Dear theblackrose900: I am not L'Oreal Paris. Love, Me xo

It's come to my attention recently that there's a growing epidemic of consumers who leave critical comments on beauty bloggers' posts, as if the blogger actually works for the company of the product that's being reviewed.

This brings me to a comment I received tonight, from a reader named theblackrose900. She left this on a post I wrote a while back, which is a review of L'Oreal Extra Volume Collagen Mascara (click here to read my review):

theblackrose900 writes:

It bothers me that your mascara models are OBVIOUSLY wearing fake eyelashes. Falsely advertising that your product will make your eyelashes look that way. I'm not so naive as to believe that your product will make my eyelashes look as advertised. Very disappointed. You shouldn't lie to get people to buy your product.

Dear theblackrose900,

I'd like to start by telling you that I actually feel the exact same way that you do about cosmetics companies using deceptive images to promote their mascaras, when clearly the models in the ads are wearing false eyelashes. In fact, The Paraben Free Princess wrote an excellent and quite informative post about this very topic recently: click here to read it.

But as much as I share your sentiments, I just want to set the record straight on a few things that you might have missed:

1) I do not work for L'Oreal Paris (or for any other cosmetics or beauty company, for that matter--I'm a regular citizen, just like you.)

2) The photos in my review are of ME, and were no way enhanced. I was wearing two coats of L'Oreal Extra Collagen Mascara in those photos and nothing more. No false lashes were involved, I assure you. If I were wearing falsies in those photos, that would be just plain sad, because my lashes don't look particularly full OR long.

3) The photos in my review were not photoshopped (I don't even know how to use photoshop, nor do I own that software). They were taken on my crappy Blackberry phone, long before I could afford a digital camera.

4) If you take another look at my actual review, you'll see that I didn't give L'Oreal Extra Volume Collagen Mascara an extremely favorable review. I had several issues with that mascara, actually.

I hope this clears up any and all misunderstandings.

Love,
The Recessionista xo

PS: I think I'm speaking for most beauty bloggers when I say this: Please don't think that we work for the companies of the products we review. For the most part, we're all just consumers, exactly like you. And if you have any questions about L'Oreal Extra Volume Collagen Mascara that I didn't answer here or in my review, please feel free to email me or comment here. I'd be happy to help!