The Secret of Sephora Reviews: Are They Real?

[nexo]

Hey beauty lovers!

So, I've been thinking a lot lately about an issue that's been bothering me, and I bet I'm not alone in this. The issue is incentivized reviews! You know, those reviews where people get perks or rewards for saying all the nice things about a product? Yeah, those. It's like a beauty love affair tainted by external motivations, and it's making me question the authenticity of the reviews we see on Sephora.

As someone who loves to share my thoughts on products, leaving an honest, negative review has become a bit of a mission impossible. Either the website glitches out on me and the review "cannot be posted at this time", or my review mysteriously vanishes into the digital abyss, and I can't find it. Among others, a few "popular" products this has happened to me with are the CT Pillow Talk lipstick, Supergoop suncreens, and super popular Merit lipstick (which tasted like crayons left in the microwave).

It's frustrating, to say the least. I get it, positive vibes and all, but come on! We need a space where we can share our real experiences without the influence of shiny rewards, monetary or other incentives. The beauty industry is all about trust, right? Well, the trust kinda dwindles when the reviews are clouded by these external incentives. Sephora, with its reputation for excellence, should step up and address this issue with a bit more transparency. 

What are your thoughts on this? Have you faced similar challenges about fake -- *ahem* I mean, incentivized reviews? Or have you tried to leave a negative review that never actually made it to the review page? Let's chat in the comments! 💄✨

[forestmaiden]

I totally agree, it has gotten insane!!! Tonight I was researching a product, and out of 2800+ reviews, when I filtered out incentivized reviews, there were 32!! And of those 32, two of them wrote they got the product for free in exchange for their review and I guess they just “forgot” to hit the incentivized button. So that left 30 real, non-incentivized reviews… out of 2800+ (the actual original number was like 2895 or something like that). Also, every non-incentivized review except for one was writing about negative experiences with the product. Amazing how none of the incentivized ones ever seem to be negative! 🙃

There is also no way to report reviews (like for not marking they’re incentivized or commenting on the wrong product or double posting or whatever) or to report questions that are asked and answered with terrible (and sometimes harmful) advice. Especially with a lot of these things being marketed to kids now and all the “Sephora kids” crowding the stores and posting about buying retinols and anti-aging products when they’re 10 years old. 
I’m almost 40 so have been around a while but the craziness of the beauty industry now and all the “incentivized” and “influencers” and TikTok… let’s just say I am glad there was no one of this stuff when I was in high school! 

[dimanta]

I agree. It’s too many incentivized reviews now. Most of them. I don’t read them and set up not to show them but then sometimes there is no review left or only 1 or few. I don’t trust Sephora reviews anymore as of course 95% people with free goodies will review it positive in order to get more freebies. It’s sad. 

[KayPowe]

Wait now that you mentioned this, I did have that problem. I don't remember the exact product but I gave it a 2 because it just did not work for ME. If it works for others great but in my reviews I always put my skin type/hair type whatever just in case someone with a similar problem to me is looking at this product. But nope! I got the "cannot post this now" error and went to leave another review that was good and it went through!!!

As far as the incentivized reviews, I do believe they have to state that, that is the case. 

[sarcazm]

I think Sephora could easily add to or adjust the main sort filter in a category (not the one where you're already viewing an item) so when you want to search for "Highest Rated" or 4* and up products, you could be able to see the actual ratings without the incentivized reviews counted in your search.  

I have no problem with incentivization, not that I do it, and filtering it out at the item level is what I personally do.  But then I so frequently come across an item with like... 3 Verified Purchase reviews, or 0-1 Non-Incentivized reviews to see when hundreds and hundreds of reviews are posted.  No other place where I shop online has this level of craziness except maybe Yelp and that has become a joke.  

It actually costs people money, and the company money, when it comes to returns - and there is no punishment for false advertising using incentivized reviews or by relying on people to publish false-positive incentivized reviews (I've seen so few negative incentivized reviews it's a scam).  People don't want to stop getting free stuff if they say honest or negative things about the products they receive for free.  From a wholesaler's standpoint you have to think about things like how many of those infamous refillable travel containers they have to deal with IRT returns and refunds and shipping.  Also, how it confuses their own metrics for forecasting and purchasing.  There are so many colors and it looks on the outside like these things are amazing based on numbers.    

The problem is the site still can't properly manage the incentivization issue in the user interface; it wasn't built for it.  But that also makes me wonder if they've done anything on the back-end either.  Again, I believe incentivization can be great advertising, however, most of it is false and you have to view everything at the product level in a category to figure out what is even an honest review.  There are many ways to fix this on the back end, and reprogram the front end to accommodate (like applying less weight to the incentivized reviews is an option aside from user interface filters).  But I find it very difficult to buy anything I haven't sampled or already know the brand at this point due to the way Sephora's site currently handles this.

[SportyGirly125]

@nexo @I haven’t had issues posting bad reviews on products I bought from Sephora. My reviews can take 72 hours to post sometimes. 

You can always filter the incentivized reviews out. 

[nexo]

Yes, we can filter the incentivized review out, but the overall rating of the product appears artificially high. For example, some of the new products have 80-95% incentivized reviews, so when I look at the overall score of 4.9 Stars and 95% people recommending the product, it appears to be not genuine. 

[SportyGirly125]

@nexo @I never look at the overall score. I look at verified purchases or people that post the actual product pictures in their reviews that were not given to them for free. 

[nexo]

That's great. I try to do the same, but it takes more effort to compare products this way. It would be easier for the consumers if Sephora had a way to showcase the overall rating of the product without the bias of influencer reviews.