I’m Lillie Benson, and Glam So Real is run by me alone. This page sets out what happens to your information when you read the site, join the email list, send me a message, or click a link on your way somewhere else.
I’ve written it in ordinary English. In a couple of places it gets technical, and that’s because a vaguer version would have been less honest rather than friendlier. Anything here that doesn’t make sense, write to me at contact@glamsoreal.com and I’ll explain it.
Who’s accountable for your information
Glam So Real (glamsoreal.com) is owned and operated by me. I decide what this site collects and what becomes of it, which under the GDPR makes me the data controller.
Every question, request, or complaint about privacy goes to the same inbox: contact@glamsoreal.com. There’s no department. It’s me.
What’s collected if you only read
Every website sits on a server, and servers keep logs. Those logs record your IP address, which browser and device you’re on, the page you requested, whichever site sent you here if one did, and the time you arrived. Nobody reads them line by line. They exist so the site stays up, loads quickly, and can be defended if someone attacks it.
Glam So Real also uses caching software so pages load fast. It sets a small technical cookie so your browser receives the right version of a page. That cookie doesn’t identify you and has nothing to do with advertising.
Analytics
I use Google Analytics to see which articles people actually read.
It tells me how many visitors arrive, which posts hold attention and which get abandoned after two paragraphs, roughly which country readers are in, and whether the site works properly on a phone. It tells me how many people read the foundation shade guide last month. It doesn’t tell me who any of them were.
Google Analytics sets cookies and processes that data on Google’s own systems. What Google does with it is set out in the Google Privacy Policy at https://policies.google.com/privacy. If you’d rather not be counted anywhere, Google publishes a browser add-on that opts you out of Analytics across every site you visit, athttps://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
I also use Google Search Console, which reports the search terms that brought people to Glam So Real. That data arrives already grouped together and never identifies an individual searcher.
Advertising
Advertising is how this site pays for itself. Nobody is charged to read it, and the ads are why that’s possible.
Glam So Real works, or may in future work, with third-party advertising companies and the partners they in turn work with. To choose and measure ads, those companies use cookies, pixels, web beacons and similar technology to collect information including your IP address, approximate location, device type, browser, operating system, and the pages you look at here and elsewhere. Some ads are interest-based, which means they’re selected using a profile built from browsing across many sites rather than from anything you did on this one. Some partners also recognise a browser by its characteristics rather than by a cookie, and may match a hashed, unreadable version of an email address where one has been given.
None of that profile reaches me. I’m never shown who you are. What I see is a revenue figure and a report of how ads performed on particular pages.
Limiting advertising tracking
- In the United States, use the “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link in the site footer. It restricts personalised advertising and related uses of your data.
- Switch on Global Privacy Control in a browser or extension that supports it. That signal is honoured here and treated as a valid opt-out.
- Change the interest categories Google keeps for your browser at https://myadcenter.google.com.
- Use the industry tools: the DAA WebChoices tool at https://optout.aboutads.info, the Network Advertising Initiative at https://thenai.org/opt-out, or in Europe, Your Online Choices at https://www.youronlinechoices.com.
- On a phone or tablet, your device settings have their own ad tracking controls.
One irritating quirk: most of these opt-outs are stored in a cookie. Clear your cookies and you clear the opt-out with them, and you’ll need to set it again.
Opting out doesn’t reduce how many ads you see. It stops them being chosen from a profile about you.
The email list
If you subscribe, I collect your email address and, where the form asks, your first name.
That address is used for one thing: sending you the newsletter. The list is hosted by my email provider on my behalf, and it records basic delivery information such as whether a message was opened and whether a link was clicked, so I can tell whether what I’m sending is worth anyone’s time.
Your address isn’t passed to other companies for their marketing. Every email has an unsubscribe link at the bottom, it works straight away, and you never have to give a reason. You can also just reply and tell me to take you off, and I’ll do it myself.
When you write to me
The contact form asks for your name, email address, and message. Those reach me by email and are stored in the site’s database so I can find the conversation again later.
I use them to reply to you and for nothing else. Writing in doesn’t add you to the email list.
Submissions are screened for spam, which means the message and the IP address it came from are checked against known spam patterns.
Comments
If comments are open on an article and you leave one, the comment text, your name, your email address, your IP address and your browser details are recorded. That combination is what makes spam filtering possible.
Links out, and share buttons
Glam So Real links to retailers, brands, and sources cited in articles. The moment you click through, you’re on someone else’s site and this policy stops applying. I can’t control how other companies treat your information and I’d suggest reading their policies rather than assuming they match mine.
Share buttons behave the same way. Using one takes you to that platform, where their rules take over.
Embedded content
Some articles include embedded material from elsewhere, such as videos or social media posts. Embedded content behaves exactly as though you had visited that other site directly. It can set its own cookies, collect data about you, and track your interaction with it, including if you’re signed in to an account with them.
Affiliate links
Some posts contain affiliate links, including links through the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program. If you click one and buy something, I may earn a commission, and the price you pay is identical either way.
For that to work, the retailer or affiliate network sets a cookie recording that you arrived from Glam So Real, usually lasting somewhere between a day and a month depending on the programme. What comes back to me is a summary: items ordered, commission earned. Not your name, not your address, not your payment details.
Posts containing affiliate links say so at the top, before you read my opinion of anything.
Cookies, briefly
A cookie is a small file a site stores in your browser and reads back later. The ones used here fall into four groups:
- Necessary. Caching and basic site function. Without these the site misbehaves.
- Analytics. Google Analytics, to count and understand readers.
- Advertising. Set by advertising partners to select and measure ads.
- Affiliate. Set by a retailer or network the moment you click a shopping link.
Every browser lets you see what’s stored, delete it, and block new ones. https://www.aboutcookies.org explains how for each browser. Blocking everything will break parts of this site and most others, so it’s worth being selective rather than absolute.
Browser signals
Global Privacy Control is honoured on Glam So Real. If your browser or an extension sends that signal, it’s treated as a valid request to opt out of the sale or sharing of your personal information for advertising.
The older Do Not Track header is a different thing, and one the industry never agreed how to interpret. This site doesn’t respond to Do Not Track specifically. Global Privacy Control is the signal that works here.
If you live in the United States
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Texas, Oregon and a growing list of other states give residents rights over their personal information. Depending on where you are, those include the right to know what’s collected and who receives it, to get a copy, to have it corrected, to have it deleted, and to opt out of its sale, sharing, or use for targeted advertising. Using any of those rights will never cost you access to the site or get you worse treatment.
Here’s the part most sites bury, so I’ll say it plainly. Letting advertising partners collect information through this site counts as a sale or sharing of personal information under California law, and as targeted advertising under several other state laws. That’s true even though no money changes hands for your personal information specifically. The categories involved are identifiers such as your IP address and cookie IDs, internet activity such as which pages you view, and approximate location inferred from your IP address. The businesses receiving it are advertising technology companies: supply-side platforms, programmatic exchanges, and demand-side platforms.
To opt out, use the “Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information” link in the footer, switch on Global Privacy Control, or use the industry tools listed above.
For anything else, a copy of your data, a correction, a deletion, email contact@glamsoreal.com and say what you want. I may need to confirm you are who you say you are before acting, usually by replying from the address already connected to your information. I aim to respond within 45 days and I’ll tell you if something complicated needs longer. An authorised agent can make a request on your behalf with written permission.
Sensitive personal information, as those laws define it, isn’t collected here and isn’t used to infer anything about you.
If you live in the UK, the EEA, or Switzerland
You have the right to access your personal data, correct it, have it erased, restrict or object to how it’s processed, receive it in a portable format, and withdraw consent at any time. Withdrawing consent doesn’t undo anything lawfully done beforehand.
The legal grounds I rely on:
- Consent, for advertising cookies, analytics cookies, and the email list.
- Legitimate interests, for keeping the site online and secure, defending against abuse, and replying when you write to me.
- Legal obligation, where I’m required to keep records or answer a lawful request.
On a first visit from the EEA, the UK or Switzerland, a consent notice appears before advertising and analytics cookies are allowed to load, and nothing non-essential runs until you’ve answered it. You can reopen that notice and change your mind at any time through the privacy settings link in the footer.
This site is hosted in the United States, so your information is transferred outside your country when you visit. The providers named on this page rely on safeguards including the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses and, where applicable, the EU-US and UK-US Data Privacy Frameworks.
Send requests to contact@glamsoreal.com. If you’re unhappy with how I’ve handled something you can complain to your national data protection authority, which in the UK is the Information Commissioner’s Office. I’d appreciate the chance to put it right first.
How long things are kept
- Server logs. A short period set by my web host, then rotated out automatically.
- Analytics. Google deletes event-level records after the retention period set in the Analytics account. Aggregate reporting continues after that.
- Email list. Until you unsubscribe or ask to be removed, after which your address is deleted apart from the minimum record needed to make sure you aren’t accidentally added back.
- Contact form messages. Kept while the conversation is still relevant, then cleared out periodically.
- Comments. Retained while the post is live, so returning commenters aren’t held for moderation every time.
- Advertising data. Held by advertising partners under their own terms, not by me.
Keeping information secure
The site runs over an encrypted connection. WordPress and its plugins are kept updated, and administrative access belongs to me alone, protected by a strong unique password and two-factor authentication.
I won’t pretend any website is impossible to breach. What I can tell you is that very little about you is held here in the first place, and that if something went wrong in a way that affected you, I’d tell you rather than hope you didn’t notice.
Children
Glam So Real is written for adults. It isn’t directed at children under 13, or under 16 where local law sets that age, and I don’t knowingly collect information from them.
If you believe a child has sent me their details, email contact@glamsoreal.com and I’ll delete them. No explanation needed.
Changes to this policy
When something changes, a new tool, a new legal requirement, I’ll update this page and change the date at the top. If a change is significant I’ll say so in the newsletter rather than quietly editing it and hoping nobody notices.
Getting in touch
Anything on this page, any request about your information, or anything that looks wrong: contact@glamsoreal.com.
It’s a monitored address and I answer most messages within 48 hours. Formal requests under privacy law are answered within the timeframes those laws set.
Lillie Benson Founder, Glam So Real