A Couple Thoughts on the New FTC Guidelines...

Lately, it has come to light that the FTC is concerned with beauty blogs and that companies that send out free products tend to get better reviews from the bloggers. So the new guidelines state that bloggers must release in every post how they obtained the products that they are talking about. So here are several things that will now be included in every single one of my posts.

This will be very simple and my blog entries and formatting will have very little change. I never received free products from beauty companies to begin with so my life will not be changing very much. If I have purchased the product with my own funds, I will simply state that at some point during the product discussion. If the product is a sample that I have received, it is usually one that is from the Sephora Beauty Insider program or that I received with a purchase at a department store counter. If I have only used the tester at a counter, I will state that in the discussion. Often, when I discuss new collections that are coming out, I have not purchased any of the products yet and sometimes am seeing them for the first time on the company's website. Also, my Most Wanted lists include items that I want to purchase but have not gotten a chance to yet.

Also, to avoid any copyright issues, I will state right here that I pull the collection descriptions and product descriptions right from the individual company's website or Sephora's or whatever website I happen to be using at the time. My personal preference when writing about a product is to start by looking at how the company would like the product to be used and then I try to look at see how accurate this assessment is. Sometimes I do not like the product at all, sometimes I think it might benefit more when used in a way other than the original suggestions.

So this entry is needed to comply with FTC guidelines. I will try as hard as possible to be completely clear in all of my entries about how I came by the product and what statements are made by the company and by myself.