Cult skincare brand Sunday Riley settles with FTC over fake Sephora reviews
Sunday Riley, the cult-favorite skincare brand known for its very expensive lactic acid treatment Good Genes, settled with the FTC this week over allegations that its founder instructed employees to leave fake positive reviews on the Sephora website.
According to the FTC, employees at the company (including the founder and CEO, for whom the company is named) used fake accounts to post glowing reviews of Sunday Riley products between November 2015 and August 2017. The commission also alleges that after Sephora recognized the IP addresses on the fake reviews and took them down, Riley and other senior managers told employees to disguise their identifies further by using a virtual private network (VPN).
"If you see a negative review — DISLIKE IT," reads one email. “After enough dislikes, it is removed. This directly translates into sales!!”
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According to the terms of the settlement, Sunday Riley is not required to admit falsifying reviews. It must only commit to not doing so in the future.
"The proposed settlement prohibits Sunday Riley from again posting fake reviews, but does not require any refunds to consumers, forfeiture of profits, or admission of wrongdoing," says an FTC statement.
Though the FTC settlement marks the end of this particular saga, Skincare Twitter has known about Sunday Riley's fondness for shady reviews for a while.
In October of last year, a user claiming to be a former Sunday Riley employee posted a screenshot of another suspicious email in the subreddit r/SkincareAddiction. The message, which appears to be sent by senior management, includes detailed instructions for setting up a VPN and encourages employees to play up their struggles with acne (a condition that can contribute to anxiety and depression) while writing their reviews.
"It helps to make yourself seem relatable - like you know how hard acne is and you've tried everything," the email reads.
Shortly after the email was released, the company admitted it had encouraged employees to post positive reviews but stopped several miles short of an apology. Instead it doubled down, claiming in the comments section of investigative beauty account @esteelaundry that they chose to post dishonest reviews to counteract aggressively negative reviews from competitors.
"At one point, we did encourage people to post positive reviews at the launch of this product, consistent with their experiences," reads a portion of the comment. "It doesn’t really matter what the reasoning was."
Beauty reviews are notoriously dicey, and Sunday Riley is certainly not the only company to take a ride on the unethical side as far as review content is concerned. But the blatantly deceptive nature of the emails — like come on, VPNs? — made this case a strong candidate to go viral.
FTC commissioner Rohit Chopra addressed the growing number of shady reviews online in his dissenting statement, in which he explained that he found the Sunday Riley settlement too lenient.
"Fake reviews distort our markets by rewarding bad actors and harming honest companies," he wrote. "By proposing a no-money, no-fault order for an unambiguous violation of law, this action does little to address the epidemic of fake reviews online."
This isn't the only time Sunday Riley has been burned for manipulating facts. Last year, Riley landed in hot water after a profile in the Dallas Morning News claimed that she had a degree in biochemistry from the University of Texas. As INSIDER reported at the time, Riley attended the school for two years but did not complete that degree.
UPDATE: Oct. 21, 2019, 5:37 p.m. ET This story has been updated with a quote from FTC commissioner Rohit Chopra's dissenting statement.
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Chloe was the shopping editor at Mashable. She was also previously a culture reporter. You can follow her on Twitter at @chloebryan.
