When a woman at Sephora wasn’t willing to spend a whopping $129 or even $65 on a face moisturizer, instead of helping her find an affordable alternative, the sales associate suggested the woman go to Target instead.
That’s exactly what the customer did, to the worker’s surprise.
“So I just had the most wild encounter at Sephora … This woman was so f*cking rude,” the customer, Rissa (@notrissaraiz), says in a viral TikTok video.
She explains that she stopped by beauty retailer Sephora to find a replacement for her current foundation. Luckily, that day, there was a Fenty (Rihanna’s iconic and shade-inclusive beauty brand) artist onsite who helped her find a great foundation.
In conversation with the makeup artist, Rissa realized that she needed to re-up on moisturizer. While she normally buys her moisturizer at Target, she figured she was already at Sephora and could pick one up there.
This is where the story takes a turn.
Rissa walked over to the skincare section, where she was initially ignored by the sales associate (Rissa stated that it’s possible the person didn’t hear her), so she started looking at products on her own. The person does finally go over to help Rissa but gives her attitude off the cuff.
She asked Rissa what she wanted the moisturizer to do, and being a person who didn’t know much about skincare, she stated simply that she wanted it to moisturize.
“Well I don’t know if you want anti-aging, if you want to lighten dark spots,” the worker responded with an obvious tone.
Rissa said she was open to a profit with all of those properties, so the associate showed her a moisturizer with a staggering $129 price tag.
Rissa was honest and said the price was more than she wanted to spend on moisturizer and asked to see the second-best option. Instead of just showing it to her, the worker pushed back on Rissa, saying the product was too expensive for her.
“Well, it’s your skin. Your skin is a billboard, and if you skip on that, it’s gonna show,” the associate said, according to Rissa.
Rissa then shares with viewers that she’s been doing just fine with her Target moisturizer.
The worker showed her another product at $65. Rissa told her that while the product sounded amazing, she wanted something in the $20-$25 range and didn’t need all those extra properties like anti-aging.
“She process to tell me that I could go to Target for that,” Rissa says in the clip.
Directing a customer to a “lesser” store is one the shadiest things a worker can do.
“You’re absolutely right. I can go to Target, and I will. So I walked away,” Rissa says. “…You’re gonna give me an attitude and a response like that? So uncalled for, so unnecessary.”
Rissa then got in line to pay for her foundation and noticed the rude worker speaking to the Fenty representative who helped her earlier. The representative walked over to Rissa in line and offered the “cheapest” moisturizer she could find. But by then, Rissa was committed to getting her product at Target.
Lo and behold, the worker lied. As Rissa walks out of the store, she sees a moisturizer from The Ordinary with a $13.50 price tag.
“What was the purpose? What was the point? I’ll wait,” Rissa says about the encounter with the worker. “Why are you giving me shade?”
@notrissaraiz Unhinged Shade at Sephora…. i just wanted a moisturizer without the shade #sephora #target #rude #storytime #sundayfunday ♬ original sound – R I S S A
The video has over 12,000 views and over 100 comments as of Wednesday morning.
“Girl your skin is flawless!! I’m sure she was just trying to make commission off of you rather than helping you with what you actually need,” a commenter wrote.
“When I worked at Ulta, we would always have to upsell prestige items first over “drugstore/afforable” items . But she didn’t have to say that,” another said.
“Wait excuse me? Y’all are NICE cause baby, I would’ve went tf off!” a viewer commented.
The Daily Dot reached out to Rissa for comment via email.
