The cosmetic giant Sephora had to pull down Kat Von D’s “Celebutard” lipstick from its shelves this week after it received numerous complaints from disability advocates and upset consumers. The name is said to refer to bland celebrities in reality TV shows, and it also references ‘retard’.

Over the past week, there have been several blogs and social media messages demanding that the lipstick from the 31-year old tattoo artists be removed from the shelves.

Faith Bodnar, who is the executive director of Inclusion BC, an organization that promotes inclusion of people with developmental disabilities in community life said that the word ‘retard’ is plain offensive. “It should have never been on the shelves to begin with,” Bodnar said in a statement. “It’s degrading, and there’s no place for it.”

Following the new development, Sephora jumped into control the damage and issued an apology, “It has come to our attention that the name of one shade of lipstick we carry has caused offense to some of our clients and others,” Sephora said on Wednesday in a statement sent to CTV News  “We are deeply sorry for that.”

The company also confirmed that the lipstick has been discontinued from distribution.

It is possible that Kat and Sephora meant no harm in releasing the controversial lipstick, but the offensive name was obviously not going to gel well with the consumers.

And Kat Von D seemed unapologetic when she tweeted moments later, “At the end of the day, it’s just a *** lipstick.” The tweet was later deleted.

(image via Wikipedia)