Vital Stats

Sparklecrack Central was started in January 2009. A particular forum, which had recently been sort-of-adopted-as-official by a certain mineral makeup company, passed a ban on all posts about any brand other than the “official sponsor”‘s brand of makeup. Since that particular community had been started as a result of over-eager moderation on another forum and the members had grown into a close-knit community, this move felt more than a bit abrupt to many of its members. LiAnn, a web professional since the mid-1990s, started this site as a place for members of this close-knit community to talk about ANY brand of mineral makeup. Another member of that same forum - a longer-time, more visible member - started their own forum, everyone went over there, and LiAnn maintained this forum and its site as her own makeup blog.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Are you connected to any mineral makeup companies?
A: Only as a consumer. When I describe a product, you can be sure of two things: 1) I bought and paid for the product myself; or 2) I got the product as a “free sample” when I purchased other items from the company. Freebies are great; but since I have a comparatively narrow range of interests and many of the companies from whom I buy product are small independent businesses, I don’t know that waves of freebies will be forthcoming. Not accepting lots of freebies from manufacturers also lets me stay clear about why I’m reviewing something…and keeps me from having a bunch of things that I ultimately won’t use to clutter up the landfill.

Q: But you accept donations! Isn’t that a “connection”?
A: It could be - but donations can come from anywhere, and won’t be earmarked for any one thing unless someone says, “Hey, I was curious about X from company Y, can you tell me how it compares to other companies’ stuff?” and I don’t have the item(s) they’re wanting compared. Consumers are likely to want to know alternatives for something that’s been discontinued, or is out of their price range. A company wouldn’t likely be too thrilled about me taking their money, buying their product, and then listing off several alternatives.

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