My Experience with Scarlet Darkness
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If you've been curious about the Scarlet Darkness brand, here's my experience with them.
Early this year, I found my wing photo of my Titania wings used in one of their ads (edited to green) without permission.
I emailed, them they said their designer got the photo off Pinterest. I've heard this plenty from other companies. We worked it out, and they sent me some cute stuff like this pink dress I posted previously paired with a bodice from Amazon.
But a month or so later, I saw another ad using that same design again, without permission.
I emailed again and they responded, insisting that this was their original design.
I open their file in Photoshop, found my original photo that they had previously used in that ad, put it on top, and adjusted the transparency settings with an overlay filter.
And Y'ALL.
This is traced. Small changes were made but it's still infringement, that thing about changing a design 20% making it okay is a myth. Copyright law says that the 'heart' of a work should not be copied even if it makes up a small portion of the overall piece.
At least in that newer ad not a whole lot of the wings were visible and I think they've made a new version, so whatever, and I'm not made of money, so I'm still going to wear this stuff. I honestly have even bigger problems with other companies directly selling my designs so I don't have the spoons to give this a lot of attention.
And the bodices work well with my wings.
They're easy to put on & tuck into the bodices by myself and the bodices are decent. They have a lot of boning, even though it's plastic, and I like that there is a zipper on the side to easily get in and out.
The green floral bodice goes really well with this green chiffon pirate shirt.
The wine floral bodice goes well with the wine / red long bell sleeve dress.
Mostly I want them to know that they're not fooling anybody, and those wings were obviously traced from my photo.
So I hope they learn from this, because their stuff is cute and it is affordable, but I don't know about the rest of their ethics as a company.
I do like that their dresses have pockets so there you go!
Now for the shopping list if you want any of these items.
*Below are some affiliate links from Amazon, for which I receive a small commission if you purchase something from my link at no extra cost to you.
My bust is 38 and a half inches, waist is between 31-33 inches depending on what time I ate, if I'm sucking it in, etc.
The purple bodice I wore with the pink dress is not Scarlet Darkness brand and runs smaller than SD's stuff. The SD bodices run pretty true to size and I got the large for mine, but next time I think I'd try medium since they close all the way before I can cinch them more.
There's a lot of colors to choose from and I'll probably go back for another eventually!
If you want one, you can get it here: https://amzn.to/465h6Ds
The rest of the clothing is all Scarlet Darkness.
Bodice in Wine Floral: https://amzn.to/3Meax8f
Bodice in Green Floral: https://amzn.to/46UhaGs
Chiffon pirate blouse in Sage: https://amzn.to/3SZA6xA
Long bell sleeved dress in wine / red: https://amzn.to/3WTY7Y8
I also want to share a couple things I'm using to keep cool without having to turn on the AC in the wing room unless it's really hot.
This ice ring thing has been saving me lately! They freeze or activate with very cold water or holding in front of an AC for a while so you don't even have to put them in the freezer, though that's what I prefer. I got 2 of them so I can keep rotating them out while the other is in the freezer: https://amzn.to/4dP9NCk
I remember hearing about a hack for keeping cool at a ren faire, where the ladies said they froze shot glasses and stuck it in their cleavage. I found something that works even better than that but you're going to laugh, because it's a hemorrhoid ice wedge! But it fits perfectly between cleavage so it's usually invisible. It doesn't last as long as the ice rings though and you do need to freeze it:
https://amzn.to/4cCs0lN
Thanks again to all of you for your support, and watch this space for new wings and sale announcements soon!