Beauty Insider: Sephora University's Bare Escentuals Night

It's been about a year since I signed up for Sephora's Beauty Insider program, and I'm really glad to be a part of it. You get recommendations based on your skin type and eye color (it keeps telling me I should buy green shadow because I have hazel eyes -- trust me, I know, Ms. Matchy Thing), special insider-only products, a birthday gift (last year it was Bliss body cream, this year it's a Sephora cupcake-scented shower gel), and bonus deluxe samples every time your product history total is over $100. (For example, the most recent samples were a mini-Benetint, a small Bliss The Youth As We Know It, and... something else. I chose Youth As We Know It.)

But what I've really been waiting for has been the special VIP access to events and parties and things like that. Yes, having a tracklist of my products is awesome (if humbling, sometimes), but I've been waiting to be invited to something.

So when the invite to Sephora University's first event -- a master class with Bare Escentuals' CEO, Leslie Blodgett -- came into my inbox, I was on the phone signing up as soon as I read it. I am a big believer in "say yes so they keep asking you to things", so obviously I wanted in on this (and future events).

They fed us cheese and wine (I had a glass of Sofia blanc des blancs -- a can is a little more than a regular wine glass; it was surprisingly tasty for wine-in-a-can!) and seated us at tables for six, with one Sephora or BE expert heading up each table.

The main focus of the event was to point out the new Get Started: Eyes, Cheeks, Lips collections that were recently released; they were created to help BE users figure out what colors suit them. You know, the whole, "I've got my foundation match, but what colors should I use??" thing. So they demonstrated how to use the colors and put the boxes on the tables so we could play with them.

In addition to showing us these products, Leslie also revealed a couple of products that will be released later this year. While I didn't get to look at the boxes (they never came to our table, boooo), the descriptions were pretty cool and I can tell you that one of them will definitely suit those of you looking for a darker eye look, and the other will definitely be a crowd-pleaser if you're into BE.

So after we went around the table and got to play with the provided make-up and brushes, we were ushered into a room where laptops were set up for us to order what we wanted. Ah, yes. For getting in, you had to pay $25 to hold your spot, but that $25 was magically turned into an eGift Certificate which you could redeem That Night Only. And so I ordered the Light-to-Medium colors kit for my mom, since she loves Bare Escentuals and Mother's Day is coming up, then my color-match powder (Medium Beige, holla) and a brush for me. (And a whole ton of extra goodies, like my samples, my newest Beauty Insider sample, and my birthday shower gel.)

Would I go to another Sephora University event? Sure! I think I might wait and see what brands are coming; while I like Bare Escentuals, it's definitely my mom's favorite brand, so I mostly went for her. If it's a brand that I really love, like BeneFit or DuWop (both of which I've gone to smaller Sephora events for) or Tarte or Stila, for sure I'd go. But the location was awesome (a block away from the Embarcadero MUNI/BART station), the event was nicely handled (although I would have liked to have been warned that there would be filming/photographs -- I purposefully didn't wear make-up so that I'd be makeover ready, and there were camera guys EVERYWHERE), and while we all knew that we were there for the "hey, this brand is cool and you should buy it", it was a little odd to get the order form right in our swag bag. (At least, I felt so. Maybe it's just because I'm not used to filling out actual paper order forms anymore?)

Speaking of swag, what did I get? We got a slant blush brush (woo!), face color in Bare Radiance (which I am wearing today), a Sephora brush belt (awesome!), a make-up bag, a cell phone mirror (??), and lots of pamphlets and such, as well as a pen, a Sephora University pencil, a notepad, and a Sephora University water bottle (wooo! I am taking this to the gym today). And alas, I was not one of the four raffle winners (boo!), but maybe next time?

I'm looking forward to seeing what else Sephora has planned for its new Sephora University events! Next time, I will probably wear make-up there because the camera guys are totally everywhere... and Sephora provided wipes. Clever, clever, clever. I should have known they'd be prepared!

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