TikToker Mikaila (@mikcabre) claims she was a loyal Livaclean customer for a while, although now she seems to be reconsidering the brand after a strange discovery led to an even stranger interaction that took TikTok by storm. In a post that racked up over 3.7 million views, she tagged the company and said, “I am recording this for documentation purposes to make sure that I’m not, in fact, losing my mind.”
Mikaila told her viewers, “These are the acne patches that I regularly purchase, and they come in little stars and moons, and they’re really shiny.” After she went through all 240 of them since she is acne-prone, she got a new box. It came with a packaging detail that made her “dig the old box out of the recycling here just to check.” Mikaila opened the old box and pointed to the inside of the top flap and the printed text, “We got you covered,” saying, “Makes sense. It’s an acne patch.”
Then she opened the same flap on the new box. As she pointed out the new text, she asked, “What do you mean ‘Explore Bitcoin’?” The community seemed to be just as confused by her find. One user wrote, “Nothing could’ve prepared me for what it said.” Another noted, “I was so ready to comment ‘maybe they have different things written in each box’ why the heck would it say explore bitcoin.”
A crypto plug on a skincare brand threw all the customers off
For the commenters and Mikaila, things got more confusing when Livaclean responded. A person claiming to be Anthony Bui-Tran, the founder of Livaclean, commented from the account, writing, “Thats an easter egg in our design. It’s supposed to be on the bottom flap of the box as a hidden message. Our team got it mixed when its on the top. I know it’s pretty random. But its a random message that I wanted to nudge people with. It was pretty controversial in the company too when we decided to add it.”
@mikcabre livaclean you have 24 hours to respond
♬ original sound – .·𝔐𝒾𝓀𝒶𝒾𝓁𝒶•.🖊
The founder’s comment triggered 120 replies. When a user questioned why he’d include such a thing, he explained, “It’s a personal nudge to the world to explore the history/concept of money and go down that rabbit hole.” One user hit back, “you’re a pimple patch company. no one wants to take financial/education advice from a company that encourages them to explore bitcoin as an ‘easter egg.’ you will likely lose customers over it too, judging from some of these comments.”
In another reply, Bui-Tran mentioned that “going down the btc rabbit hole leads you to understanding things like Inflation and how to deal with it.” This is when users seemed to get angry, as one wrote, “because Bitcoin isn’t something that SHOULD be taught in schools. It’s a money pit. Wtf.”
@mikcabre Replying to @rhys Livaclean responded sort of
♬ original sound – .·𝔐𝒾𝓀𝒶𝒾𝓁𝒶•.🖊
The debate got even stronger when Mikaila posted a follow-up video. She stitched in screenshots to highlight that the founder had been very active in the comments section, alleging, “No social media management, just vibes.” She told her viewers that they could go back and see for themselves, claiming that it got “to a point where it became very unprofessional.”
Mikaila told her viewers that she had emailed Livaclean and shared an email from Bui-Tran. In it, he seems to double down on his bitcoin message and wrote, “I’m glad you found it and I’m glad you questioned it. That’s exactly the reaction a hidden message should get even if ‘jarring’ wasn’t the one I was going for.” This led Mikaila to look him up, alleging that he “sounds like you’re a finance bro.”
@mikcabre Replying to @shell UPDATE: I sent a follow up email and this was the response. I could be wrong, but I smell an ai chatbot and I think I might have riled it up
♬ Stress, tension, suspense, mystery – SuzuhaYumi
Mikaila looked him up and claimed she found a YouTube channel where the creator she believed was him talked about forming a company with Alibaba. Then she looked through Alibaba and alleged she found similar acne patches. However, she explicitly told her audience that she wasn’t making “accusations of any sort.” In fact, except for Bui-Tran’s comments, all details here are Mikaila’s perspective and communications she claims to have received, and not verified facts.
@mikcabre The saga continues somehow so buckle in
♬ original sound – .·𝔐𝒾𝓀𝒶𝒾𝓁𝒶•.🖊
The community’s response, however, is a textbook example of what happens when brand messaging falls apart. According to Clutch, brand authenticity is about closing the gap between what a company says and what it actually does. The report noted, “If brand promises and behavior don’t match, customer loyalty could drop fast.”
