topic RE: Influenster, please go away! in Beauty Confidential

Influenster, please go away!

DebKaye — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 02:09:36 GMT

Can Sephora please block all Influenster-related reviews? They are taking over certain products and it's so hard to get to a real review to determine if a product is worth buying. These ladies are only posting a review b/c they got the product for free, and they are making the review positive b/c they want more free stuff. I'm sure some, or even most, are honest, but it's so hard to weed through them. I was looking through the reviews on Becca's Anti-Fatigue Under Eye Primer and every review was from an Influenster. It's irritating!

RE: Influenster, please go away!

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 03:02:52 GMT

I noticed that same issue A LOT over the last year. You’re absolutely right too, of course they’re going to be super positive to continue getting free makeup that would cost them thousands of dollars otherwise. Darn, I wish I could get all my stuff free too. But anyway I do agree that it can be difficult to sift through the reviews to find out what people like us think about the products. It’s hard to really be sure if the other reviewers are actually being honest. I have never seen one bad review from a Beauty Influencer. I wish that Sephora could put those reviews in a separate review section for those who don’t want to go by what they say. Idk. Just thought I’d say my part and ty for bringing this up.

Re: Influenster, please go away!

alexasteph — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 03:39:45 GMT

Haha, yeah it’s a bit annoying. I gave a couple bad reviews and refused to try one thing they sent me because I knew it would not work for me aaaaaand I stopped getting things. Tons of surveys. But nothing in probably.... a year?

Re: Influenster, please go away!

Samtian — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 03:58:11 GMT

@alexasteph I had gotten a few, but ya know not many followers. It's been a few years. Recently I just got 4 different pre-survey's...all for hair stuff. I don't even really have hair lol.

Re: Influenster, please go away!

txcatx — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 04:23:49 GMT

It would be great if Sephora could follow Amazon's lead and have "Verified Purchase" next to reviews!

Re: Influenster, please go away!

naturalooks15 — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 04:25:47 GMT

Or at least create a filter so that we can filter out the ones that were “part of promotion”, “got free product”

Re: Influenster, please go away!

grizzlymaze — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 04:44:59 GMT

I generally dismiss any product that has all these Influenster reviews. If you need to bribe people with a freebie in exchange for gushing and totally exaggerated praise then the product in question cant be all that great. Anyone with any sense pays no heed to these reviews and yes indeed, it would be nice to see them gone or at the very least, filtered out.

That's a great idea!

DebKaye — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 05:21:53 GMT

That's a great idea!

A filter would be lovely.

DebKaye — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 05:22:32 GMT

A filter would be lovely.

Re: Influenster, please go away!

fieldsofclover — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 05:25:36 GMT

Another vote for a "verified purchase" tag! Yes please! 🗳️🗳️🗳️🗳️🗳️

Re: Influenster, please go away!

blackkitty2014 — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 07:15:01 GMT

I this idea 😉

Re: Influenster, please go away!

curlychiquita — Mon, 19 Feb 2018 15:09:39 GMT

Yes, I would really like a "verified purchase" tag!

Influenster, please go away!

sandykat79 — Thu, 06 Sep 2018 02:25:00 GMT

The Influenster spam seems to be getting even worse lately! A brand new product will have 500 rave reviews before anyone could have bought it. 😞

Re: Influenster, please go away!

AnneS316 — Fri, 10 Jul 2020 01:05:41 GMT

I know this post is now over a year old, but it seems like the Influenster spam has gotten even worse. Some very pricy products like and have 500-600 reviews, most of which are glowing, most of which are from people who got the product for free, and a good portion of which are very poorly written and uninformative. I get that it doesn’t technically violate Sephora’s TOS, but what does it benefit them to have literally hundreds of reviews from people who didn’t purchase (or at least get a sample from them)? I wish Sephora took this seriously. So far their responses have been a big nothingburger.

Re: Influenster, please go away!

ather — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 15:45:56 GMT

@AnneS316 How do you tell if it’s a spam review?

RE: Re: Influenster, please go away!

AnneS316 — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 16:05:39 GMT

It’s not technically spam; I just call it “spam” because it’s all over the place and useless to me. People who received products “for review” are supposed to identify their reviews as such. Usually they do... and usually these reviews are over-the-top positive. I don’t doubt that some of these reviews are authentic, but for the most part I don’t take them seriously. And there is no way to hide them.

Re: Influenster, please go away!

mmmiu — Mon, 22 Apr 2019 16:39:53 GMT

It's really unfortunate because I can't trust those reviews...of course it'll be a great/decent review to make sure they keep getting more free products... if i'm looking at reviews on sephora, i quickly scan the longer paragraphs for "free, complimentary, etc.." before committing to reading the full review

Re: Influenster, please go away!

Anonymous — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 22:07:39 GMT

Right!! Influenster booming in popularity has way oversaturated the reviews sections of so many products... just because people are so keen on getting stuff for free. I actually signed up for their site a long time ago but quickly realized the amount of effort (and fudging many glowing, positive reviews) required gave very little payoff in return. It's seriously a nightmare trying to sort through what reviews are legit and which ones are just kissing up for freebies.

Re: Influenster, please go away!

browncourtneya — Thu, 02 May 2019 15:21:01 GMT

I agree... we need a verified purchase symbol on the review or something... I literally never take the review seriously if it says "reviewed because I got free" or something like that.. and unfortunately majority of the reviews are people that got the product for free. I get it that apparently they can leave any review, good or bad, but then sometimes you will look at their account and they have a bunch on reviews that are all 4 or 5 star.... and we all know that even if we don't make the effort to write a review about half of the stuff we get is not something we would leave a five star review for because we are usually comparing to other items that do the same thing, etc. ... so it's very unrealistic to me.

Re: Influenster, please go away!

itscarin — Thu, 02 May 2019 15:48:18 GMT

@browncourtneya I feel so embarrassed to admit I've left influenster reviews on Sephora because there seems to be so much disdain for them!

But, let me tell you that my reviews have been honest. The Bobbi Brown palette I received was trash, and I believe I indicated that in my review. I also reviewed koopari deodorant for influenster, and if I gave it a glowing review, that's because I really liked it! I actually just went out and purchased it last week during the sale -- so it is a product I would stand by.

I will say, and this applicable for all reviews -- that I think there's a human bias to either write a 1 or 5 star review. I'm not going to review something I feel ho-hum about. I'm only reviewing things I hate or things I love. It's possible that people writing reviews from influenster are just doing cut and paste reviews, however, it's really not that hard to do an honest review. Influenster doesn't pay you for positive reviews or slap you on the wrist for negative reviews, so there's no incentive to leave a dishonest review, other than being lazy. It is also possible that people are just so happy to receive free things that they write a glowing review just because they're in a good mood.

I'd be more concerned about the fake reviews than Influenster reviews.