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Princess Love at Galtiscopio - Front Row/Backstage - September 2017 - New York Fashion Week: First Stage

Source: Astrid Stawiarz / Getty

Princess Love is coming under fire for being yet another celebrity who’s been caught promoting a product on Instagram that clearly isn’t legit. User @igfamousbydana took to her own page to expose Love’s problematic post, saying, “we have to start holding influencers accountable for promoting trash products and snake oil cures.”

Yesterday, the Love & Hip Hop Hollywood star made a post on her Instagram page promoting a weight-loss cream brand. The post, which features the before and after snapshots of an unidentified woman, encourages Love’s followers to get the results they’ve been “wanting forever” by buying the brand’s creams, which are marketed as having the power to slim one’s waist, remove cellulite, and treat stretch marks.

She said in the caption that their product could “Get You Those Results You Been Wanting Forever!!” and that they “Will give you Results That Will Have You Coming Back !!” She posted that with a before and after image of a woman whose “after” appeared either heavily photoshopped or brought about through means which a cream can’t provide. People took to the image to criticize its alleged results.

But an Instagram user @igfamousbydana, who says her specialty is in cosmetic procedures and skincare, made her own post where she criticized Princess. She called her out for promoting the “snake oil” brand to her over 3.3 million followers.

Dana wrote, “#PrincessLove was paid to advertise this cream to her 3.3 million followers. Besides the fact that the idea that a cream can completely change your body fat content is laughable, check out the awful photoshop (curved lines everywhere & someone forgot to make her arms thinner?) and she forgot to take the quotes out from the caption they told her to post.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being paid to post and promoting products you believe in – but this snake oil product?? This is insulting and demeaning to every one of her 3+ million followers,” she said. “Please don’t buy this crap. Don’t even go to the elixir page.”

In the comments of Dana’s post, user @takarathekoala shared her own experience with promoting weight-loss products as an influencer. Getting “called out” herself, Takara said she gained perspective on what she was really doing, which she describes as “feeding off of the insecurities of people to make a quick buck.”

“Fun fact,” Takara started, “I used to promote flat tummy tea and sh-t thinking ‘well I’m just trying to pay my rent, what’s the problem’ until eventually someone called me out and I saw what I was doing from another perspective. I know some people say ‘well people are dumb enough to buy it’ but really, in our current society, you’re feeding off of the insecurities of people to make a quick buck, and you’re usually lying while you do it.”

Referring to other influencers Takara continued, “I KNOW these people are LYING about products they’re making money to SELL to consumers and I KNOW they don’t care because anyone can find a reason to justify anything to themselves. Basically what I’m saying is I’m glad you’re calling it out! I see this way too much.”

In a reply to Takara’s comment, Dana responded by saying her problem wasn’t really with influencers securing the bag, it was more so about them unethically and lazily promoting things they don’t even seem to really use.

“They want to be called INFLUENCERS but don’t want to be held accountable for what they are influencing. And therein lies the problem,” she said. “If an influencer gets Botox and loves it and gets paid to post about it – cool. Get your bag, honey. But to advertise this sh-t cream, didn’t even post a pic of herself, either doesn’t know if it works or doesn’t care, that’s just unethical.”

When another commenter expressed how she couldn’t “feel bad for people who are gullible enough to buy” products like ones from the brand Princess was pushing on her page, Dana hopped back into the conversation with another reply to give the commenter some much-needed perspective. In her eyes, even though Princess’s post was a more “extreme” example of false advertising, all influencer posts that aren’t transparent are just as bad.

“If we look at a more nuanced one like someone who has really natural-looking hair extensions is selling a hair vitamin that they say helped them grow their hair long, strong, and shiny…Both situations are sh-t,” she said. “One is harder to see. Both are unethical, and we have to hold them accountable.

Despite being called out, as of now Princess still has the original post up. While we don’t know how much she was paid to make promote this product, it’s sad to think that for her, a check was worth selling out her integrity and subjecting the woman who was photoshopped to a host of mean comments online. Even though Dana’s comment hasn’t gotten Princess to take the post down, people like her who are spearheading the push for an end to unethical influencer posts on social media will hopefully make a long-lasting change.

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