Workers at a factory producing Kylie Jenner’s makeup are banned from looking at the reality star when she visited, former staff has claimed.
Kylie Jenner, 23, launched KYLIE Lip Kits by Kylie Jenner six years ago before it was renamed Kylie Cosmetics a year later.
The Spatz Laboratories in Oxnard, California, manufactured Kylie’s cosmetic products when the brand started and a former staff named Irene Lopez, 32, says she was hired to work on the production line in 2016 by a temp agency.
In an interview with The Sun, Irene said that they are not allowed to look at the reality star and faced degrading demands from their supervisors.
Kylie occasionally visited the factory, which she does not control nor own, with her mom Kris Jenner to check in on the manufacturing of the products.
“Before they would come in our supervisors would tell us, ‘You are not allowed to talk with them, you guys are supposed to keep on working, you guys are not allowed to take any pictures or ask any questions,” Irene told The Sun.
Irene added that Kylie would never talk to workers and would watch silently as her lip products were made in front of her.
Irene told the publication that she felt immensely ‘degraded’ during her time at the company. Claiming that staff was expected to complete quotas of up to 1,200 products daily.
“The supervisors I had there had been very degrading towards everybody,” Irene claimed. “Everything had to be perfectly made and if it wasn’t they would throw it away in your face like it was trash.”
“If you didn’t go fast enough, you were going to get fired,” she added.
The former staff also said that she was often left in tears after being scolded for not being fast enough on the assembly line.
The was a time that her supervisor threw all of her completed products in the trash bin, forcing her to start all over again, Irene said.
Irene claimed that she was expected to produce Kylie’s products after she was trained for only ‘five minutes’ and was ‘verbally threatened’ and ‘degraded’ if she asked questions to her supervisors.
According to Irene, staff was told they could be fired from the minimum wage job and replaced by someone else from the temp agency.
Irene, a single mother of two, said she struggled to find childcare on the weekends but was still forced to come in or was threatened with losing her job.
Irene no longer works at the factory but she said that she has been told by current staff that the conditions are still the same.
Another former Spatz Laboratories staff named Martha Molasco, 31, who worked in the factory from 2015 to 2017 after being hired by a temp agency, revealed that there were rules for workers when Kylie visited the factory.
“Supervisors would say, ‘Don’t talk to them, don’t even look at them,” Martha said.
Martha added that the physical labor at the factory left her with medical issues with pain from her hand to her elbow after working 12-hour shifts from 4 pm to 4 am while standing.
Martha said she had to endure cold conditions in the winter and extreme heat during summer.
The Sun reported that other former employees filed complaints with the California Labor Commissioner’s Office.
There is no indication that Kylie or her mother Kris Jenner gave any instructions to workers or knew about the rules in the factory. And it is understood that Kylie Cosmetics no longer uses Spatz Laboratories as its manufacturer.