The Conspiracy Palette is more than just a makeup palette, it holds sentimental value for fans who follow the journey of YouTubers Shane Dawson and Jeffree Star. The palette was very successful and sold out in less than 24 hours, mainly due to the popularity of the Shane Dawson’s YouTube series following the creation of the palette.
The Secret World of Jeffree Star
Before the collaboration between Jeffree Star and Shane Dawson, Shane filmed a documentary series called The Secret Word of Jeffree Star. In this series, Shane meets Jeffree Star for the first time and explores the life that Jeffree lives as a makeup artist, internet celebrity, and entrepreneur.
It was the first time that Jeffree opened up about his life and work in front of a camera. Shane explores Jefree’s mansion at the time, reminisces about Jeffree’s MySpace days, and learns about the dark times Jeffree’s struggled through. The series got a lot of attention and positivity, gaining over 160 million views on Youtube.
The popular series also gave the viewers an inside look in Jeffree’s company, Jeffree Star Cosmetics, which he built up with the little money he had left in his savings after ending his music career.
In the fourth episode of the series, “The Secret Life of Jeffree Star”, Jeffree asks Shane if he ever thought of doing a makeup line. Shane says that he would love to do his own makeup line, but he is worried that people might think it weird for him to do makeup.
Shortly after, Jeffree mentions a Conspiracy Palette which would end up being the official name of the eyeshadow palette. Shane also proposes filming a series following the creation of the palette, alluding to a series that was posted 14 months later, documenting the process of the whole Shane Dawson x Jeffree Star collection.
The Beautiful World of Jeffree Star
During the 14 month period between The Secret World of Jeffree Star and The Beautiful World of Jeffree Star, Shane and Jeffree were working behind the scenes creating what would be called The Conspiracy Collection.
Shane Dawson created The Beautiful Word of Jeffree Star, an 8 episode Youtube documentary series, to follow the creation of this makeup and merchandise collection. The first episode was posted on October 1, 2019, just a month before the makeup launch. Just like the last series, it gained popularity and has over 100 million views.
The series provides an insight on Shane and Jeffree’s design of the product, with the help of Jeffree’s team at Jeffree Star Cosmetics and Shane’s cameraman, Andrew Siwicki. They also lead the viewers through their process of creating a launch and discuss the numbers of prices, percentages, and potential sales of their product.
While the main focus of the series was The Conspiracy Collection, many criticized Shane for not including his reaction to past controversies that were teased in the trailer. Shane, despite his hesitance, decided to include it in the finale, “The Beautiful World of Shane Dawson”.
The Conspiracy Collection was a huge success, selling out in less than 24 hours. Many fans waited for hours online to get the products. There was so much traffic on the site that most of the online retailers crashed almost immediately.
In the finale, Jeffree’s team gets on a call with Shopify to discuss the issue where they learn that 2.5 million people were waiting to checkout an hour after the collection was launched. The relaunch of the collection was June 20, 2020 and it experienced the same fate, online retailers crashed from the amount of traffic on the website.
The History Behind the Shades
Conspiracy Palette
The Conspiracy Palette costs $52 and consists of 18 shades.
- Ranch: One of Shane’s favorite dressings. He is popular for dipping almost anything in Ranch. In the second episode of the makeup series, Jeffree gifts Shane his bedazzled Ranch bottle that was given to him by Hidden Valley Ranch.
- My Pills: Shane speaks openly about his anxiety and mental health. In his video “$20,000 FIRST CLASS AIRPLANE SEATS” Shane makes several jokes after taking his prescribed Xanax to calm his anxiety.
- Tanacon: A reference to a convention hosted by Tana Mongeau, another influencer on YouTube. Tana made the convention with the intent of challenging VidCon when they did not give her the ability to go as a “featured creator”. Shane created a series called The Truth About TanaCon where he tries to get an insight on how the convention turned into a disaster.
- Diet Root Beer: Shane is known for always drinking diet root beer.
- Just a Theory: A phrase that Shane frequently says in his popular conspiracy theory videos. It is also the color of the shirt he wears in many of his conspiracy videos.
- Spiraling: A word that is used to signify mental health decline. Shane usually says that he is spiraling when he’s in a dark place or when there is drama that he can’t get out of.
- Conspiracy: Shane Dawson is known for his conspiracy theory videos. He started making shorter videos about individual theories including popular ones like the Mandela Effect, black eyed children, and Walt Disney being cryogenically frozen. He recently came out with a longer series called Conspiracy Series, where he investigates and tests the theories he talks about. One conspiracy theory from the series that went viral was that Chuck-E-Cheese recycles their pizza.
- Pig-ment: Shane is also popular for his pig noises and snorting when laughing. His logo is a pig.
- Food Videos: This is a throwback to the food videos he made in 2017. The color of the shade is the same as the color of the thumbnail background of his food videos.
- Trisha: Another YouTuber and close friend of Shane’s. She has done many collaboration videos with Shane, the most recent being “Switching Lives With Trisha Paytas”
- Cheese Dust: A reference to the cheese dust left over after eating Cheetos. Shane even named his ginger cat Cheeto.
- Flaming Hot: Named after Flaming Hot cheetos.
- What’s the Tea?: A slang phrase for “What’s the drama/gossip?” that Shane and many other influencers use.
- Diet Cola: Another one of Shane’s favorite sodas. In Shane’s first series with Jeffree Star, he thought about making a palette in the shape of a diet cola.
- Not a Fact: Another phrase that Shane usually mentions in his conspiracy theory videos.
- Sleep Paralysis: Another reference to the creepy videos he used to make. Many people experience sleep paralysis and sometimes claim to have hallucinations that elicit intense fear. Shane sometimes talks about lucid dreaming, which could lead to sleep paralysis.
- Illuminatea: Instead of “Illuminati” they had to name the shade “Illuminatea” because of copyright. It’s not only another allusion to his conspiracy videos but also to drama.
- My Ride’s Here: Originally supposed to be named “My Uber’s here”, but had to name it “My Ride’s Here” because of copyright. However, it still has a black color to signify a classic Uber car. Shane Dawson takes Ubers and has talked about experiences he had with his Uber drivers.
Prefer a smoky look. Check out our review of the Cremated Palette released in May, 2020.
Mini Controversy Palette
The Mini Controversy Palette costs $28 and consists of 9 shades. Diet Root Beer is a repeat from the Conspiracy Palette.
- Flat Earth: Shane Dawson talks about the flat earth theory in his video “Mind Blowing Conspiracy Theories” with his brother.
- Cry on My Couch: Shane makes a shade the color of his old couch that he says he shed many tears on.
- My Boyfriend’s Purse: Shane jokes about having to hold his boyfriend’s purse.
- Controversy: Well known YouTubers are known to get into controversies, Shane and Jeffree included. Controversy is a theme among YouTube and gains a lot of attention.
- My Apology: This shade is a reference to having to make apology videos for the controversies.
- Exposed: Being exposed on an online platform means being put in a vulnerable state where the person being exposed gets their secrets revealed, even if it’s not wanted.
- Cancelled: Cancel culture has become a popular practice on online sites. When a creator or influencer does something wrong or says something offensive, people stop supporting them and usually talk about it publicly.
- The Simulation: Another reference to his conspiracy videos. The simulation is a popular theory that everyone is just living in a simulation and what you’re experiencing isn’t real.
In the most recent launch, the Mini Controversy Palette was sold with a new green shimmer shade that replaces Cry on My Couch.
- Put It Back!: In the fourth Episode “The $20 Million Dollar Deal with Jeffree Star”, Shane and Jeffree decide how the colors are going to be organized in the palettes. With the help of Jeffree’s worker Kimmy, they construct both palettes, ultimately getting rid of the green shimmer shade that everyone argued that they wanted back. Listening to the viewers’ outcry, Shane and Jeffree decided to sell the shade in the next launch. Because of the shade’s popularity, they decided to sell it individually for $8.
The palettes might not have colors for everyday use but the stories behind the palettes as well as the want to support the creators is what makes people want to buy the product. Shane and Jeffree have been successful, the first launch of their online merchandise store sold out in less than 30 minutes.
Their official first launch with every merchandise and makeup product sold out in less than 24 hours. There were a few mistakes, including a problem with ribbon fibers being in some of the makeup they shipped out. However, many still went back and bought more in the most recent launch.
