My thoughts on beauty blogging...!The good, the bad and the in-between....

This is one of the posts I have been wanting to write for the longest time but never got around to doing so because frankly I didn't know where or how to start. So I thought I would skip the prologue and start with some facts. 

Picture taken from: http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2011/08/why-i-blog.html

• I started blogging in January 2008 
• I "switched" to beauty blogging in May 2009
• My blog(in its beauty form) has already celebrated its 4th birthday (going on its 5th this coming May) which makes it one of the oldest greek beauty blogs on the block.
• I don't like self promotion and I am particularly bad at it

So, having said all that I would like to begin this post. 

Since my early blogging years I have , always, thought that blogging is a fantastic hobby that can sometimes be the bearer of rare opportunities for the hard-working, honest and creative bloggers. Now that was all bullshit. Excuse my bluntness but it was. There are no real opportunities for the hard-working, honest and creative bloggers. The opportunities are reserved for those who enjoy free items and a fake sense of accomplishment that comes with those. The opportunities present themselves, mostly, to those who are open to "selling" their blog and their opinions to any company that will send them products. 

Blogging used to be a community, the size of a pool, made up of people who enjoyed reading each others' blogs, commenting, collaborating and who loved sharing opinions and ideas. Nowadays it is an ocean of badly written blog posts and of bloggers who will bend over backwards for some ill gained rise in their GFC numbers. 

I am aware that I sound bitter however I would like to make sure that you fully understand that this post is just my way of venting. I am sick and bloody tired of cookie cutter/ pre-written blog comments whose sole purpose is to increase traffic to the commenter's blog or website. 

Favourites posts that consist mostly of freebies (and also include sachet's or testers) annoy the hell out of me. And posts with a million and one grammatical errors make me incredibly angry. 

Now please don't get me wrong...there are great bloggers out there who receive products from companies and have the decency to pick and choose which products to feature and who write honest reviews, respecting their readers. Also, I am not saying that new blogs should not be created. Thinking that would be madness. However I am opposed to the creation of a blog that will serve as a means to an end (the end being , for the lack of a better word: freebies).
And ,of course, being sent products for consideration is definitely not a crime. It is a great way for our readers to learn about new products and to read reviews on those products before spending their money on them. However let's face it people...you are not helping anyone by saying that ALL the products are fantastic and flawless. What you are doing is deceiving your readers. Of course you are going to love some products, that is only natural, but you cannot possibly love every single product you are sent to review. We also have sponsored posts which, in my humble opinion, are fine provided that our readers are aware of the type of post they are reading so they can decide, for themselves whether they want to read said post.

Now let's discuss priorities...!Strangely enough (please sense the irony here) my readers are my priority. The people who have supported me , and still support me to this day, are the people that I aim to please with my posts. I have always respected companies with which I have been in contact with and from which I received products but bending over backwards to make every one of their products the "belle of the ball" when they are just another peasant, was never (nor will it ever be) my goal. 

I am, and have always been. an artist and I treat everything I do (including blogging) with love and integrity. I create original content, to the very best of my ability and I never take my readers for granted. I occasionally ramble and have my moments but never have I lured anyone to my blog under false pretences and that is what I believe, makes me an old-school blogger. All I ask of you is to not confuse me with people who have been deprived of other forms of excellence and/or social acceptance and who will do more or less anything to achieve what they consider to be "celebrity status" through their so-called blogs. 

I believe that's enough for a day's venting. Comment if you feel like it. I would love to hear what you think about all this. 

xoxo

A.