Fake reviews.

[#1]

I get the feeling that 70% of the reviews on Sephora.com are fake-- posted by the product distrubutor. I always click on the user and see if they've reviewed other items or not.. I mean, almost every product has at least 4 stars total. That seems a little unlikely. It bothers me.... Luckily they have a great return policy so you can try things out yourself. Thoughts?

[#2]

I don't think that any of the reviews are fake or made deliberately by someone associated with that brand.  But I do believe that everyone is different and what works for one person may not work on another. For example, one person with combination skin may give a moisturizer  product a 5-star rating, because the product really worked for them; however, it might be given a 1-star rating by someone with sensitive skin because it irritated their face.

[#3]

Actually I have seen reviews posted by the companies themselves. Someone from Benefit posted a 5 star review, and they attached a youtube video as well so they made it really obvious. I wish Sephora wouldnt post those, because I dont care what Benefit people have to say about Benefit products. I just care what customers have to say about it.

[#4]

Hi sephoramusthave, 

Do you happen to remember the product that you found the review under? We definitely do not enforce or condone fake reviews and have pretty strict terms to posting reviews just to make sure everything is more fair and has an equal chance at being rated.

[#5]

Could you take a look at the reviews for Make Up For Ever HD Microperfect Primer? I noticed what appear to be clearly fake reviews from carolineops (submitted 5 reviews for the same procuct all saying that it's the best thing ever. and no other reviews of other products. really??), mushkane (the review doesn't even sound like a review, it reads like a marketing description of the product, this is the only review submitted from this user), and sldixon5 (3 reviews of the same product, no other reviews). And that's what i noticed within just a few minutes of reading on the site.

honestly, reviews like these (which i assume were submitted by the marketing team at mufe) really degrade the authenticity and value of all reviews on sephora. it comes across as extremely deceptive and puts a bad taste in my mouth for the mufe brand. 

[#6]

i know i agree with you i noticed that and i feel like i cant trust reviews anymore!

[#7]

@sniffybunny, I'll check those out! We do have brand contributors who assist in answering product q&a's but we don't endorse reviews from them as promotions.  

[#8]

Thanks for looking into it! Do brand contributors work for the brand itself, or are they consumer advocates (not paid by the brand)? If they work for the brand, I'd assume that they should identify themselves as such in their reviews right? and i would also think they wouldn't contribute a star rating with their review, since that would impact the overall rating. i'm not 100% confident, but I think that's how it's done on other sites like Yelp....

[#9]

I actually just reviewed a product a few days ago and didn't provide a positive feedback on it - so far the review has not shown up yet under the product...  I had given other reviews in the past (must have been at least 7+ so far) which were mostly positive and it only took max. 2 days to appear on the site.  So I am also sceptical about these reviews after mine not showing up.  The only thing I can think of why it didn't show up is, because I mentioned a product from a drug store by name from which I got more or less the same results.  Is that a no no? Not sure, so I am not convinced that these feedbacks represent a true picture from all users.

[#10]

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Sonne wrote:

[...] The only thing I can think of why it didn't show up is, because I mentioned a product from a drug store by name from which I got more or less the same results.  Is that a no no?

---

Yes; this is exactly why the review did not post. If you read the guidelines / TOS, you're not allowed to mention other product names in the review.

[#11]

Thanks Katie1724, 

The full review guidelines again, can be found here> http://reviews.sephora.com/content/8723illuminate/guidelines.htm

Also, sometimes not all the reviews are filtered directly to us for review and the system will flag them for a certain word used or reference to an outside brand/product/store. So while not EVERY review is rejected, sometimes they are in error and can still be posted.  

[#12]

Every one has their own opinions about certain products and I have read alot of negative reviews that were posted on a lot of different products so I don't think that any of the reviews are fake and most of them only come from the people who have actually used the product to put in their personal actual feeling about the product they have reviewed. So no I disagree also.

[#13]

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sniffybunny wrote:

Thanks for looking into it! Do brand contributors work for the brand itself, or are they consumer advocates (not paid by the brand)? If they work for the brand, I'd assume that they should identify themselves as such in their reviews right? and i would also think they wouldn't contribute a star rating with their review, since that would impact the overall rating. i'm not 100% confident, but I think that's how it's done on other sites like Yelp....

---

Often the brand representative do NOT write reviews but only contribute to product Q&A. They are listed as brand ambassadors/reps and are really here to help answer questions that clients have about the items but not to actually review or write posts.  

[#14]

I always see my reviews on the products so I hope the majority of them arent fake...some products have a really los standing...I would have to say I dont think they are false.

[#15]

I read reviews to help form an opinion on a product, especially if it's expensive! I do think Sephora reviewers are by far more fair in the reviewing of products than other make-up site users. I bought a highly rated on (another website)foundation and it was one of the worst, most expensive foundations ever. Sephora reviewers rated it poorly and all the reviewers on the other website rated it excellent. I should have researched it here first! It is disturbing to hear that a few reviews could be fake then, because I trust them.

[#16]

It was a while since I've seen it but the review was on a kit and it had a pretty lengthy youtube video attached to it.

I know that it was probably posted because the video showed people how to correctly use the products in the kit but nontheless, it was still posted by somebody who just posted that one review, and it was someone from Benefit.

[#17]

I dont think they are fake, because I write reviews too but I do think that people are quick to judge and rave about a product. I often see people post 5 star reviews after only having used the product once! Or sometimes people use a product a couple of times, rate it as a five, then use the product longer, and come back and rate it much lower.

[#18]

The best thing is to check at Makeupalley for other reviews on the product incase you suspect anything fishy on Sephora.com

[#19]

i actually use makeupalley as well and it's not as thorough or updated and not on a variety of products like on Sephora. I don't think feedbacks are fake on here or else there won't be any negative feedbacks. Perhaps, this tells us that there's alot of people out there that are like you. Agreed, some products won't work for everyone while others do. That's the thing with feedbacks, I just have to try the product to see if it's a good fit for me personally. 

[#20]

I don't think many reviews are fake, BUT you have to take into consideration what works for me might not work the same for you. I will admit there are bias reviews out there, especially if that person is affiliated with that company for some type of reward ( money or free products), but I don't think those people would use Sephora reviews as advertisments, since there are so many of them. Most people turn to blogs or youtube for that, not a little review out of hundreds on Sephora. Try to look at the probablity of situations. If 98 percent of people like a product, chances are you probably will too, but just as a heads up realize that this isn't always so. Sephora has a great positive beauty community of people who are willing to share what genuinely interests them. Most of the reviews are high in ratings, because Sephora sells makeup of high quality. I'm not saying everything you buy from Sephora is going to be fantastic, but I've been satisfied with the majority of my purchases. Like you said, Sephora has an awesome return policy, so if you hate it, send it back. A lot of products are expensive so it's nice to be able to get the money back.

[#21]

I've had 2 of many reviews deleted, which happened to be the only 2 reviews that were negative. Coincidence? No way. I don't like the Urban Decay Liners & Giorgio Armani Aqua Di Geiora (sorry if not spelled correctly) perfume. Once I saw my reviews on Sephora.com, they were instantly within minutes taken down. What is up with that? Sephora will make money regardless if one person doesn't like it because I know MANY love eyeliners from UD. 

[#22]

No, i don't think they're fake. It may have just been a coincidence in your case that the person liked all the products that they got, because some people are good at getting a great product they like on the first try. All the reviews are actually honest, not fake just to make the product look good. Like I said, the person you looked at more reviews form probably just chooses good products.