Sephora VIB Rouge Beauty Before Brunch Event for Beauty Insider Appreciation Week

To kick off "Beauty Insider Appreciation Week," Sephora hosted one of their infamous VIB Rouge closed door shopping events.  If you're VIB Rouge, you may have gotten a paper mailer or an email with the invite earlier last week:

The last Rouge event I went to in Manhattan was actually quite awesome! However, these smaller shopping events usually leave much to be desired. I finally learned from past experiences and didn't show up at 9 in the morning, because really, it's Sunday. I threw on whatever and only put on sunscreen. The main 'draw' of the event was 4x points for Rouge members, and as we all know, Sephora points aren't really good for too much, unlike Ulta's rewards points. Not to mention I really didn't need or want much of anything (can you believe it?!) I figured I'd get something to get the goodie bag and be on my way.

I rolled in at about 10 AM and was greeted at the door, was given a name tag and a shopping basket. I was offered a chance to sign up for skincare or makeup consultations and I declined. I noticed representatives from the following brands at my Sephora - Boscia, Tarte, Benefit, and Stila. There may have been more, but those were the ones that I was able to pick out or that spoke with me. I had never seen a Boscia rep at an event before, so that was pretty cool. 

I had gone in wanting to swatch some of the new Kat von D Metal Crush eyeshadows, but unfortunately, only five of the ten shades were in, and I was interested in none of them. I wandered around and finally settled on the following items:

• Kat von D Ink Liner in Woolf
• Nudestix Clean Up Pencil
• Make Up For Ever Mist and Fix travel size (better price per mL than the big size!)

I opened up the sample bag and what do you know - it contained everything in the photo above. They went heavy on minis and kept it to the one Fresh foil (which I have minis of already!) Kudos to Sephora, I'm actually really pleased with this sample bag. I LOVE L'Occitane hand cream, so the mini is quite welcome, as well as the Formula X polish. Not a Benefit fan and we always seem to get Porefessional shoved at us, but at least they upped it to a mini and not a foil. Really, really pleased with the samples! I'd have just also loved a mini mascara, but hey, can't beat getting what you're shown in the photo!

Although Sephora seemingly did well, there was a drawback. Sephora put up the notice for the event early on their BeautyTalk forums, three days earlier than they sent out emails to all Rouge members. Because of this, some locations were already full when it came time for the general Rouge populace to RSVP for the event. I can see Sephora wanting to reward their forum Rouge members, but it seems a bit unfair to lock out those Rouge members who do not frequent BeautyTalk. We all spend the same baseline amount to make Rouge, so don't you think it should be made as equal as possible when it comes to going to the non-regional events? Just my thoughts on the matter.

Did you hit up the event? Happy with the samples? Miss the chance to RSVP? Tired of Rouge BS in general? Let me know!