ComfiSkin vs the Sephora app
Sephora’s app is built to sell you things, and its skin tools recommend from what Sephora stocks. ComfiSkin sells nothing, so it can tell you the one thing a shop never will: you don’t need to buy anything.
BEAUTY SHOP APP
Paid with money
- Moisturiser, 50 ml$38.00
Listed as used to track you
- PurchasesYes
- Search historyYes
- IdentifiersYes
- Usage dataYes
Illustration. The four categories are from Sephora’s App Store privacy label.
The short answer
Sephora’s skin advice is a sales pitch with a quiz attached. Every recommendation ends with something Sephora sells, the app tracks what you buy and search for, and California made Sephora pay $1.2 million in penalties over selling customer data without telling them.
What that means: Sephora’s app will never tell you that you already own what you need, and what you do in it feeds a profile used to sell you more. Shop there if you like, but decide in ComfiSkin first.
Side by side
| ComfiSkin | Sephora app | |
|---|---|---|
| Where recommendations come from | Any brand, starting with what you already own | Products Sephora sells5 |
| Will it tell you not to buy something? | Yes, when you already own something similar | No. That’s not what it’s for |
| Tracks what you buy and search for | No | Yes2 |
| Penalised over customer data | Never | $1.2 million, California, 20221 |
| Does it check your products work together? | Yes, across your week | No |
| Free samples with orders | No | Yes |
A shop’s advice always ends at the till
Sephora’s Skincare IQ started as an in-store quiz that matched shoppers to products from Sephora’s own range.5 Its colour-matching tool suggests “a similar lip, cheek, or eye product sold at Sephora”.6 That’s what a shop’s tools are for. The range is huge, but no shop’s advice will ever end with “you’re fine, keep what you’ve got”.
The cost of that shows up on your bathroom shelf. Shop-led advice is how people end up with three serums doing the same job, routines that keep getting longer and pricier, and skin that gets more irritated the more you add. More products is good for Sephora. It isn’t automatically good for your face.
ComfiSkin makes nothing when you buy, and that’s the whole point. When you scan something new, it compares it with what’s already on your shelf. If you own something that does the same job, it tells you the new one isn’t needed. When you do need something, it shows which shops stock it, cheapest first.
What that means for you: following a shop’s advice is how bathroom shelves fill up with duplicates. ComfiSkin is advice from someone who doesn’t earn a penny from the answer.
Sephora’s record with your data
In August 2022, California’s Attorney General announced a $1.2 million settlement with Sephora. He alleged it “failed to disclose to consumers that it was selling their personal information” and ignored browser signals asking it not to.1 Privacy lawyers called it the first public enforcement action under the state’s consumer privacy law.8 It wasn’t Sephora’s first time in the news over data.
| Year | What happened |
|---|---|
| 2019 | Customers in Asia and Australia were told their names, birthdates, email addresses, encrypted passwords and beauty preferences had been exposed in a data breach.3 |
| 2020 | Sephora settled a class action alleging its in-store Virtual Artist kiosks in Illinois scanned shoppers’ faces without proper consent. It denied the claims.4 |
| 2022 | The $1.2 million California settlement over selling customer data.1 |
A breach, a face-scan lawsuit and a penalty for selling data, in four years. ComfiSkin doesn’t ask for your name, your email or your face, and keeps your skin notes on your phone. There’s nothing to sell and nothing to leak.
What that means for you: details customers gave Sephora haven’t always stayed with Sephora.
The app still watches closely
Today, Sephora’s App Store label lists purchases, search history, identifiers and usage data as data used to track you, and the data linked to you includes your precise location and financial information.2 On Google Play, it says it shares personal information, device IDs, purchase history and app activity with other companies, including for advertising.7
Every search for “redness” or “acne” and every purchase sharpens a profile that’s used to sell to you, in the app and beyond it. If you keep the app, turn off app tracking: on an iPhone, go to Settings, then Privacy & Security, then Tracking. ComfiSkin has no ads and sells nothing, so it has no reason to track you at all.
What that means for you: what you search for about your skin becomes advertising data. In ComfiSkin, it stays on your phone.
What to do if you shop with Sephora
- Use the shop for buying, not for deciding. Its recommendations will always come from its own shelves.
- Check your own shelf first. A lot of “new” products do the same job as something you already own.
- Scan before you buy. ComfiSkin tells you whether a product suits your skin, fits your routine and doubles up with anything you have.
Sources
- State of California Department of Justice, “Attorney General Bonta announces settlement with Sephora as part of ongoing enforcement of California Consumer Privacy Act”, 24 August 2022. oag.ca.gov
- Sephora US on the App Store, App Privacy label. apps.apple.com
- Dark Reading, “Sephora offers monitoring services in wake of data breach”, 30 July 2019. darkreading.com
- Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, “Sephora’s biometric scandal”, 6 November 2023. jtip.law.northwestern.edu
- Drug Store News, on the launch of Sephora Skincare IQ. drugstorenews.com
- Marketing Dive, “Sephora’s Virtual Artist app now includes AI-powered color matching”, 2017. marketingdive.com
- Sephora on Google Play, data safety section. play.google.com
- Hunton Andrews Kurth, “First CCPA enforcement action settlement announced by California AG”, August 2022. huntonak.com
More comparisons
Check before you buy
See whether it suits your skin, and whether you need it at all.
- Free, all of itNo plans, trials or paywalls. Every feature, for everyone.
- No sign-upNo account, no email, no password to lose.
- No ads, no trackingNothing about you is sold, shared or followed around the web.
- Your notes stay on your phoneWith a password-protected backup that only you control.
- Never asks for your faceIt reads the label, not you.
- Answers for your skinYour skin type, concerns, avoid list and routine, every time.