Want to share our backstage beauty news from our bloggers at the tents at NY Fashion Week? Just pop in our FW widget on your blog or website and you’re all set! You can even customize the look of the widget, size and color…..
Here’s the code:
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I’m not the only one who thinks the article from the New York Times is absurd. The Beauty Blog Network members and many other beauty bloggers respond to the New York Times. See what they have to say….
Yep, it’s official. Our amazing Beauty Blog Network was officially invited to attend this Fashion Week in New York and not only that, get exclusive backstage access to some of the top shows.
Thanks to the wonderful people over at MAC Cosmetics, Beauty Blog Members that get to do the honors are:
So be sure to check out their blogs for their exclusive backstage beauty news… Many of our other beauty bloggers got access to fashion week with their own passes as well so be sure to read up for all the latest tidbits. Want to keep on top of it all? Check out our widgets on our blogs in the network:
Have you read the latest beauty article from the NY Times? It’s a little piece about beauty and blogging. Go ahead. I’ll wait…….
Did you read it? I hope you did. Because I have a few comments to say to Ms. Kayleen. Because as the founder of The Beauty Blog Network, which offers at the moment 92 beauty blogs in our network in the blogging world…. it’s obvious that Ms. Kayleen didn’t do her homework.
First: This is reporting?
Ms. Kayleen’s biggest scoop that she could get is that, gasp, beauty bloggers get “free swag…” Oh lord.. that’s the biggest story you could get? Well for those unaware, yes, we beauty bloggers, and writers and beauty editors, fashion editors, technology editors and such get free stuff. That’s how we are all able to test, try and review our subject matter for you our readers… Sometimes I wish I was a computer reviewer.. you know. Get a free computer. Nothing new there, but that fact that, gasp, beauty bloggers get free stuff? Wow. Breaking news.
She quotes: “Bloggers’ inquiries for products started out as an annoyance,” said Alison Brod, whose namesake public relations firm represents the Laura Mercier and philosophy brands. “It was a cost for our clients. It didn’t seem fair that anyone could say whatever they wanted about a product and have an audience.”
But in the last year or so, as more women turn to blogs for advice on bronzers or facial scrubs, and magazines like Allure and Glamour have started their own beauty blogs, the cosmetics industry has stopped seeing bloggers as bottom feeders. “
Yep, she’s right on that point. When I started out, as many of the bloggers out there, we had to buy what we could afford (which at the time wasn’t much) what we need to do our blogs and many of us still do. We don’t have a budget (none), we don’t have an expense account, we don’t get paid, and we don’t always have the connections to get what we need to get the blogging job done. But now, because our honest opinions are getting noticed by our readers, we finally are noticed, as a beauty editor or writer for a magazine would.
And it also means, that we’re getting noticed by those that have given freebies to beauty writers and editors all this time. Free trips, free spa treatments, free hotel rooms, free products… that’s nothing new to the magazine world. But it’s new to our world. And does everyone get it? Absolutely not. Just single out the few that do and Ms. Kayleen seems to think she has an expose on her hands.
Ms. Julie Frederickson, of Cotourture is quoted as saying, ““Most of the bloggers call themselves beauty addicts, and maybe they were, but that girl quickly realizes that this is about notoriety and freebies,” Ms. Fredrickson said. “Maybe before people started sending out products, it wasn’t, but that’s not something we should romanticize anymore.”… Excuse me? This is about notoriety and freebies? Well, I certainly remember her getting all giddy over all the freebies she got… the free shoes she got when she complained about customer service, the free cosmetics she got that made her break out. But maybe that’s changed. Maybe she isn’t romanticizing anymore and returning all the free stuff that she’s getting……..
Ms. Kayleen then writes, “There is a danger that, as more bloggers are treated to five-course lunches by Prescriptives, the unbiased product reviews they once weren’t afraid to publish could disappear.”
Huh? Since when? What blogs are you reading? The best part of a blog is that you don’t have an editor over your shoulder telling you that you need to write a glowing report about a certain something because they just bought 7 pages of advertising in their magazine. No one is paying us to write and no one is editing what we write. And we have the total luxury and liberty to say we hate something, we didn’t like something, or just not write anything at all. That’s nothing new and I’m sure that’s not going to change. And that is why companies are noticing us, finally. Because the reader, knows an honest review and intent when they see it. And that’s bad?
And please, freebies are not the reason why anyone starts their blog. Why would it when it takes a good year if not more to earn the respect of a beauty company as well as the traffic to even get noticed? We have earned that with our hard work and honest words which for many of us took years.
Second: Ms. Kayleen seems to think that to get a story, she needs to sweetly interview her subjects and then ambush them in her article.
You don’t think we know each other do you. But we do. Your popular beauty bloggers that you so innocently approached with one topic, yet wrote about them in so many unflattering terms makes you a dishonest and gossipy writer. Because that’s not how you approached them was it. No, you wanted to write about beauty blogging and how it’s changing the media and the beauty business. At least that’s what you told them. I think the story here should be how instead of researching your story and your factual reporting, which reads more like a gossip magazine is how you did your job. If the New York Times is now changing their style to be more like a gossip magazine, well then, you did your job. And if you wanted to get attention to either yourself, your writing or to the New York Times, well you did your job too. And if you wanted to get us talking, well, congrats. It worked. To bad we’re not talking about your insightful writing and great reporting skills.
Third: I did say thank you…
But I have to say that I did state in the title of this post, a big thank you to Ms. Kayleen. Really. Thank you. For giving attention to the beauty blogging world. For giving us tons of traffic and readers that we may have never gotten if it wasn’t for you. For thinking that we’re a big enough deal to even write about. Even if the biggest dirt you could get on us was the fact that we get free products, just like beauty writes and editors do. Thank you. Because we’ll keep doing what we love, and writing about it.
Because, if you hadn’t noticed, that’s what we do. The vast majority of us clearly love what we do and we write with something to say. An honest and sincere opinion, review and thought. And our readers read us and appreciate what we have to say because of that.
You may want to try that one day.
Sincerely;
Elke Von Freudenberg, Founder
The Beauty Blog Network
[tag] The New York Times, beauty blogs, article, The Beauty Blog Network[/tag]
Yep. The February Issue is live! Be sure to visit it, we’ve got some great great articles on this issue.
* Be Mine: Valentine’s Day Gifts for Girls and Guys
* Valentine’s Day Makeup Looks
* Letter from our Beauty Editor: Jazmin Casing
* A New Chance At A New You
are just some of the articles that are up. Guest Beauty Editor Jazmin Casing from Makeup Moxie did a super fantastic job in putting together this issue.
Plus we’ve finally launched our 100 Top Beauty Products as named by The Beauty Blog Network. Our favorites from mascara, to lip gloss, to moisturizer. It’s all there.. Did your fav make the cut? You’ll be sure to find a few new ones there in the list as well!
Spoiled Pretty (our network member) brought to our attention a great article in WWD about how beauty bloggers are now getting major attention from product companies and PR firms. While The Beauty Blog Network wasn’t mentioned, six of our fav beauty blog members were!
Congrats to Beauty Blog Members who were mentioned!
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