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Save Vaping in the EU

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We urge all vapers and their family and friends to support the European Free Vaping Initiative.

On the 26th of February the European Parliament moved closer to ratifying the Article on electronic cigarettes within the Tobacco Products Directive. This controversial, rushed and unacceptable legislation born of ignorance and in complete absence of scientific evidence, endangers the future of vaping across Europe, putting the health of millions of current and potential future vapers at risk.

The list of the problems with this new regulation is practically endless but put in a nutshell, it will lead to most of the products you currently use being banned. Yes that's right, banned! Whilst they've tried hard to make the new legislation sound completely reasonable and in your benefit, what it will actually do is regulate all of the most effective and innovative vaping products out of existence including cartomisers you can open or refill, tank atomisers that hold more than 2ml of liquid, all rebuildable atomisers, bottles of e-liquid larger than 10ml and all e-liquid with more than 2% nicotine. Basically everything we all use on a daily basis.

The European Free Vaping Initiative has been set up to use the mechanism by which EU citizens can express their common opinion on how the European Parliament should approach certain subjects, in this case vaping. It's not too late to save vaping, but it is essential that every vaper, and all their friends and family members ACT NOW.

Over one million signatures of support must be collected from all across Europe so that the decision makers can no longer continue to ignore us and regulate our products out of existence.


Please, please support this initiative, and also get all your family and friends to support too.

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2013 UKVapers.org Awards

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We're extremely proud to have been nominated and to have come top in three categories in the 2013 UK Vapers awards.

Best UK Based vendor - Cloud 9 Vaping
Best Customer Service - Cloud 9 Vaping
Best “High end” vendor - Cloud 9 Vaping

Some of our products also came out on top:
SvoeMesto Kayfun Lite - Best Rebuildable tank atomiser
Evolv DNA20 - Vaping Innovation of 2013
Evolv Kick2 - Vaping Accessory of the year
Kanger EVOD - Best budget tank atomiser

Enormous thanks to all who voted and to all our customers for making 2013 an award winning year.

Note: We were formerly known as Cloud9Vaping and rebranded as Creme de Vape in 2015.

 

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2013 ECig Click Awards

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We're extremely proud to have been nominated and to have come top in 2 categories in the 2013 EcigClick awards.

Best Overall Company - Cloud 9 Vaping 
Best Customer Service - Cloud 9 Vaping

Some of our products also came out on top:
SvoeMesto Kayfun Lite - Best Rebuildable Tank
Innokin Itaste MVP2 - Best APV
Kanger EVOD - Best Mid Size E-cig
Kanger Protank 2 - Best Clearomiser

Enormous thanks to all who voted and to all our customers for making 2013 an award winning year.

Note: We were formerly known as Cloud9Vaping and rebranded as Creme de Vape in 2015.

 

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Important information for Gmail users

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We have increasingly been receiving emails from our customers who use gmail asking why their order hasn't been dispatched, or asking where their tracking number is. In all cases, their orders have been dispatched many days before they contact us, and they have received all this information already, but gmail has incorrectly filtered it into their spam folder.

We simply aren't able to answer 40-50 emails (sometimes more) per day on this topic any more. We ask you to PLEASE check your spam folder for your dispatch notification and tracking number BEFORE contacting us to request it. When you find any of our emails in your spam folder, please mark them NOT spam, and please add us to your whitelist.

Alternatively, choose a different provider that doesn't control what you want to read in your email.

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It's time to fight for vaping

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You may have heard that the Medicines and Health Regulatory Agency (MHRA) intend to regulate e-cigs as medicinal products within the UK. This is coupled with the EU parliament heading in the same utterly unworkable direction. E-cigs are not medical devices, and nor were they ever intended to be. They are already very well regulated under the general product safety regulations framework, if only Trading Standards departments would properly clamp down on rogue traders who supply electrical goods that fall foul of British and European standards, and refuse to test their e-liquid or even label it properly and legally.

The MHRA have made all sorts of unjustifiable claims that regulating these devices as medicinal devices will make them safer and more effective. There hasn't been one single death attributed to e-cigarette usage, yet in the UK alone, 100,000 people die every year because of smoking.

You can attest to how safe and effective you've found vaping to be. In reality, the continuous pushing to shoe-horn these non-medicinal devices into medicines regulation is nothing about safety, harm-reduction or saving lives, and everything about those that make these decisions on your behalf receiving poor advice and making uneducated assumptions, and facing enormous pressure from both the pharmaceutical industry and the tobacco industry, both of whom are already losing revenue as more and more smokers make the switch to vaping.

If these proposals are forced through, vaping as we know it will die, all the wide variety of devices, atomisers, tanks, cartomisers, liquids and other amazingly wonderful products will be gone. In their place will be a small handful of ineffective, disposable type e-cigs from large pharmaceutical and tobacco companies. Think cig-a-like devices, with measured "doses" of liquid available in one or two flavours and useless for anyone but the very lightest occasional vaper.

We vapers are facing a war, fighting for our right to enjoy our e-cigs as a recreational alternative to traditional tobacco smoking. It needs all of us to do our bit.

What you NEED to do:

  1. Sign these two e-petitions here (only UK residents may sign the first one)
    http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/51572
    http://www.petitiononline.com/fr33dom/petition.html
     
  2. Ask for an e-cigs save lives sticker when you place your next order, and display it on your car, shop window, or indeed anywhere it will be seen - request extras for family and friends too.
     
  3. Print out copies of the  E-cigs Save Lives Flyer and distribute them as widely as you possibly can. Your workplace, your local shops, bars and restaurants, anywhere you can to help get the message across.
     
  4. Write to your MP and to your MEP, ask what they know about e-cigs, tell them what vaping means to you, and how limiting access to the myriad of different devices will impact you.

There's over one million vapers in the UK now, and it needs every single one of us to make our voice heard to protect our vaping way of life.

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Our response to the MHRA announcement

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For those customers who have seen and heard the news reports today regarding the MHRA's announcement about their intention to regulate electronic cigarettes as medicines. Many are emailing us to ask whether we will obtain a medicine licence or will we close.

The answer is neither!

Forcing our products to be licenced as medicinal devices is incorrect application of the medicines licensing framework, unethical and most likely illegal, given that traditional cigarettes are allowed to be sold freely to over 18s, and we are not making any claims as to a curative or medicinal effect or treatment for any disease. The MHRA decision will be challenged, we're not going anywhere, and will not be applying for a medicinal licence for any of our recreational products.

We do still urge all e-cig users to contact their local Members of Parliament and Members of the European Parliament to express their views about what restricting their access to these devices only in pre-packaged, "medically approved" format, from only pharmaceutically licenced vendors will mean to them and their new, improved way of life.

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Please Participate

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Please participate in the largest ever survey on e-cigarettes.

Dr Farsalinos and his co-workers at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Centre in Athens, Greece have launched the biggest survey of its kind on e-cigarette use. The survey will collate a lot of useful data on exactly how and why we use our e-cigs, and hopefully, some ammunition in the fight against bans or inappropriate legislation that could remove our choice to vape.
The survey is available in six languages, and although contributions are welcomed in order to help fund the research, you can participate without making one.
Please visit 
http://www.ecigarette-research.com/web/index.php/component/content/article?id=80 or click on the logo above.

Thank you for participating in this important work.

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Call to arms - why ALL vapers MUST act now!

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Would you be affected if you could no longer easily buy your vaping supplies? What about if all you could get was e-liquid containing a paltry 4mg/0.4% nicotine? How would you feel about all the smokers who never got to experience the new way of life that you are currently enjoying? Upset? Depressed? Enraged?

Yep, us too, and here's your chance to try to do something about it. Please don't just think it's a lost battle, it is far from it, if YOU take the time to make SURE you have your say...
 

This article has been reproduced in its entirety from Clive Bate's blog because it gives you all the information you need to know and how to help do something about it to protect our vaping way of life. 

EU draft Tobacco Products Directive: who to write to and what to say (a short guide) by Clive Bates

1. What has happened?

On 19th December 2012, the EU produced a a proposal for new laws controlling tobacco and nicotine products like e-cigarettes. The proposal includes a justification for the measures with draft legal text and comes with  supporting documentation. It covers a wide range of issues, including: labelling and warnings on cigarette packs; branding restrictions; control of flavours and additives; tracking and tracing to prevent smuggling and counterfeiting; and measures that apply to smokeless tobacco products and nicotine-containing products like e-cigarettes.  
The proposed directive contains measures that make it harder or impossible for smokers to switch from cigarettes to much less dangerous nicotine products – an approach that will cause much more death and disease than it prevents.  
If you smoke, use e-cigarettes, or if have friends or relatives that smoke, or if you are concerned about the health damage from smoking, then this directive matters to you.

If you want to write to your MP or MEPs, the main information you need together with my advice is set out below. More detailed briefing on the directive is available here and on influencing the scrutiny process is here. A good political article on the directive here. A good background video on tobacco harm reduction here
 

2. Why do you need to act?

The European Union has proposed legislation that would ban, or effectively ban, nicotine products that people can (and do) use as much less dangerous alternatives to smoking cigarettes – for example, smokeless tobacco, e-cigarettes, vapour devices, or other novel ways of taking nicotine that don’t involve burning tobacco. Although the risk is reduced by 95-99% if there is no smoke, Europe still thinks it is better to ban these products even though they are a potential life-saver for people who can’t or don’t want to give up nicotine.   If you use these products yourself, they are restricting your options and adding to your health risks.  Background information on ‘tobacco harm reduction’ here 

3. What are they doing?

The proposed new law (an EU directive) does three main bad things:

1. Bans the safest tobacco products. It bans the least hazardous form of tobacco known to mankind – snus – whilst allowing cigarettes to be widely sold.  Snus (or oral tobacco) is much less dangerous than cigarettes, and widely used in Sweden, where it is the main reason why Sweden has much lower rates of cancer and other smoking-related disease than anywhere else in Europe.

Why ban these products when they have been so successful at reducing harm in Sweden? 

2. Treats e-cigarettes as though they are medicines – effectively banning or marginalising them. It places most non-tobacco nicotine products, like e-cigarettes, under the highly restrictive regulation regime used for medicinal products.  This requires the manufacturers or distributors to justify them for their therapeutic effect and to demonstrate that benefits outweigh the risks – even though that may be obvious to most people, it is potentially difficult to do it to scientific standards.  In fact these are really consumer products chosen by consumers as an alternative to smoking the most unhealthy forms of nicotine rather than medicines – and should be judged as alternatives to cigarettes. Depending on the attitude of medicines regulators this type of regulation could have the several negative effects. It could:

  • amount to an effective ban if regulators demand impossibly high standards of proof or
  • take these products off the market in 2013 as there is no ‘transition’ period to allow manufacturers to apply for and get the necessary authorisation and it would be illegal to sell them as soon as the directive comes into force, which could be as soon as 2013
  • take these products off the market for many years as most or all manufacturers will struggle to get the necessary ‘marketing authorisation’ from regulators, who may all disagree with each other around Europe
  • apply restrictions that make these products unattractive to smokers through packaging requirements, marketing restrictions, bans on flavours, technical limitations imposed;
  • greatly close down competition, limit innovation, raise costs leaving the market to big players, such as tobacco or pharma companies, that can cope with the huge burdens that comes with medicines regulation.

The directive treats e-cigarettes below a certain threshold as consumer products. The very weakest form of e-cigarettes (with liquids below threshold of nicotine density 4mg/ml) might escape medicines regulation. But these are extremely weak in e-cigarette terms, and not regarded as adequate substitutes for conventional cigarettes and unlikely to do much to help people switch from smoking. More on this in my briefing on the directive.

Why would governments make it harder to put these products on the market than the much more dangerous products they are designed to replace or compete with? Read novelist Lionel Shriver (We need to talk about Kevin) on Puritans and the powerful – and tobacco smokers – can’t take the fact that electronic cigarettes are harmless and enjoyable

3. Prevents any claim that one tobacco product is less harmful than another. The trouble is that the truth is that smokeless tobacco products may be many times less harmful than cigarettes, perhaps 10-1000 times less harmful.  So what looks like an attempt to stop false or excessive claims, is actually going to do real harm:

  • It denies consumers the most relevant information about lower risk tobacco products – information they could use to reduce their own risk and protect their health  This is misleading by omitting the most important information.
  • Why should a manufacturer bother to make or market these products or invest in innovation if they can’t say the one (truthful) thing that makes them valuable as alternatives to cigarettes? All this does is reinforce the market for the most harmful tobacco products by shielding them from competition from less harmful forms.

This makes a law out of misleading consumers – who benefits from it?

4. Does it matter?

Yes it does – the health of real people is at stake. Smoking already kills 700,000 and costs €25 billion in health care costs in Europe annually (about 100,000 and £3.7 billion for the UK) [source].  Quit rates remain stubbornly low despite years of effort and drug development –  and 28% of European adults still smoke (about 21% in the UK) despite almost universal knowledge of the dangers.  Most smokers say they would like to quit and most say they wish they had never started. Some like a nicotine hit and some of the ritual that goes with smoking, but we know that if safer alternatives can be found people will use them them.  There is a grave danger that people denied much safer alternatives will either lapse back to smoking or never be able to try these ways of giving up smoking.   I have never seen a directive where the evidence so clearly points to it causing more death and disease – it is reckless, irresponsible, unscientific and unethical.

5. What to do: write to your MP and MEPs

Your Member of Parliament (MP) represents you in the UK, and several Members of the European Parliament represent you in matters to do with the European Parliament.  Both MPs and MEPs have a role to play on the tobacco directive, so it is best to to write to both.   Your MP can approach UK government ministers and ask them to influence the directive as it passes through the European Council (comprised of ministers of the member states).  Your MEPs can influence the European Parliament scrutiny of the directive, propose amendments and influence the stance taken by political groupings in the European Parliament.  If they are members of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee, they will be involved more directly in scrutinising the directive.

The simplest way to do this is to access www.writetothem.com.  This is an excellent service: you enter your postcode; it works out who your MP and MEPs are (you will have several MEPs) then sets up e-mails for you to send them.  You enter your own text and address details and then follow the procedure on the site and it will send your letter. Once you have drawn up a good letter that covers most of the points you want to get across you can use it for lots of different purposes – customising and personalising for each if you want to make an impact.

For non-UK readers.  For non-UK readers, I have less information – but all MEPs can be located here – and information on how different national parliaments scrutinise EU legislation can be found here.  Your can follow many of the tips here and tailor for your national situation.

Some Tips on Writing to MPs and MEPs

  1. Decent. Always be polite and dignified, don't make accusations or pre-judge their motives - most representatives want to do a good job for you.
  2. Engaging. Work on the basis that the MP or MEP is open-minded but might need some persuading. Don't dismiss other views, tackle them.
  3. Authentic. Write your own views in your own words - MPs and MEPs want to hear genuine heartfelt views, and not standard letters or borrowed text.
  4. Natural. Don't feel you need to use formal or legal language - it is their job to understand you, not your job to understand the technicalities of EU legislation.
  5. Concise. Concentrate on the things that really matter to you and stay focused - if you are writing about e-cigarettes, don’t dilute your message with views on other issues or even other aspects of the directive unless they really matter to you. Keep it short (max 2 pages or 800 words) and to the point.
  6. Personalised. Even though the web site allows you to send a single letter to all your MEPs in one go, I would advise emailing each individually.  You an use the same basic text with each, but a little bit of a personal touch goes a long way.
  7. Relevant. Only write to your own MP or MEPs.

 

If you want to write on proper paper and post a letter, you can use the www.writetothem.com site to find out their names and then post a letter (stamp to Brussels is 87p for a letter). The addresses are:

Their Name MP
House of Commons
London SW1A 0AA

Their Name MEP
European Parliament
Rue Wiertz
B-1047 Brussels
Belgium

6. What to say

It is important that you write in your own words, based on your own experience and express your own views.  I must stress this – authenticity really matters.

6.1 A good letter to an MP or MEP might have the following main components:

  1. About you and your experience – eg. have you tried to quit smoking? What effect has vaping had on you? What experience have you had of e-cigarettes? What you think of the threshold e-liquids?
  2. Why you think what is proposed will be bad, especially if it is bad for you personally.
  3. What you think should be done, and what you would like them personally to do
  4. Questions that make sure you get a response: ask questions, ask for a reply and/or ask for a meeting


6.2 Reasons why the directive might be bad

You don’t need to use any or all of these, but they might help you construct a letter. Remember to personalise these to reflect your own situation where possible.

  1. The proposed directive seems to deny or obstruct smokers options to quit cigarettes by switching to nicotine or tobacco products that are much less risky. This is very risky and irresponsible,  and will probably cause more death and disease.
  2. It looks like it is designed to tie up e-cigarettes and their makers in medical red tape, which could amount to banning them by the back door – and it makes no sense to ban them whilst leaving real cigarettes on the market.
  3. Even if medicines regulation doesn’t stop these products getting to the market, it may place restrictions on them making them less attractive, more expensive and less innovative – for example by banning flavours, making the packing look like medicines, and strictly limiting advertising and marketing. We don’t really know how medicines regulators will treat these these products.
  4. It could mean e-cigarettes are taken off the market while the makers apply for permission – there should be 2-3 years transition to give existing products time to comply with the directive.
  5. It is wrong to pretend that all tobacco and nicotine products are the same – smokers should have true and relevant information about risks so that they can make informed choices.

 

6.3 What should be done?

These are a few suggestions from me..  please pick ones that matter to you, add your own views and use your own words.

  1. There should be no ban on oral tobacco (snus) – instead all smokeless tobacco should be regulated to reduce any toxic substances in the tobacco. This product is much safer than cigarettes and is a viable substitute for smoking.  Smokers should not be denied this option.
  2. E-cigarettes should remain regulated for what they are – consumer products, placed on the market as alternatives to cigarettes.  The appropriate regulatory regime is that used more generally for products –  ’General Products Safety Regulation’, which is governed by an EU Directive and UK regulations.
  3. Only where an e-cigarette maker wants to make a health or ‘therapeutic claim’ should medicines regulation apply – otherwise treat it like a consumer product.  If they don’t make a therapeutic claim, how can they provide evidence for it?  It makes no sense to apply really tough regulation to these products and much weaker regulation to cigarettes when they are just competing to be alternatives to appeal to consumers.
  4. If the EU is determined to press ahead with applying medical regulation there should be  three year transitional period to allow the makers to submit applications to sell these products and to ensure they don’t disappear from the markets overnight when the directive enters into force, thus forcing many users back to smoking.
  5. That products like e-cigarettes should remain on the European market – otherwise there will just be a flood of internet sales and all the business will be done with traders outside the EU.
  6. The European Union should find ways to encourage smokers to switch to e-cigarettes or smokeless tobacco, not ban or marginalise these products through regulation.

 

6.4 What you could ask your MP or MEPs to do…

Write to your MP and MEPs – you need slightly different letters because they have different roles and can do different things:

  1. Ask your MP and MEPs to reply to you… ask them to give their views on the parts of the proposed directive that deal with smokeless tobacco products and nicotine containing products.
  2. If you are an e-cigarette user, ask your MP and MEPs to give an undertaking that they will not support an EU directive that removes most or all e-cigarettes from the EU market, and point out this is important for your own health.
  3. Ask to meet your MP and MEPs, and tell them you would like them to understand why this matters to you by explaining it in person.
  4. Ask your MP to raise your concerns with the Secretary of State for Health (Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt MP) and Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills (Rt Hon Dr Vince Cable MP). Ask your MP to ask them to press for amendment of the directive as it will harm health and works against the EU single market.
  5. Ask your MEP to raise your concerns with the Commission and to speak out in the debate in the European Parliament.
  6. Advanced! Ask your MEP to contact the relevant MEPs on the ENVI committee and to make their views known. If your MEP is on the ENVI committee, ask them to raise your concerns in the committee sessions that scrutinise the directive. This is a list of members of the ENVI committee or you can consult my more detailed guide on how this will all work.

 

7. What else?

If you do write to a representative, then you could leave a copy of your letter here in the comments as an inspiration for others.

If you have questions about the directive or disagreements with Clive's interpretation or advice, please comment on his blog and he’ll respond, and change as necessary.

Here's Clive talking to Dave Dorn on VaperTrails TV

 

 

This article has been reproduced in its entirety from Clive Bate's blog because it gives you all the information you need to know and how to help do something about it to protect our vaping way of life.

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Cloud9Vaping wins BEST WORLDWIDE ONLINE SHOP award!

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We were absolutely thrilled to find out today that Cloud9Vaping have been voted the BEST WORLDWIDE ONLINE SHOP in the Vapers.it E-cig Freedom Awards 2012. 

It was also fantastic to see that the Precise+ from Super-T Manufacturing was voted the Worldwide Number One Mechanical PV!

Huge thanks to those that voted for us and to all our loyal Italian customers for putting us at the top of your list throughout 2012. We look forward to maintaing the array of products that you desire, and the high level of service in the coming year.


Note: We were formerly known as Cloud9Vaping and rebranded as Creme de Vape in 2015.

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The Discount and Affiliate Merry-Go-Round

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I'm frequently asked why we don't have permanent discount codes or an affiliate programme, so I thought it was a good idea to explain my position fully and the thinking behind my decision not to join the discount/affiliate merry-go-round.

It seems that everywhere you look on the internet these days, people are offering discount codes if you just click on a link or use a special code and you’re constantly encouraged to sign up to affiliate schemes so you can "earn” money from recommending products and sites to your friends or by placing links on your own website or in your forum signature. It’s become particularly widespread within the e-cig industry and there's even whole informational and "review" websites popping up all over the place recommending various products and companies with special links and discount codes galore.

There’s no doubt that affiliate schemes can increase revenue for the companies offering them, but it’s always at the expense of loyal customers because prices have to be higher or corners have to be cut in other areas to subsidise the cost of affiliate payments and discount codes.

I believe in offering the best prices and service to ALL our customers, not just those who happen to have special codes or links. It’s simply unfair to force any customer to pay inflated prices to fund the existence of affiliate programmes and discount schemes.

The other huge problem with affiliate programs is fake endorsement. It’s pretty much impossible to give an unbiased and real review of something if you’re getting a kickback on sales of that product or a competing product. Some affiliates use “full disclosure” on every post/page where they have affiliate links, so it’s transparent to the reader, but the majority don’t, which is just misleading those who are seeking honest and unbiased advice and recommendations and no matter how you look at it, there’s a conflict of interest involved.

When I’m shopping for myself, I want reviews from real people, and genuine recommendations from happy customers, not endorsements from affiliate programme members, hyping a company or product because they get a kickback from it or even saying negative things because they are getting a kickback from a competitor. It’s refreshing (and increasingly rare) to buy from a business that isn’t paying people to pitch their products or link to their site.

So why do so many companies offer these schemes then? There are many reasons, often it’s because of the perception that everyone else is doing it, or because their software offers it as an option so they think they should be doing it, or sadly, it can be because it’s the only way they can get recommendations to bring new customers into their store.

I believe in building a long-term relationship with my customers that is based on honesty and integrity and affiliate schemes just don’t go hand in hand with this business model.

So, when someone recommends us to you, or you see a tweet or a review mentioning us, you’ll know it’s a genuine recommendation, and not because you’re paying a higher price so someone else can “earn” from your purchases.

Lisa

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