This isn't an easy topic for me, because I'm pretty sure I'm going to lose some friends, but I received a few messages lately that make me feel that I need to comment recent happenings in the blogosphere.
Let me preface it all by saying that I have been a proud member of the beauty blogging community for three years, and I have nothing but respect for the bloggers in this genre.
I want to catch you up quickly, so you know what the hoopla is about, then maybe we can chat about it a bit?
Recently a few reports of companies issuing Cease & Desist Orders to bloggers have come up.
*A Cease and Desist Order (C&D) is a request that a certain behavior be stopped or legal action will be taken. It's like a warning and paper trail all wrapped up in one.
In the post Cease & Desist with the Cease & Desists, British Beauty Blogger refers to multiple instances of C&Ds being issued to British bloggers, implying that the companies are small American brands. Then there are the C&Ds issued to several blogs by mega-brand OPI, threatening action if bloggers didn't pull down "sneak peek" promo pics of upcoming collections.
Most recently, though, the nail polish community and quite a few bloggers are up in arms over a C&D issued by indy polish brand Ginger + Liz. The order was sent to a blog I had never heard of, called Daily Polish, which has been in action since Sept. 2009. (That's not a slur- she's probably never heard of me, either!) ;)
A big brand beating up on a little blogger? Keep reading for more...
The gist of it
Basically, Daily Polish posted some statements in which she asserted that Ginger + Liz were purchasing their polishes from a company called Diamond Cosmetics and selling them for a higher price. For the record, Diamond Cosmetics sells their polishes under their own name for $2.25US a bottle, while Ginger + Liz sell their polishes for $12US a bottle.
Who makes your nail polish?
There are only a handful (five, I think?) of manufacturers of nail polish in the US. What that means is just about every polish you buy is produced in a plant where other nail polishes get made.
Private Label vs. Contract Manufacturing vs. Do It Yourself
Making nail polish is a bit of a hassle. You need specific equipment and ventilation, and most small companies can't swing creating a plant that just puts out nail polish. What's a smaller company to do, then? They contract out the work, of course!
Many companies take part in something called "contract manufacturing". One company contracts another company to create a product for them. The product is usually only made by the plant (the contracted company), with the creative decisions coming out of the original company (the contracting company).
Then there's Private Label manufacturing, in which a company (eg, Diamond Cosmetics) makes polishes, makeup or brushes, and other companies purchase those products and put their own label on them. The products may be sold under several different brand names in different containers with different labels.
Naturally, there are countless shades of grey in between these three groups. A company may make their own nail polish but have someone else print their labels. Another company may use a Private Label manufacturer to produce their eye shadows and palettes but they'll label them on their own. Other companies may negotiate a slightly tweaked version of a Private Label manufacturer's product and then have it bottled and labeled.
For the record, Diamond Cosmetics sells their own stock shades, does Private Label work, AND does custom work, too. So working with Diamond Cosmetics doesn't automatically mean "a rebottled, relabeled product".
PS: this happens all of the time in other industries, too... not just cosmetics!
To me, there's nothing wrong with going with the Private Label
option. Would I do it, personally? No. I have looked into having my own
line, and if I ever pull the trigger on that I will design my own
colors in my own formulas. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't buy a brand
that was created under a Private Label.
It doesn't matter to me that the products are the same but
in different bottles. It's called "marketing", people. We pay for brand
names all of the time - we cough up extra money for that label! Who
cares? If you want to spend more money because of the name on the
bottle, do so. If you want to save a few bucks, do so. I don't care.
PSST: I know of a few major cosmetics lines that do Private Label contracting for their nail polishes. Major lines. And others that do some of that shades of grey stuff described above with their cosmetics. Hmmm...
Dupes and other characters
It's quite common in the makeup and polish communities to look for
"dupes" of colors, and it's an especially great coup if one can find a
less-expensive dupe of a more-expensive shade. Sara, the author of Daily Polish, purchased several colors from each company (Diamond and Ginger + Liz) and compared them.
So far, no harm no foul.
She thought maybe some of the colors were were similar, maybe even "exact dupes".
Still, no problem.
However (and here's where it gets tricky) what Sara didn't do was simply suggest that the Ginger + Liz shades were dupes, or even that they might be Diamond Cosmetics Private Label shades.
Those comments would be kosher. They are opinion. What Sara did was tell people that Ginger + Liz polishes were the same as Diamond Cosmetics polishes, only at six times the price.
That's a pretty specific assertion, and bold. Especially since the pictures I saw (and
there were only 3 shades compared) weren't even dupes*. Similar, yes.
Dupes, no. These comments were stated as if they were fact, not opinion.
*In Sara's defense, not everyone sees color the same way. (Take this test
and see how good you are at it!) I can see where there might have been
confusion, but even Sara said some of the colors she had tried were not
exact matches.
In March, Sara couldn't get enough of Ginger + Liz. It seems a comment (by on a Daily Polish post in April, led Sara to believe that Ginger + Liz were rebottling Diamond Cosmetics shades. It looks to me like any other posts on the matter have been removed, however there are a few other favorable reviews still on the blog. I know I saw her post comparing a few shades from each of the brands in question, but it's nowhere to be found now on her site. There are, however, some screenshots here.
According to other nail polish fans and Ginger + Liz, other comments on the subject were made by Sara elsewhere (other blogs? MUA?). According to communication I had with the brand, their perspective is that Sara has been making false statements against the brand "[since] April and since then the blogger has stated time and time again that our polish is the same as Diamond and has even directed readers as to where they can get a cheaper version of the 'same polish'." They go on to say "We ignored the blogger for months but she kept at her accusations and word was beggining [sic] to spead [sic] and negatively impact our brand."
Ginger + Liz's statement to me, in part:
The most important fact that we want everyone to understand is that the said blogger did not post her statements as opinion but eluded to them as fact, hence product defamation. We have copies of the original postings and have been told the verbiage has been altered in recent days to reflect a different tone.
...There is a clear difference between reviewing a product (whether good or bad) and claiming the company is tricking its loyal customers. We would never ever attack a blogger because of a bad review on our product because of quality...
...To so boldly insinuate that we re-bottle a $2 brand is quite honestly an insult to the work we do on a daily basis to bring the line to life and we take it to heart...we are our own brand......If the blogger wanted to address her suspicion she could have done that with us directly instead of posting about her conspiracy theory and misleading our customers. It would have been settled then. However, it has come to a point where we had to do something about it...
...The notion that it is the same polish is unequivocally untrue...
...We pride ourselves with great customer service and have had countless pleasant experiences with bloggers. We are sorry that you consider this dispute with one UK based blogger an attack on the entire blogosphere. That is simply not the case.
See Ginger + Liz's "open letter" on the matter here.
How I see it
I'm all about free speech. I'm also almost always apt to side with
"the little guy*" and other bloggers. But after doing some research
into this issue, I have to say that I believe "free speech" isn't the
issue at hand. Defamation is.
in their twenties and the brand is only celebrating their first anniversary.
What happened is that by stating as fact that Ginger + Liz polishes were in fact Diamond Cosmetics Private Label polishes, and that you could get the exact same shade for $2.25 instead of $12, Sara and Daily Polish did a disservice to Ginger + Liz. In fact, it was harmful to that company. Lots of people blindly accepted the statements as fact and swore to stop buying Ginger + Liz products. (There's even a little grassroots "boycott" going on!) And those people told other people who told other people and... well, you get the idea.
Some points: It doesn't matter whether Sara purchased her polishes or
not, as I've seen some people imply. The issue at
hand is not whether she "owes" a company anything (she doesn't) whether they gave her a polish to review or she bought it with her own money. Her opinion is welcome, appropriate, and completely acceptable, whether positive or negative. The
point is that the statements she made were false. The point is that she made them repeatedly. The "free speech" argument doesn't fly either, since the law says libel, slander, and defamation are
not OK even though you have the right to speak (that's American law,
though, and Sara is apparently British. Not sure if that matters?). I've also seen a thread on MUA that implies that anyone defending Ginger + Liz
or still talking about their polishes is somehow in their sway or doing
so to curry some kind of favor. They even imply that All Lacquered Up
is "in on it" somehow. How silly. As I've said before -and I'm sure Michelle Mismas would agree- I'm hardly going to sell my soul for a free lipstick or bottle of nail polish! Besides, it's not really an exaggeration to say that at this point Michelle, other reputable bloggers, and the MUA nail board all have more power over who buys what polish brands than advertising by the brands does. That's sort of the point of this whole issue!
Slander
is a written statement (or pictures) that could be deemed harmful to another
entity. Libel is an oral (spoken) statement that could be deemed
harmful to another entity. Both are considered forms of defamation, and
while both are often considered accurate only when the information is
"known to be false", that is not always the case.
It's just really simple, in my opinion. You don't make statements that you can't back up 100%. I saw this sort of behavior trash another indie company (whose name I will keep quiet out of respect for the owner, who is crushed), and I'd hate to see it done again. It's irresponsible. It's gossip, It's just not nice. Speculate all you want but make it clear that it's opinion and speculation. To assert something without proof is just wrong. You can deflect all you want, but that's the key here. Maybe there are other bloggers or individuals making the same statements, and if they are shame on them. But the issue is that Ginger + Liz found that Sara's comments both on Daily Polish and elsewhere were prevalent, repetitive, aggressive, and harmful.
Is it ok to send C&D orders when someone compares your product to another? Of course not. But if you ran a small brand and felt someone was out there trying to stop people from buying your products by repeatedly telling them things that weren't true... well, what would you do? Maybe it was a step too fast. Maybe a conversation needed to occur between the parties prior to taking that step. I'm not privy to any other communications that may or may not have happened between Ginger + Liz and Sara/Daily Polish. I know Sara says there weren't any, but I can't know that for sure. The point, though, is that Ginger + Liz do have a leg to stand on and it appears to me that Sara/Daily Polish does not.
As for the "copyright infringement" comments on MUA, I have no idea what that's about. That, frankly, is bizarre. If posting pictures of products were copyright infringement than I guess I'm up for a few C&Ds myself, as are all of the other product bloggers out there and almost every magazine I've ever read. Hmm. That one is weird.
Here's the crux of it, in my opinion: some bloggers want to be treated like journalists when they think that means getting paid big advertising dollars and receiving free samples. Ooh, ooh! Me, me! Right? But then when they're asked to behave professionally they claim "I'm just a little blogger sharing my little opinions." Not all bloggers take that approach, of course. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The "I'm just a little fella" defense should not fly. If you're an adult, you accept responsibility for your words and actions.
Some blogs are a hobby, some are treated as a profession or business. That difference does not relieve anyone of their responsibility to watch what they say.
The internet is a big pond and you never know who is listening. Bad-mouthing a brand to your BFF is one thing, but writing falsehoods presented as facts is another. It will get attention, and not all of it is good (nor should it be).
That's just my two cents.
Disclosure: I have purchased and reviewed a few Ginger + Liz polishes and had several brief chats with the owners on Twitter (like "I like that coral shade" and "Thanks! Glad you do"). Until researching this Editorial and asking for their statement I had no other contact with the brand. I have not at this time ever received any product from the brand. The only people with influence over me are my kids!