I recently called Sephora's 800 number in consternation to see if they have any idea about which of their products are tested on animals and which aren't. The lady was very helpful and said although they don't list it on the site she had a list she could email to me. Without further delay, here is the list of products Sephora says are NOT tested on animals:
Thank you for contacting Sephora.com regarding our animal testing practices.
Our private label Sephora Brand is cruelty free (meaning that the products have never been tested on animals). We carry over 200 other brands and we cannot guarantee that all the products from these brands are cruelty free.
Here is a list of some brands that we carry that do not test on animals:
Amazing Cosmetics
Anthony Logistics
Balmshell
Bare Escentuals
Benefit Cosmetics
Blinc
Bliss
Boscia
Bremenn Research Labs
Carol's Daughter
Caudalie
Clarins
Clean
Cosmedicine
DDF
Dermadoctor
Dr. Brandt Skincare
DuWop
Frederic Fekkai
Jack Black
Jonathan Products
Juice Beauty
Korres Natural Products
L'Occitane
Laura Mercier
LaVanila Laboratories
Murad
Mustela
NARS
Nude
Ojon
Ole Henriksen
Perfekt
Perricone MD
Peter Thomas Roth
Philosophy
Phyto
REN Clean Skincare
René Furterer
Rosebud Perfume Co.
Skyn Iceland
Smashbox
Stila Cosmetics
Tarina Tarantino
Tarte
TheBalm
Too Faced Cosmetics
Urban Decay
Zirh
We hope this helps. If we can assist you further please reply to this email or contact us at 1-877-SEPHORA (1-877-737-4672).
Regards,
Laura
Sephora.com Client Services
Contact Us Again
CustomerService@Sephora.com
1-877-SEPHORA (1-877-737-4672)
Monday - Friday, 6AM - 9PM PST
Saturday & Sunday 8AM - 5PM PST
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Sephora, your website is useless!
21 May, 2010
Dear Sephora,
We know you are touted, and tout yourself as the Alpha & Omega of Makeup, the one and only place toget the highest quality makeup with tips and tools to get the most out of your makeup. This is only partially true; its true of your stores, the brick and mortar shopping experience.
Anyone who's ventured in a Sephora for the first time is immediately inspired/overwhelmed/excited, especially if you live somewhere more rural than not. Music, lighting, rows and rows of makeup, it all is very fun. You can try on makeup, wipe it away with a makeup remover and repeat all day. You can ignore or accept the help of the Sephora consultants. They'll do your makeup too, of course. The aisles and aisles of makeup let you try this or that shade without having to buy it first. Mirrors and makeup applicators abound. They carry many brands, and you can browse them all. They have a hair care section, a skin care section, and many 'best buys' and 'highest rated' products are displayed prominently at the store entrance and throughout the store. Almost always an enjoyable experience, Sephora has clearly invested a lot of time and research into developing these little makeup meccas.
This is... if you can find the store. Thus begins my tirade known as Sephora, your website is useless! Let us go to Exhibit A. Sephora's "Store Locator." Sephoras are now in many metropolitan areas. If you're in or near a city, you probably know where it is and can get there with ease. But what if you're Mz. Smith of California traveling to New Jersey for the first time on business, and you have a free weekend. Well it is winter so Smith doesn't want to go to beach at Seaside Heights so she thinks about going to a Sephora. So she pulls up the internet, and goes to the Store Locator.
"What?" she says
"They don't just let me type in my current zip code? This is less than acceptable in today's society. Preferably I either enter the whole address (and then the subsequent results will map out all the locations nearby, then click one and it spits out directions) or I can enter my zip only for quicker results. This is the way of the internet."
But Ms. Smith is on Sephora's site in 2011, not a regular up to date site. She sees this inexplicable DROP DOWN MENU (UGH!!!) and then proceeds to gamely pick her state from this.
"Ok, New Jersey, fine." Then what?
 |
| Exhibit A |
It lists the locations of Sephora stores in Jersey. This is unhelpful. Mz. Smith looks but doesn't see the small NJ town she's currently in listed on the drop down menu. Of course at this point she could google map each of the 20 or so locations and then compare that to where she currently lives, but who has time for that??
"F it!" she says.
"I'll just go to Atlantic City, at least I can map that."
Mz. Smith goes on to spend her life savings, her parents retirement fund, and her kid's college fund all in that weekend, and she goes home a broken, bitter woman.
If only Sephora let you put in your zip code, this tragedy would not have occurred.
This concludes Exhibit A.
Exhibit B (the last exhibit) is the other half of the equation. Call it sorting, drilling down, browsing, or just plain old shopping; it is hard to do on Sephora.com. You'd think Sephora would want the purchasing of makeup, the deciding and browsing, a fun part of the experience. Makeup shopping shouldn't be a chore, riddled with drop down menus from the late 90's. Makeup shopping should know who you are, remember your preferences, and suggest things for you to try based on that. It should be a complete, customizable experience.
The closest thing I've seen in my browsing past is at Zappos, where you can choose exactly the kind of bag or shoe you want based on your criteria.
 | |||||||
| Exhibit B: Zappos sorting. (A joy to navigate! I can even choose Polyester as a fabric!!!! :) :) :)) |
At its most basic, browsing/shopping on the internet can be a drill down type of event as seen with Zappos. Pick among a whole bunch of criteria which matter to you, and end up with what you like. Sephora's makeup site starts out that way:
 |
| Exhibit B Continued, the basic, uninspired drill down link navigation system. |
You pick skincare: face: visible pores. So far so good. But from there the shopping experience deteriorates quickly. Once you've gone that far, common courtesy demands you have the path you have traveled thus far listed at the top.
 |
| I'm clicking, I can highlight, but I can't navigate. |
Sephora has this, but the navigation isn't clickable. So if you just want to go back to face, well you're SOL and need to click the back button instead of what is clearly marked "Face.". See #1 in the image below.
How simple is this? Common navigational courtesies like this should be law, like using a turn signal.
 |
| annoying complex setup |
Then, #2, they have "Narrrow by Brand" and "Sort By". Instead of keeping the same website structure they revert to terrible, awful drop down menus.
First, "Narrow By Brand" yes, very nice you let us do this. But why is it in a drop down menu instead of another drill down menu? Why are you inconsistent Sephora? Why?????
Then you have "Sort By."And there aren't even any compelling criteria. What if you don't know what brand you are looking for, you just want the highest customer rating makeup for eyes that is for oily skin, is oil free, and not tested on animals. Not going to happen.
 | |
| Very impressive, we can narrow down by brand. But what if I like "gasp" two or more brands? |
#3 if I click that I want to View All results, it will work for that page and all the other pages of the search I've just done. However, if I make a new search all that data is lost and I'm looking at 12 results per page again until I go and select View All again. Unnecessarily evil!
 |
| This second 'search by brand' menu takes you off your current search altogether, adding further aggravation and complexity. |
So Sephora, how can you possibly place your name on a website like this? Is there any way to correct this? What are the next steps?
I will make it easy on you. First, go over to Zappos, Ebay, ebags, whoever, and hire their entire web development team. Then make the browsing experience enjoyable for all of us, please!
Sephora's Great 8 Suggestions:
1. Your customers have accounts from orders, just use that to make it more customized. If we give you the info, store our skin type, age, gender, hair type (straight, or curly - and if curly, what type of curls from 2A - 4c?), natural hair color, if we dye our hair, etc, etc. Keep all that info and you can use it to 'suggest' products to us on the margins, and to enhance our search experience. If I am 60 and don't want to always see tiger striped eye makeup and the latest in glitter nail polish, let us "like" or "dislike" the little suggestions and you can learn about us (a la facebook ads). You get our free customer data! (just sayin) and we get a more relevant browsing experience.
2. If we want to see 5,000,000,000 results per page just remember that from one visit to the next, not just within one search.
3. Add these search criteria categories:
- Average Customer Review (can't believe you don't have that one.)
- Skin type if applicable
- Coloring (warm, cool, neutral)
- Cruelty Free/Not Tested on Animals
- Ingredients (desired). If there is a new ingredient out there that we want to try in our makeup, let us search for it.
- Ingredients (undesired). If we have allergies or don't want something in our product, let us search for things that don't contain this ingredient. The next few are ingredients that are common (infamous) enough to warrant their own categories. People can ignore them or sort by them. Or better yet choose this in their preferences for ALL FUTURE SEARCHES!
- Oil Free
- Paraben Free (haircare)
- Sulfate Free (haircare)
5. A product comparison side by side would be nice. Let us choose three different lipsticks and then compare them side by side. Highlight the ingredient differences if we want. Let us, the consumer figure out what formulations work on our own skin. Let us educate ourselves and we will have a more democratic, equitable & progressive makeup industry at our beck and call, falling over themselves to do what the consumers want, not dictating to us what we need. You could change the industry instead of bowing to them.
6. Let us see the demographics (if shared) of other reviewers. If I have dry skin I don't want to see the reviews of a moisturizing cream from oily-skinned individuals. Save other reviewers with similar classifications as myself (age, skin type) as Sephora Friends, and be alerted whenever they try something and write a review.
7. Please let us search by zip code for the nearest store, it's not that hard. Get with the times.
8. keep it FUN! It's MAKEUP!! If we want to spend 60 hours a week just browsing let us do it on your site. You'd rather be the website we all go to. We'd rather have a one-stop-browsing-shop.
There are many other things that you could do Sephora, to make your website better besides these suggestions. But at least they are a start. There are probably Sephora employees reading this and nodding, saying "I know, I know.." but somewhere, someone is holding up progress. Let's take it to the next level Sephora. Turn your site intowhat it could and should be. An online makeup mecca worthy of the Sephora brand.
This has been for your own good.
Sincerely,
this blogger
Friday, May 13, 2011
Vacuum Cleaner Series: Bissell: Fat, Bloated Back-Killers. You'd need one on every floor.
A quick few clicks and I have all I need to know.
If you're picking up a Bissell, expect it to be 22 lbs. Because that's how heavy almost all of them are.
The Heavy Duty Vacuum, the heavyweight champ weighs in at 35 lbs.! Imagine toting that up and down the stairs. These aren't the shampooers, these are just the plain old uprights.
To be fair, their PROLite is 'only' 16 lbs. Get me out of here!
If you're picking up a Bissell, expect it to be 22 lbs. Because that's how heavy almost all of them are.
To be fair, their PROLite is 'only' 16 lbs. Get me out of here!
Vacuum Cleaner Series: Dyson - let's get it over with already
Since we all want to compare every vacuum out there to a Dyson, let's look at their uprights.
DC28 Animal ($600.00): 21 lbs. - 245 watts
DC25 Animal ($550.00): 16 lbs. - 220 watts
DC25 All Floors ($500.00): 16 lbs. - 220 watts
DC24 Animal ($450.00): 12 lbs. - 115 watts
DC33 MultiFloor ($400.00): 18 lbs. - 240 watts
DC35 MultiFloor Cordless ($300.00 - looks like an
overgrown leaf blower): 5 lbs. - Bingo! - 65 watts but can only run for 15 minutes. Darn.
The uprights pretty much all have wonderful telescoping hoses that can clean a whole flight of stairs, but that comes with added weight as we can see. They are gorgeous, they have a great website, fantastic reviews, and expensive photography, but they're heavy.
DC28 Animal ($600.00): 21 lbs. - 245 watts
DC25 Animal ($550.00): 16 lbs. - 220 watts
DC25 All Floors ($500.00): 16 lbs. - 220 watts
DC24 Animal ($450.00): 12 lbs. - 115 watts
DC33 MultiFloor ($400.00): 18 lbs. - 240 watts
DC35 MultiFloor Cordless ($300.00 - looks like an
overgrown leaf blower): 5 lbs. - Bingo! - 65 watts but can only run for 15 minutes. Darn.
The uprights pretty much all have wonderful telescoping hoses that can clean a whole flight of stairs, but that comes with added weight as we can see. They are gorgeous, they have a great website, fantastic reviews, and expensive photography, but they're heavy.
 |
| 21 pounds? You sure are gorgeous but you'll need to get rid of that extra weight. |
Vacuum Cleaner Series: Dirt Devil
They offer 12 different varieties of upright vacs. Twelve!
I mean, you need three for a high, mid, and low range. Then maybe some in-between. Like Oreck, they had, what 6 which is plenty sufficient. I hope I'm not going to compare everyone with Oreck now.
On to Dirt Devil. For a quick test of the water I usually will check out the reviews on Amazon. and D.D. has some low reviews out there:
Extreme Quick: 2/5
Featherlite Bagless: 2.5/5
Ultra Swivel Glide & Reaction: 3.5/5
Breeze Bagless, Optima Lightweight, Featherlite Bagged: 4/5
I'll look at the three that had 4 stars. The two, Optima isn't on their website.
"Featherlite" is 11lbs, "Breeze" is 13.15 (at least they're accurate). No Hepa filtration (the Featherlite has "Micro Fresh" Filtration, but they do have on-board tools (maybe that is the extra weight)). Not that impressed, let's find their best.
Sorting by price, their most expensive upright is the $90 Ultra Vision Turbo Vacuum. It has all the bells and whistles, including actual Hepa filters, and weighs in at a whopping 19 lbs! Do they expect people to carry that up and down the stairs?
Sorry, but your lackluster reviews and lack of any attempt to make vacuums lighter in the world we live in gives you a big Thumbs Down. Dirt Devil seems like the cheap vacuum you get that will last a good 3 years.
I mean, you need three for a high, mid, and low range. Then maybe some in-between. Like Oreck, they had, what 6 which is plenty sufficient. I hope I'm not going to compare everyone with Oreck now.
On to Dirt Devil. For a quick test of the water I usually will check out the reviews on Amazon. and D.D. has some low reviews out there:
Extreme Quick: 2/5
Featherlite Bagless: 2.5/5
Ultra Swivel Glide & Reaction: 3.5/5
Breeze Bagless, Optima Lightweight, Featherlite Bagged: 4/5
I'll look at the three that had 4 stars. The two, Optima isn't on their website.
"Featherlite" is 11lbs, "Breeze" is 13.15 (at least they're accurate). No Hepa filtration (the Featherlite has "Micro Fresh" Filtration, but they do have on-board tools (maybe that is the extra weight)). Not that impressed, let's find their best.
Sorting by price, their most expensive upright is the $90 Ultra Vision Turbo Vacuum. It has all the bells and whistles, including actual Hepa filters, and weighs in at a whopping 19 lbs! Do they expect people to carry that up and down the stairs?
 |
| Think of all the Chiropractor visits! |
Sorry, but your lackluster reviews and lack of any attempt to make vacuums lighter in the world we live in gives you a big Thumbs Down. Dirt Devil seems like the cheap vacuum you get that will last a good 3 years.
 |
| Maybe if you cared as much about product development as social media your uprights would be under 10 lbs. |
Vacuum Cleaner Series: Oreck
Oh Oreck.
You almost had me.
Shopping the other day and happened by an Oreck shop. Since I am fastidiously researching for this Vac Series, I stopped in to see what they had to offer. The saleswoman was just wonderful. The showroom had all their models out and waiting for you to try on wood, carpet, dirt, and their own heaps of "pet hair". The vacs were lightweight, and if you bring in your old clunker vac you get $50 off a new one! The problem here is that none of them had a hose, so you need another vac to do that part. But, as the saleswoman explained, that is why they can make their powerful vacs so lightweight. This changes everything.
Oreck's Pros:
Oreck's Cons:
As weird as it sounds, I might be less suspicious if it cost $800. Why is it so good and so cheap? How can they make money when they last that long and are $200-$300 and Dysons cost $600? I know there is a marketing theory that applies here.
At this point it comes to do you want a hose or not, and do you mind having to change a bag (although it's touted as quick and easy, it still needs to be done bagless or not). But I think we have a contender here. They come in lots of different color combinations, some more modern than others.
If I would have had my old vac in the car I would have been sorely tempted to trade it in right then and there. Not sure what I would have done.
You almost had me.
Shopping the other day and happened by an Oreck shop. Since I am fastidiously researching for this Vac Series, I stopped in to see what they had to offer. The saleswoman was just wonderful. The showroom had all their models out and waiting for you to try on wood, carpet, dirt, and their own heaps of "pet hair". The vacs were lightweight, and if you bring in your old clunker vac you get $50 off a new one! The problem here is that none of them had a hose, so you need another vac to do that part. But, as the saleswoman explained, that is why they can make their powerful vacs so lightweight. This changes everything.
Oreck's Pros:
- Actual stores
- Once you buy, you can bring it back once a year for 10 years and they'll replace whatever it needs and keep it running for you.
- Uses bags so cleanup is easy (see image on direct suction below)
- $$$ when you trade in your old vac
- Relatively inexpensive, you can get a really good one for around $200 (I mean $150 if you have a trade in)
- Hepa Filtration
- Looooong 35ft cords
- Eco friendly Bright LED lights
- Most models between 7 - 9 lbs!
- Last for years
- They're getting better, but they still look like every vacuum you've seen in a hotel
- No hose, need a separate vac for that
- Oreck sounds like Ogre and Shrek and is awkward to say. "Yes, I have an Oreck Vacuum. I live in Britain, now lets go have some tea, shall we?"
- Um...
As weird as it sounds, I might be less suspicious if it cost $800. Why is it so good and so cheap? How can they make money when they last that long and are $200-$300 and Dysons cost $600? I know there is a marketing theory that applies here.
At this point it comes to do you want a hose or not, and do you mind having to change a bag (although it's touted as quick and easy, it still needs to be done bagless or not). But I think we have a contender here. They come in lots of different color combinations, some more modern than others.
If I would have had my old vac in the car I would have been sorely tempted to trade it in right then and there. Not sure what I would have done.
Pieces
The Iceberg killed Titanic
Strewn 'cross the ocean floor
But what happened to bunny
That turned her into gore?
A polished feat of marvel
For wealth and the well-heeled
England, Ireland, New York bound
Is now a debris field
Her maiden voyage started
And cut short by the smack
In 70 years they found her front
Days later found her back
A bunny borne but weeks ago
Nestled in mother's womb
Life all ahead but now is dead
A trash can now her tomb
Bun's first peek out the burrow
Met Kittens unrestrained
And hours later I found her
In pieces more than twain
One leg, one leg, one body
Here lies the bunny dead
One leg, one leg, one body
I cannot find the head
~ RIP little bunny
Strewn 'cross the ocean floor
But what happened to bunny
That turned her into gore?
A polished feat of marvel
For wealth and the well-heeled
England, Ireland, New York bound
Is now a debris field
Her maiden voyage started
And cut short by the smack
In 70 years they found her front
Days later found her back
A bunny borne but weeks ago
Nestled in mother's womb
Life all ahead but now is dead
A trash can now her tomb
Bun's first peek out the burrow
Met Kittens unrestrained
And hours later I found her
In pieces more than twain
One leg, one leg, one body
Here lies the bunny dead
One leg, one leg, one body
I cannot find the head
~ RIP little bunny
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