Can You Return Opened Makeup To Sephora

Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect a response from Sephora.

Sephora'southward generous return policy is one of the reasons I continue to shop there. An expensive serum breaks me out? Return. Lipstick that fades afterwards an hour? I return that, too.

According to its website, Sephora allows you to return any product that was purchased inside 60 days, even if information technology'due south gently used, for full credit. There are different rules depending on whether you bought your items in-shop or online. Either way, spending $threescore on a moisturizer you stop upwardly hating doesn't feel similar a hard striking to your wallet when you tin ever return information technology.

We know that heading into the store to get a sample earlier purchasing a production is ideal. Merely, allow'southward face information technology—time, location, and laziness are reasons why nosotros ordinarily end upward ordering online. Considering of this mindset, about people end up returning products that are the wrong shade or weren't as pigmented as they thought they'd be.

Nonetheless, the products you return have to get somewhere. When asked what happens to those returned products, Sephora told us:

Nosotros too spoke with Sephora employee and consulted an in-depth Reddit thread to detect out what happens with returns.

This lengthy Reddit thread from 2014 asks, What does Sephora do with returned products that accept been used? It features comments from former and current Sephora employees, and luckily, they shared their experiences with the return process.

An associate from a Sephora inside a JCPenney said products that are returned unused get dorsum on the shelf. If a product is lightly used, it tin't exist resold. "The amount of Naked palettes I've had to throw in the dumpster because ONE single shadow had been swatched only in one case is so incredibly depressing," the Redditor commented.

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Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Sephora

| Credit: Charley Gallay/Getty Images for Sephora

It's important to note that policies seem to vary by shop—or by when the individual was employed past Sephora. Some other user explained that in their experience, unused products get thrown out. "Even if someone says they didn't use it, we can't put information technology back on the shelf. That'southward how my store was, anyhow," wrote bluesky747.

Sources have claimed that some products are used as testers, which would brand sense, only this is a policy that may also vary past store. According to bluesky747, their Sephora location didn't implement that. "We tin can't apply returned products as testers because their SKU has already been registered as bought/then returned," they wrote.

HelloGiggles spoke with an anonymous source who works for a Sephora inside JCP about the returns procedure. While careful to annotation that the policy may be different in freestanding stores, they said, "In our store, our return policy has changed. At present we accept to accept the actual receipt. No receipt, no return. No exceptions." (Unless the customer has the production on their Sephora Dazzler Insider account.)

"We have a very stiff step-by-step process and we e'er have somebody by our side watching our moves," shared our source, going on to explain the process of taping the render slip to the product and placing information technology into a liquidation bin before inputting the product into the computer for replenishment. The next step, bringing the products to the stock room, is highly supervised to an "annoying" extent, but the hovering is for good reason—"other stores were caught stealing their returns."

"For us to have it to the back and walk the floor with it, nosotros have to exist escorted by a manager or security," our source explained, where they then separate the products into flammable or nonflammable take chances bins. The employee also has to fill out paperwork with their proper identification and details of the return.

Throwing away returned products—while wasteful—is often the most sanitary movement. Tossing returned merchandise is protocol, even outside of the beauty industry. Even so, some companies, like Burberry, H&1000, and Nike, do this to encourage product scarcity, rather than to promote cleanliness. (Recent pushback against this practise prompted Burberry to finish destroying its own products.)

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Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for Westfield

| Credit: Kelly Sullivan/Getty Images for Westfield

Until the cosmetics manufacture figures out a way to reduce waste product, there's another, sometimes illegal, mode that thrown-out products are beingness recycled. Once your old lipstick or unused palette hits the dumpster, information technology might get picked up by someone else. Dumpster defined, as they're called, target the trash receptacles behind stores and pick out new and lightly used appurtenances. Many are still in their original packaging.

While dumpster-diving stores similar Ulta often results in incredible hauls, finding treasures in the trash at Sephora isn't as easy. When Sephora throws out products, they are often purposely damaged prior to going into the trash. Sometimes they're sent back to the manufacturer, or thrown into trash compactors. "The only things you'll always notice in Sephora'southward trash are cardboard boxes, plastic, bubble wrap, actual trash…and even that has to be thrown out in clear bags then managers tin can cheque and make sure there isn't any production in there to exist found," wrote theworldexplodes in a comment on Reddit.

Until the manufacture figures out a way to best recycle returned products, some of the all-time ways to eliminate waste matter are to sample products when you tin can, and give lightly used products to friends (when there's no take a chance of spreading an infection). I know I would pay a minor fee to buy samples online from the retailer. Sephora, are you listening?

Oh, and if you're a serial product returner, Sephora is definitely tracking you. "Sephora monitors render activity for abuse and reserves the right to limit returns or exchanges at Sephora and Sephora inside JCPenney in all instances," reads the Sephora website.

Now that you have all of this info, it seems that purchasing items in-shop is the fashion to go. You can swatch, test, sample, and effigy out what products will work best for you without the hassle of a return.