How British Beauty Blogger Taught Me a Thing - No, Two!

Jane Cunningham is one of the most established beauty bloggers in Britain. Her blog, British Beauty Blogger, has squillions of readers. She's also very active on twitter with at least another squillion followers (no, I'm not exaggerating – how could you think that?).

With her top ratings and world-wide recognition, you'd think she'd be a bit unapproachable, but Jane is, in fact, a real sweetie.

This lovely lady took time from her packed schedule to check out some information for a complete and utter stranger who approached her out of the blue. She not only answered in detail, but added a couple of great bits of advice (complete with info and links).

I know this for a fact because I was the complete stranger.


It was a Tweet - and a Blog Post

A while back, a tweet about a scam beauty blogger caught my attention and brought me to a blog post about a certain freebie-beauty-product-seeking-scam-blogger who was 'on the loose' in the UK. No names were mentioned, but there was a detailed description of the scammers 'modus operandi'. I added a comment to that post.

Ironically, it was a comment along the lines of 'wow I had no idea, I'll be on my guard now - thanks for the heads up'.

But I Promptly Forgot

A few days later, I was approached by a UK beauty blogger who was interested in doing a feature on my products. Flattered, I proceeded to make the following mistakes:
- not ask for her blog's web stats
- allow her flattery to overshadow my common sense
- formulate products personally for her
- send them to her

When it Finally Dawned...

A fortnight later, I wrote to ask how the products were working out. I received a reply along the lines of 'the products never arrived and could I possibly re-send?'

Ding! The now-distant post about 'fake beauty bloggers' came to mind.

A bit of detective work brought me to the source blog post. I wrote the author with a description of my story and the name of 'my beauty blogger', asking if this was the scammer she had written about.

Not only did I receive a swift reply, but was also given some excellent advice about how to avoid this situation in future.

Thank you British Beauty Blogger for being such a class act!

So, Was She the One?

As it turned out, 'my' beauty blogger was not the scammer from the original post. In hindsight though, I think she may have been a copycat.

You live. You learn.

Comments

Unknown said…
Everyone gets, "that," woman at some point. I consider it flattery that she bothered to notice and move on. No replies. I also have, drawn up not up, a general rule for bloggers who want to try product. If you don't meet my stats and are legit, but starting out, I can offer samples, at the sample rate. Other than that, if the stats are there, I will send an item on request, but it has to be from my regular line.

put it in black and white and you could get some good press, if you follow your rules :)
LisaLise said…
Nancy this is absolutely excellent advice! Thanks so much! (I'm off to figure out some clever wording.

Yay you!