Hey Chicas!
While I was away in California-land the good word about new FTC Guidelines for bloggers hit the airwaves. I’ve actually known about this as far back as Summer and have been following the details closely to see how it may affect me and Musings. Btw two people just emailed me to tell me I spelled the and serious wrong…I know, I was trying to be funny in a Interwebz sorta way hopefully some people got the joke 🙂
Dunno what I’m talking about?
It’s simple.
FTC wants bloggers to disclose any and all compensation they receive on blogs for posts, advertisements, etc….this basically translates as if you get paid to post or review an item you must state as such within each post. This also means anyone who receives product for review must disclose the information to their readers.
First off let me get something straight. I have never been nor will I ever be paid to post anything. That’s not how the beauty blogging world works as far as I know from my experience. Big wig companies do not offer to pay us cash of any kind to post about their products. If we were paid to post we’d be millionaires at this point! Ha! Especially me as I have over 3,000 posts under my belt…! Moral of the story? I have not, nor will I ever do a paid post. I blog whatever I want, whenever I want. I do not endorse anyone and no one endorses me.
At the moment my blog is a bit messy since my move to WordPress but I used to have a Disclosure link on the front page of my blog when I was on Blogger explaining all the details about my review process. This link will be again brought back to the front page as soon as I get my new template up and running. Plans to have it on the front page have never change just have been delayed since my template theme is taking longer than I expected.
If you read or see anything about your favorite beauty bloggers being paid to blog I highly suggest you e-mail them yourselves and ask in a friendly manner. They’ll be honest and straight forward with you I’m sure. I find it’s a big problem when large forums or sites are talking about beauty bloggers with little to no knowledge about the editor of the blog or the idea behind blogging. I, myself, have had experience with folks saying I get paid to blog. I do not get paid to blog. I blog because I love makeup, I blog because I like talking to you and showing you new things. I blog because I like to shoot my mouth off and babble. I have a real job, 9 to 5, and blogging is not it. I do this because I enjoy it not because someone is paying me to do it.
Which leads me to compensation.
If you’ve been with me from the beginning you know I had ALOT of reserves putting ads up on the site and even asked your opinion about them at the time. Any ads that run on the site are not endorsed by me nor do I endorse them. They are all completely random acts of Internet loving that I have no control over. Yes, I do get paid for the ads on the site so in turn this counts for some sort of compensation but no sadly I have not quit my day job nor have I purchased that mansion in the Hollywood hills I so desperately want because of the three ads I run on the site. Damn, I had such high hopes too!
Oh and press samples count for compensation as well according to the FTC.
When I originally started my blog it was all my own makeup items and purchases. About a year ago or so I started getting e-mail requests asking me to review items on my blog. These products are press samples that I get to try out, test, use, and proceed to review for you. Normally I start off reviews by saying “I got this to test out…” but I’ve been known to not say such because sometimes I am just rushed into a review as I get excited over a product. FTC now requires I disclose each and every item I get to test out. I’ll be placing a small note on each post that says if I purchased an item, stole it (kidding!), or got it from a company for review. My reviews have always been pretty straight forward and honest. I’m passionate about makeup and that pretty much shines through in every single post you see. If I get something for free I do not rave it simply because it is free. I pretty much break things down and tell you good things or bad things about it. If you have questions about a review or feel differently about the product by all means slap a comment up or e-mail me at musings.of.a.muse@gmail.com I do not moderate what you say about a product being great or sucky….I even join in your rants or raves most times.
And that’s pretty much each peeps. If you have questions about the FTC Guidelines or what they mean please do comment or email me (you’ll get a quicker reply via commenting as email is terribly backed up for me).
If you have a question about how I blog or questions in general about the blogging process please by all means ask.
Thanks for listening and in closing I point you to my Disclosure page which pretty much tells you everything else you may need to know. The page has been up for over a year now and gives the deets on me, this blog, samples, reviews, etc….
Cheers!
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