The Dreaded Negative Review

I have a really hard time saying negative things about ANY business. When I have a bad experience I try to give a business adequate time to resolve the problem and regain my trust. When it comes to smaller, indie sellers, I tend to have even more leniency. I know that sometimes crazy things happen and life gets in the way. Even still, there are certain standards I have for all sellers to run their business by. Until now, I hadn't really had any negative experiences with indie sellers.

Now before I get into things, let me give you some background on my experience with indie polish makers. In my collection, I own polishes from at least 37 DIFFERENT indie brands. Most of these are ones I have bought, but a few of them were sent to me as gifts or as trades in exchange for my jewelry. So I think it's safe to say that I've had quite a bit of experience with a lot of brands and sellers.

My whole experience has gone on for over a month now. I feel like this is more than plenty of time for things to be resolved and as of today, they haven't really. I don't want others to have a similar negative experience, which is why I'm writing this.

The brand I'm going to talk about today is called Glitzology Beauty.

Let me start by saying I really do like most of the polishes I received from Stacy/Glitzology. She has a huge variety of glitter mixes, color combinations, and tinted bases. 

I discovered her shop around the end of November and was excited to see there was a promotion for 50% everything. Eager to try a new brand for so cheap, I jumped on the sale and ordered my first three polishes. They came fairly quickly and I was really impressed by the glitter bombs! 

Then, in December, she was running a promotion where you could buy four polishes and get one free, which could be combined with another 50% off coupon. Awesome! On December 26th, I placed my second order for five more polishes. They arrived on the 9th of January, but I was disappointed when I opened them up. Two of the polishes in particular looked very different from the photos I had fallen in love with on her shop listings. Later that day, I messaged Stacy on Etsy expressing my concern and telling her in detail how my polishes differed from the ones she had pictured.  On the 13th, I hadn't heard anything from her, so I messaged her on Facebook. On the 14th, she posted on her Facebook page saying that people had mentioned they didn't receive replies to Etsy messages and that she'd been having problems with error messages on her phone.

I then messaged her again on the 16th saying I had seen her post and still had not gotten a response. Finally, on the 17th of January, Stacy responded to my Etsy message saying that it was actually her cable causing the problems. Again, I understand that sometimes things happen, but if I knew I had business messages that I was unable to respond to (because of my phone, computer, internet, etc) I would be going to a friend's house, a library, or even my college computer lab to respond to messages in a timely manner. In my opinion, nine days to respond to a product concern or any business message is not a timely manner.

Stacy apologized for the polish "As You Wish" and agreed that it did indeed have the wrong glitters in it. For my other concern "Blue Lagoon" she simply apologized that it didn't look like the picture she had listed and admitted that taking photos had been challenging for her. I understand that photos on the computer aren't always 100% accurate, but these are just way off... In my opinion, if you are going to sell anything, those items need to be represented as close as you possibly can. If you don't have the ability to make that happen, you need to find someone who can help you. 

 Just so you can get a better understanding, here are some photos of the two polishes:

"Blue Lagoon" - The picture on the left is from her listing on Etsy and the picture on the right is one I took of the bottle I received. They look pretty different to me. The photo on the left from her store clearly shows gold (they look gold, right?) glitters, but in her response to me she said: "You mentioned the color Blue Lagoon as well. The color is a mix of various shades of blue and green, there is no white or gold in that color." Hmm...

 

"As You Wish" - Again, the picture on the left is from her store and the picture on the right is mine. As you can see, there are white squares in mine but no sign of white squares in the polish on the left.

Lastly, she apologized for the inconvenience, said she would send me a replacement bottle of "As You Wish" and also offered to send me any two other colors of my choice. At this point, I was feeling a little bit better. I had finally heard back from her and she was offering a solution. I was still bothered by her comment about the glitters "Blue Lagoon" and her excuses about the photos, but I responded with my thanks and new color choices. That was on the 18th of January.

Today (the 28th) I messaged her again, wondering if she had got this response and if she would be sending out the other polishes. She did respond quite quickly, saying she had shipped them out at the end of last week. So not only did it take her an entire week to send replacements, but she also didn't message me to say they had been sent or send any sort of tracking. I guess that's not horrible, but as a courtesy, it would have been nice.

So, that's where I'm at. I did also message her earlier today with most of the same information I've included in this blog post. Like I said above, I really do like most of the polishes I've gotten from Glitzology. I have absolutely nothing against Stacy or her brand overall, but the excuses, long response times, and photo discrepancies are not acceptable business practices in my opinion. I'm hoping she'll understand my perspective as a customer and consider my suggestions.

Thank you to my friends my Facebook followers who encouraged me to write up this post. I am a blogger and I want to tell you all about my experiences and opinions when it comes to brands, colors, and specific polishes. I just want you all to have fantastic experiences when it comes to nail polish! :D I'll also be sure to put up some swatches and reviews of all the polishes I've gotten from Glitzology soon. Sorry this turned into such a wall of text. As always, thanks for reading.