Beauty News: Sephora Rewards is Getting a(nother) Makeover

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I’ll come right out and say it – for the past few years, the Sephora rewards program has been pretty lackluster. I don’t really know how to feel about that. On the one hand, they’re a business and they don’t owe me anything extra for shopping there they probably need the customers and pay to the employees using a paystub online. But on the other hand, they’ve created a rewards program to give me an incentive to shop there versus other stores. And well, it’s only partially working. 

I guess they’re listening, because today Bustle announced Sephora is going to be revamping their rewards system starting August 14th, and lemme tell ya: I like the look of it. Assuming all their info is correct, the new Sephora rewards system is addressing a lot of the things people have disliked about the current one. 

VIB/Rouge has no real benefit

Let’s start with the biggie: there are different ‘tiers’ of beauty insiders based on how much you spend, and up til now they’ve been kind of pointless. There’s barely any difference between VIB and Rouge. Evn those perks haven’t been much different from what the base Insider level gets aside from slightly more discount during sales. That’s about to change though, because the more you spend, the faster you’ll accumulate points. 

• Beauty Insiders will still get 1 point per $1 spent
• VIBs (who spend $350/year) will get 1.25 points per $1
• Rouge (who spend $1000+/year) will get 1.5 points per $1

Birthday rewards are meh

Every year Sephora has two options for birthday rewards, usually one for makeup and one for skincare. That’s nice and all, but a lot of times I don’t really care for either one – and it sort of leaves out all the guys that shop at Sephora. Now they’ll have more birthday reward choices OR you can just get 250 bonus points instead. 

The points perks suck

I’m pretty addicted to miniature everything, so I actually like a lot of the 100 point perks you can get with your order. I also agree with a lot of folks that it’s kind of dumb to spend points on the same stuff you can often get with promo codes. The higher-point rewards are much better, but there aren’t many and they sell out almost instantly. The new system isn’t perfect, but it sounds like it’s at least improving:

• There will be 5x more 750+ point perks for better selection & availability
• There will be more diversity across color, skin care, fragrance, etc
• VIB and Rouge will be able to redeem for full size products

We want $$$ off

For a while now Ulta has had the option to use your points for straight up dollars off, and that’s pretty sweet. Now Rouge members will be able to redeem 2500 points for a $100 Rouge Reward. According to the Bustle article these will be in the rewards bazaar every Tuesday & Thursday, so I’m guessing they’ll have a limited number.

It’s sale time baby!

To celebrate the new Sephora rewards update, they’re having a sale in late August/early September. No word yet on whether this will be in addition to the usual November sale, or if it’ll replace it. Either way, here are the details:

• Rouge – 20% off Aug 24th-Sept 3rd
• VIB – 15% off Aug 30th-Sept 3rd
• Insider – 10% off Aug 30th-Sept 3rd

This will be a great chance to stock up on some back-to-school skincare. I also like that it doesn’t run into the holiday season – it lets me space out my makeup purchases a little more! 

What have you got your eye on for the Sephora sale?