I don't like being a whiney blogger OR an ungrateful person. I want to preface this post by saying I highly value bloggers who take the time to review my perfumes or someway otherwise help promote my little brand. So this is by no means a gripe against those wonderful folk.

That being said, I wanted to bring to light something that has only ever sort of been a disclaimer (the very fine print) on this site and the Etsy Shop, and to add an addendum to that rule. Samples are not for resale. Nor (and here is the addendum) are they to be used for contest prizes without our prior consent.

Ordinarily, honestly, we're fine with giveaways and contests (though admittedly our current ones are merely in the works). We love passionate bloggers that want to give back to their readers. And to that end, we'd like to reward you with BIGGER products than samples to give away. Not to mention, making samples is tedious business and we like to slip the "extra" ones in our direct customers' packages or hand them out at shows. They're our version of social calling cards, and we like to know where they go and whose hands they end up in.

And so here's the sketchy and bitchy part that makes me sick to my stomach to have to even say: if we don't link to a giveaway from this very blog or on one of our Twitter accounts, we have not authorized the giveaway. We cannot be responsible for those goods being offered nor can we account for the veracity of the perfumes. And frankly, we don't appreciate our graphics being used without our permission or out of our branding guidelines. I personally work very diligently every day on our branding and am constantly updating graphics across the board - to see them used very poorly and out of scope isn't fair to the amount of time I put in and frankly makes me want to pull my hair out. Or theirs. As a friend of mine said, I should have final say in how my work gets used.

There. I ranted. More later if the story develops further.