“Honesty” is the Best Policy: A PR Nightmare, Thanks to Fraudulent Customer Reviews

Confession: Sephora is where my budget goes to die.

At the ripe old age of 28, I’ve read enough beauty magazines to be terrified that my skincare routine isn’t up to par. Kinda crazy, I know. But the beauty industry has me convinced that I need more specialized products than what I can find in the drugstore. Hence: Sephora.

There’s a Sephora within walking distance of my office. Both of my bosses used to work at Smashbox. I have constant exposure to makeup and skincare and I have access to people with some insider knowledge. So when one of my bosses mentioned trying Sunday Riley, I was intrigued. First of all, great name! Second of all, I had heard the hype because I had checked them out on Sephora. So I bought some aaaaaaaaaaand I love it. It’s helped with my cystic acne and seems like a really high-quality product.

But then the skin cream hit the fan: Sunday Riley had their employees writing reviews on their product pages, posing as consumers!!!!

An internal email was recently revealed that gave Sunday Riley employees instructions on how to mask their IP address in order to leave positive product reviews on sephora.com. Consumers rely heavily on reviews in order to inform their purchases. It’s a form of collective intelligence; you assume that an Everyday Joe is a reliable source of information and that they aren’t trying to “sell” you on anything. Needless to say, this has been an embarrassing time for the skincare company. They’ve had to do a lot of apologizing.

How does Sunday Riley come back from this, if at all? How can a brand re-build consumer trust?