of the novelty of it, but it wore out pretty quickly, and the polishes are fine, but nothing extra. They will have to get in line with the indies and come up with some unique stuff and make it available worldwide, OR go as the luxury brand and raise prices even more and launch max three times a year, because this whole "this is basic maybe but LOOK! A fancy BOX!" will not keep them in the business for long i think.
(Also the views on the videos are dropping instead of increasing, isn't it? That can't be good for them)

Yes! I believe that she doesn't have huge margins, but it's not because she's selfless, it's because she's not a businessperson. She probably had all these "extras" like the fancy packaging that she insisted on, with not enough regard to how that would affect her pricing. For instance, the "savings" on her whole collections probably is literally that all they can afford to "discount" it is around the same price as the cost of the fancy custom boxes. So the company is getting less money on those, but unless the customer keeps the box (and it does seem like a lot of them do), they're not actually getting any more value to the product for their money. With the price increases, the cost to produce them probably went up or something, but the actual products haven't gone up in value to the customer, unless you just endlessly value Cristine's personal backing of a product. Her pricing is on the mid-high side of indies, but her polishes look relatively mainstream. Holo pigments are way more expensive than mica or dyes, but they're not THAT expensive even on the scale that I buy them (I've made about 750 bottles of polish so far, and sold 250 on my Etsy, and even I can sell them for more like $11-12/bottle). I think as it goes on, she'll especially struggle to keep coming up with "innovative" mainstream-style products, and I don't think she can really make polishes like an indie brand, because she doesn't actually know anything about making polish, all she knows how to do is gush about HOLOOOOO.

How much do you guys think she sank into holo taco? She must be sitting on a tonne of dough if she had to pay $1 mill in taxes alone.

[Elyezabeth]

How much do you guys think she sank into holo taco? She must be sitting on a tonne of dough if she had to pay $1 mill in taxes alone.

I imagine she got a business loan and isn't paying for any of this out of pocket. When I google it, it says the small business tax rate in Canada is 10%, but it doesn't seem to me like holo taco would have taken in 10 MILLION dollars in income in a year or two. At her average prices, that's like 700,000 bottles of polish. I guess it's possible, but it seems really high to me. Also a lot of that money probably went toward business expenses, not just directly to them. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd made less off of it than the company paid in taxes.

[tacobeard]

How much do you guys think she sank into holo taco? She must be sitting on a tonne of dough if she had to pay $1 mill in taxes alone.

I imagine she got a business loan and isn't paying for any of this out of pocket. When I google it, it says the small business tax rate in Canada is 10%, but it doesn't seem to me like holo taco would have taken in 10 MILLION dollars in income in a year or two. At her average prices, that's like 700,000 bottles of polish. I guess it's possible, but it seems really high to me. Also a lot of that money probably went toward business expenses, not just directly to them. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd made less off of it than the company paid in taxes.

Sorry I meant she has said she paid over a million dollars in taxes from her youtube channel. I am not sure about holotaco but you are probably right about getting a business loan.

[Elyezabeth]

How much do you guys think she sank into holo taco? She must be sitting on a tonne of dough if she had to pay $1 mill in taxes alone.

I imagine she got a business loan and isn't paying for any of this out of pocket. When I google it, it says the small business tax rate in Canada is 10%, but it doesn't seem to me like holo taco would have taken in 10 MILLION dollars in income in a year or two. At her average prices, that's like 700,000 bottles of polish. I guess it's possible, but it seems really high to me. Also a lot of that money probably went toward business expenses, not just directly to them. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd made less off of it than the company paid in taxes.

Sorry I meant she has said she paid over a million dollars in taxes from her youtube channel. I am not sure about holotaco but you are probably right about getting a business loan.

Oh my mistake. For some reason I thought the $1 million in taxes number was from her channel plus Holo Taco combined. I think a lot of places have pretty high tax rates for people making that much, but she still definitely has a comfortable life ahead of her, since she seems smart enough to save/invest it, rather than blow it on the influencer lifestyle.

[Bedhair]

She raised prices for the second time... (with the own-ahole-licking attitude of "this is for THE PEOPLE'S SAKE, not mine!") Maybe holo taco is not as succesful as they hoped?

I think that's what irritates me about her. Her relationship with her subscribers used to be rather aunt-ish. She cared about sending a positive, self-affirming vibe. And one element of that was curtailing the affiliate promotion of Indy brands because they're expensive and the kids that follow her are easily influenced to buy $10-15 polish.

Aaaaaand then she opened Shallow Taco and turned her loyal following of little girls into a market so they could bug their moms for $$ polish.I'm glad my young niece aged out of her. She's been very susceptible to influencer marketing.

I just listened to a few of her podlogicals. I like that christine has self confidence to do her own thing like stick with her own choices like not cutting her hair or refusing to get married. But she's so judgemental and Ben is the worst. The political podcast was very revealing (Canadian snobbery sounds like an oxymoron but yeesh these two have a superiority complex thing), Ben does not shut up and interrupts her frequently, and the thinly veiled disdain for other people on youtube is weird because they're doing exactly the same as them!

I love polish but didn't buy Shallow Taco because she had ignored the application problem with Royal Tea in her promotional video. I figure if she praises her gloop as a one coater she's not really as invested in the quality as she insists. (Cirque actually makes smooth buttery polish that applies like a dream.)

The subsequent releases are stuff I already have or that other indies did a while ago. It's possible she might grow as a creator and start making polish that is more brand specific and reflects something unique about her that would be interesting. I feel like the well developed indies are doing something niche, brand signature, and make more cohesive collections.

It's possible christine is going for a broader market with her creative decisions like the safe color choices. Or she might just be fundamentally less creative than she claims.

I'm actually rooting for her. I think it's probably weird to have a successful youtube career. She has a good work ethic and is able to laugh at herself. I hope she eventually makes more affordable nail polish for younger girls, or she does something more interesting with her brand.

[Elyezabeth]

Holo Taco's "12 days of Christmas" things are absolutely laughable. The first day was a free Glossy Taco with every order, which seemed like a reasonable promo. Now we're getting....uhh....Q&A with SiMpLy and....free phone backgrounds? If your pricing is such that you can't even offer sales during the biggest sale time of the year, and your products are already at the highest end of "normal" pricing for what they are, maybe you should look at your production process and assess what could be done to lower the price. She's so proud of her position as the benevolent dictator of the nail polish influencer world.

Also I didn't want to quote the whole thing but I agree with EVERYTHING the poster above me said. She seems like a decently good person as far as influencers go, but also makes pretty hypocritical decisions in terms of her own polish line.

[HereSalem]

It's possible christine is going for a broader market with her creative decisions like the safe color choices. Or she might just be fundamentally less creative than she claims.

I think it's actually a lot simpler than that. She's just making the polish she wants to wear. She's spoken quite transparently about the fact that Holo Taco is a labour of love, and that they overpay on things like ingredients and packaging that a large brand focused on maximum profit wouldn't see as good business sense. She has a lot of disposable income from her Youtube profits, and she's sinking it into her own personal dream because she now has the means to do so. She's not going to make a colour or a finish that she wouldn't be interested in putting on her own nails because this venture is ultimately for herself.

That's why we see such similar colour stories; they're the colours she likes best and wears most often. She loves electric and midnight blue. She loves silver and flashy toppers. She's making nail polish for herself; she's just happening to also put it up for sale, because with her fanbase it doesn't make sense not to. (I laughed at the post above that's like "where are the dusty roses and classy slate greys?" lmao girl she ain't never gonna release classy neutrals, surely if you're familiar with her style that should be obvious??) I guess the high price comes from the fact that she's not willing to compromise on all the spangly extras that usually drive down profit, because she's a kid who's been given the key to her dream candy store and she's damn well gonna tailor that pick n mix exactly the way she wants it.

My tastes are way lower key and the vast majority of her polish is too flashy and tacky for my aesthetic, although I might use a scattered holo topper occasionally as an accent nail with a nude or black mani (speaking of black, I'm really curious about the hype around the one-coat black). I'll likely never order her polish though because I don't have that kind of money in my budget, and shipping/customs to my country is twice as expensive as the actual polish.

[ValEerie]

It's possible christine is going for a broader market with her creative decisions like the safe color choices. Or she might just be fundamentally less creative than she claims.

I think it's actually a lot simpler than that. She's just making the polish she wants to wear. She's spoken quite transparently about the fact that Holo Taco is a labour of love, and that they overpay on things like ingredients and packaging that a large brand focused on maximum profit wouldn't see as good business sense. She has a lot of disposable income from her Youtube profits, and she's sinking it into her own personal dream because she now has the means to do so. She's not going to make a colour or a finish that she wouldn't be interested in putting on her own nails because this venture is ultimately for herself.

I haven't seen her using anything else since HT sooooo i guess this way she can use ONLY her own brand? Wow that sounds.... very boring and childish

[hot_choffolate]

My tastes are way lower key and the vast majority of her polish is too flashy and tacky for my aesthetic, although I might use a scattered holo topper occasionally as an accent nail with a nude or black mani (speaking of black, I'm really curious about the hype around the one-coat black). I'll likely never order her polish though because I don't have that kind of money in my budget, and shipping/customs to my country is twice as expensive as the actual polish.

Her one-coat black is probably the best of her creme range. I have it and all it takes is really one coat. I also like her indigo away and that is a one-coater for me as well.

[Susanna_the_wicked]

I might be crazy but is anyone else getting major ED vibes from her lately? Lots of weight and exercise talk, body checks, obsession with lifting, endlessly talking about fucking oatmeal lol. She's literally a walking type A disaster and I'm exhausted with her