I’m Rachel Clinesmith, and I founded Vampyre Cosmetics in 2019 with a dream to create a brand that celebrates individuality and self-expression. Throughout the years, we connected with an incredible community that shares our values. In 2022, I decided to bring on an additional partner to help scale my vision. In mid 2023, the 2nd partner I brought on, Lisa (our former PR rep) introduced an outside bookkeeping firm to help us manage our finances. What they uncovered was shocking: evidence of fraud and embezzlement by Karen Holton, the 1st partner I had brought on. It was a devastating blow, and we knew we had to act fast. We hired a legal team to address the situation, hoping for accountability. After six months of negotiations, and multiple attempts to hold Karen accountable, she filed a malicious lawsuit against us. This was Karen’s attempt to shut down Vampyre Cosmetics permanently. This could have left our loyal customers—many of whom had pre-ordered our highly anticipated Dungeons & Dragons collection—without any recourse for refunds or their orders. The lawsuit didn’t just threaten our business; it affected our vendors and contractors, too. We were in a precarious position, trying to keep going while addressing this crisis. I told our attorneys that I needed to refund and cancel all of Vampyre Cosmetics orders or find a way to ensure they were fulfilled.
I had already planned to rebrand from Vampyre Cosmetics. We had received pushback from major retailers and certain licensors due to the niche and gothic nature of the name. I started the process of introducing the new name early this year so that it would hopefully be a seamless transition once the lawsuit was completed. Right before the lawsuit was filed, Karen gained access to the company’s financial institutions and stole more money, locked us out of the company paypal and disputed legitimate charges with our manufacturers. We did everything we could to fight this in order to protect the company’s assets and make sure that we could continue operating. Unfortunately, the nature of the legal process, the costs involved, and the extensive theft by our former partner caused further delays over the summer. Realizing the urgency, I made the decision to form an entirely new entity with all new licensing agreements and contracts so that there was full separation, to prevent further legal interference and to ensure that the pre- orders could be filled and our customers supported. While this journey has been fraught with challenges, it has also been a testament to resilience and community support. The licensing deals that we lost with Vampyre Cosmetics include Space Invaders, Oregon Trail, Winchester Mystery House & The Craft (which was unreleased and Sony told us we can probably get it again later with the new company). All other licensing deals and the products launched under them belong to Mythosis Manufacturing Inc which is doing business as (DBA) Phoenix Rising Cosmetics Brands.
This is not the first time I’ve had to start over and rebuild from scratch. This time it’s not quite from scratch because I still have the support of the licensing relationships I’ve built (including Disney & others), we still have the social media accounts that I built up before Vampyre Cosmetics and have now changed the name of to Phoenix, and hopefully we still have you. I’ve been in this business for over 13 years. My first cosmetics company was Belladonna’s Cupboard or Belladonna’s Cosmetics and when it shut down due to manufacturing and other issues, I chose to personally continue offering refunds and replacing products that didn’t get shipped out until June 1st, 2023 over 4 years after closing down. I couldn’t live with myself If I didn’t take it upon myself to make sure that all of our customers were taken care of, so I did that out of my own pocket even though it took me a little while and I wasn’t able to start sending out refunds and products until 2020 during the pandemic. I took the lessons I learned from that first handmade business and used them to build Vampyre Cosmetics into a better company. I believe that we can do the same thing again but we need your help. The full and total legal separation was necessary but it also means we are starting over financially as a company. We’ve been told by our advisors that we have a good shot at getting Venture Capital funding since we are now a startup, but we’ve also been told this can take 12-18 months. We need funds now to keep going and to be able to finish filling these orders for our customers and maintain the relationships we’ve built with our vendors and contractors. (you can also donate to Vampyre Cosmetics former lead designer, Batty here who is also struggling since all of this happened)
We’re committed to turning this adversity into opportunity. I’m excited to share this new chapter with you, and I promise that we will emerge stronger and more committed to our mission than ever. Mythosis was originally the name of my husband's manufacturing business. He developed and manufactured the tentacle makeup brushes that I designed for Belladonna and then ultimately released under Vampyre Cosmetics. Now we have entirely new plans to create an officially licensed sustainable cosmetics manufacturer here in the United States. We want to hear from you. We want you to be an active part of our company and design processes. This is how you can be a part of what we are building. Share your thoughts, and stay tuned for updates as we continue this journey together. Thank you for being the most important part of what we do.
