Live Consciously and Win a $100 H&M Giftcard [GIVEAWAY CLOSED]

h&m giveaway, h&m conscious collection 2014

Hey, you guys. How would you like to win $100 to spend at H&M? I thought so. Now that I have your attention, give me just a couple minutes of your time so I can tell you why you’re not the only one who could be benefiting from H&M these days.

On April 10th, H&M will roll out its new Conscious and Conscious Exclusive collections. “What’s with the hippie-dippie name,” you ask? Well, H&M Conscious is the name for all H&M’s work for a more sustainable future. Its vision is that all its operations should be run in a way that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable.

To help achieve this vision, H&M has set 7 ambitious commitments:

1. Provide fashion for conscious customers

2. Choose and reward responsible partners

3. Be ethical

4. Be climate smart

5. Reduce, reuse, recycle

6. Use natural resources responsibly

7. Strengthen communities

You can read more about H&M’s sustainability on its website here. And to spread the word (as companies with new products and initiatives are wont to do), H&M is letting me give away a $100 giftcard to one of my fantastic readers.

Here’s how to enter:

1. Follow Sarah’s Real Life on either Bloglovin’ or Facebook.

2. Comment on this post and tell me (a) which way you followed, and (b) at least one way you are economically, environmentally, and/or socially conscious.

For example, do you…

  • Make your own compost for your garden?
  • Always remember your reusable bags when you go to the grocery store?
  • Donate money to important causes?
  • Buy all your produce from local farmers?
  • Boycott companies that are known for violating human rights?

If you don’t do anything conscious yet, it’s never too late to start. Make some plans and tell me about those.

You may make only one entry, but if your story is particularly unique or impressive, I will give you one extra entry! This giveaway is open internationally, and the winner will be chosen randomly and announced on April 9th.

Update 4/9/14: The winner of the $100 H&M Giftcard is Lydia N.!

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Above: a look from the Conscious Exclusive Collection.

Disclosure and other important notes: H&M will be providing me with compensation (in the form of store credit) for participating in this campaign. Some of the content in this post comes from H&M’s own marketing materials. It’s important to remember that H&M is a for-profit business, and therefore I tried to do my due diligence to make sure H&M’s claims were truthful and not misleading. I’m satisfied that while H&M isn’t perfect, its efforts are admirable, well-meaning, and a step in the right direction. This year H&M has been named one of the world’s most ethical companies by an independent research center. This rating apparently doesn’t take into account labor standards, which has been a big issue in “fast fashion” recently. Again, H&M isn’t perfect, and much of its product is manufactured in Asia – but you can read some of what H&M’s head of sustainability has to say about that in this article.

Holy Ship!

This post is sponsored by H&M

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Once upon a time, I didn’t live 5 minutes from an H&M. It was this magical place  I only got to go when I visited a big city, and I had to buy a zillion things because they didn’t ship within the U.S. and who knows when I would go again. Not the greatest plan, but it’s all I had. Now that I live in Indianapolis, I can shop at H&M whenever I want without making impulse buys, which is a much better situation. Still, now I have city girl guilt (a term I just made up) when I sport my H&M duds on the blog or out of town because I know not everyone has access to them.

Too bad they don’t ship in the U.S.

Wait, what’s that you say, Sarah? They DO ship in the U.S.?! Since when?

SINCE RIGHT NOW?! TODAY?!

YES. Stop having an imaginary conversation with me. It’s true. As of today, August 1st, all y’all Amurricans can order online at www.HM.com/us.

Even more exciting (for me mostly) is that I get to help make this announcement as the official State Style Blogger Ambassador for Indiana. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Basically, H&M picked bloggers from each of the 50 states to help put the word out about the online shop AND about a the “50 States of Fashion” promotional contest, where you have a chance to win H&M gift cards and even a trip to NYC!

So here goes:

To enter the 50 States of Fashion contest, just Instagram a pic of yourself wearing something(s) from H&M and tag it with #HMShopOnline[XX]. The [XX] is where you put your state abbreviation. So for example, when I Instagram one of the photos above, I will use the hashtag #HMShopOnlineIN. If you live in New York, you’ll use #HMShopOnlineNY. You get the idea. I’d also love for you to tag me (@sarahsreallife) in your caption so I can check out all your entries and vote for them, but that’s optional of course!

All the photo entries will populate on H&M’s 50 States of Fashion website, where people can vote for their favorites over the course of 3 weeks. You can find all the nitty gritty details here.

Or if Instagram contests aren’t your thing, you can just shop. No hashtags required.

Have fun!

similar Dress (on sale) // Jacket* // similar Shoes* // similar Bracelet // similar Bag (on sale) // Sunglasses // Lips “Romantic”

*Jacket and shoes courtesy of H&M.