Why I'm boycotting Sinful Colors

Bloggers put a lot of hard work, effort, blood, and sweat into our posts. We toil over polish, make up, lotions, potions, and balms to put our best look forward. Then, we take pictures upon pictures of the look we just created. Next, we hit our computers to upload, sort, and tweak those pictures to bring our readers the best ones. We watermark them in hopes that no one will take those photos we worked hard on and use them without our permission or credit. Finally, we write our reviews and opinions, add our pictures, and post our finished product to the Internet for our readers to see.

So, to read on Twitter that Sinful Colors swiped the pictures of fellow bloggers from their blogs without their permission was very upsetting. Soon I saw that they had also erased their watermarks. This tells me that there was malicious intent. One doesn't accidentally erase a watermark. Then I saw with my own eyes that the pictures weren't just published in a pamphlet, but were also photoshopped onto the models in a large end cap display.

Upsetting? No. Angry. How difficult is it for a nail polish company to take their own photos? Yes, these ladies' nails are stunning. Completely beautiful. But come on, Sinful Colors! Shoot your own photos. Better yet, if you see fabulous photos that you want to use, email the bloggers and... *gasp!* ask their permission.

Below the break are photos that I took in my local Walgreens and links to the blogs posts by Mary and Jeanette.



The bloggers who had their pictures stolen were Jeanette from www.theswatchaholic.com and Mary from www.swatchandlearn.com. Both are fabulous bloggers who put out beautiful work.

The displays:

Jeanette's nails are on the "Be Bold" model. Mary's are on the "Start a Phenomenon" model. I'm sure the nails on the top right model are someone else's, but not sure who as yet.

This is a close-up of Jeanette's nails. You can see her original blog post here. Jeanette blogged about the incident here.

These are Mary's nails on the large end cap display.

These are Mary's nails on a smaller shelf display. See her original mani here. Her blog post can be read here.

There was also a brochure printed with instructions for the looks. Ironically, neither mani included any Sinful Colors polishes! Also, Sinful Colors advised using a toothpick to recreate Mary's mani. Umm... That was done with a Konad plate. Kind of difficult to achieve with toothpicks.

I'm really glad that the blogging community seems to be standing up and pitching a fit. This is so wrong in so many ways. I believe both ladies have tried contacting Sinful Colors and their parent company, Revlon. I hope both acknowledge their wrongdoing and try to make it right. 

I've only bought a couple of Sinful Colors polishes, and I'm not planning on doing it again.