Gratis doesn’t pay my bills, Sephora. - Lead Sephora Employee Review

2.0
1 Dec 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Fast paced environment, always on the move, newness constantly coming in, so you never get bored. Training gratis is good, you learn a lot working here, and not just about one item or brand. Meeting new people all the time, good place to network. No working on commission which helps with morale (for the most part).

Cons

Forced celebrations of cast, EXTREMELY low pay compared to competitors, exhausting workload with payroll cutting being the first priority, competing expectations from people you work with in store vs people who work at FSC or in the field. You pretty much get pulled in every direction imaginable and are expected to ignore favoritism (nepotism is alive and well here at Sephora) and just keep your head down and worry about servicing multiple clients at a time with a forced smile on your face even though you’re frustrated and exhausted. Understaffing is a regular and real thing at Sephora, but they will try to fix it in every way other than what they should do: give the stores more payroll and pay your employees with actual money and not depend on the brand trainers to give us gratis to shut us up. Moisturizers and eyeshadow palettes don’t pay my bills, Sephora. Maybe it’s time to stop parading around the executives in training videos talking about how much they appreciate us and actually pay us fairly for doing our jobs.

Explore other reviews about Sephora

5.0
2 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Support, Benefits, Growth, Community, & Skillfulness

Cons

Pay, Customers, Hours, Uniforms, & Management at times

3.0
18 Mar 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Loved learning more about products and working with most of the other team members. Helping people find products that worked for them was really fun.

Cons

Managers are WEIRD. They play favorites and will talk about it while you are standing right there. Practically make you beg for hours. If you are anything other than the current viral makeup style look, you will get less opportunities. Leadership acts like mean high school girls. Working here took away a lot of my passion for the beauty industry for a long time. Also, when it comes to gratis - why are you letting certain managers walk out with 4 bags of things that they have hand picked? Then leaving whatever they discarded to be handed out??? Constantly had missing gratis from my bag because of managers going through the products they wanted. Scheduling is not flexible or even makes sense. Whoever they like gets better shifts. Would constantly have extra shifts added with no notice until an hour before the shift. Or shifts taken away because a favorite wanted them.

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