Sephora's Personal Beauty Advisor is All About You

As a Sephora VIB, I received an email last week thanking me for being a loyal VIB and inviting me to experience a dedicated 90-minute PERSONAL BEAUTY ADVISOR (PBA) CONSULTATION ($125 VALUE). This one-on-one session includes a custom makeover, personalized skincare routine, and more. Although I have been a VIB for a while I was not familiar with this service. I had to speak with my store's PBA whose name is Emily Branska at the 711 Lexington Avenue store in NYC.

Private Consultation Station at Sephora

I spoke first with Emily over the phone prior to my appointment. She was super sweet on the phone and seemed very interested in learning more about me and my current beauty/skincare routine. She asked me very detailed questions about my skincare routine, makeup routine, how long I spent doing both, what I used for my hair, my perfume preferences, and so much more. I liked the fact that she was asking such detailed questions because it made me feel like the consultation would be much more useful the better that she got to know my habits and routine. I had my appointment with her today and wanted to share my experience with you all and tell you a little bit more about the program. It is open to anyone shopping at Sephora, not just VIB's. You do have to purchase $125 of products but I don't think that would be hard if you are a Sephora lover.

Private Cosultation Station

I arrived at Sephora at 10 a.m. and Emily was there waiting for me. She brought me choices of bottled water or sparkling water and also offered me some candy. That's such a nice touch to have. She had a special area of the store set up for my consultation. I noticed when I got there that she had out a lot of the new holiday palettes from Stila, Tarte, and Anastacia. She also had already selected some skincare to try out on me based on our phone consultation. It was nice that she had done some preparation and really listened to what I had said on the phone.

Private Consultation Station

We started out with skincare and went through what she recommenced for my morning and night routine. I told her I wanted brightening and more evenness in my skintone. Since I'm very big into skincare we spent a lot of time talking about this. Here is what she recommended for my normal/combination/dehydrated skin.

Morning Routine

No cleanser
Clarins Toning Lotion, $21 (plan to purchase)
FRESH Seaberry Moisutrzing Face Oil (purchased), $50
Shiesedo White Lucent Intensive Spot Targeting Serum (purchased), .5 oz is $68
Shiesedo White Lucent Brightening Moisturizing Emulsion (purchased), $59.50
Shiesedo Urban Environment Oil-Free UV Protector SPF 42 PA+++ Sunscreen (purchased), $30

Nighttime Routine

Clarins Cleansing Milk, $30 (already had)
Clarins Toning Lotion, $21
FRESH Seaberry Moisutrzing Face Oil (purchased), $50
Shiesedo White Lucent Intensive Spot Targeting Serum (purchased), .5 oz is $68
Shiesedo White Lucent Brightening Moisturizing Emulsion (purchased), $59.50


Some other things we talked about were to use the Dr. Dennis Gross peel once a week or so, the new Korres Overnight Sleeping Mask once a week, and the Rose Fresh mask once a week. Also once a month she mentioned doing the Ole Henricksen peel 3 step system. I got a sample of the Ole Henricksen to try out which I'll probably do tomorrow night. Some other things that she recommended were the Dr. Perricone Vitamin C Ester 15 and the Caudalie Premier Cru Eye Cream. I'm really interested in these products but would like to use up a few things before I purchase them. I also plan to use my clarisonic a few nights a week with a foaming cleanser and precleanse with my Boscia oil beforehand.

FRESH Seaberry Moisturizing Face Oil

Korres Radiance Revealed Wild Rose Brightening Duo 

Shiseido White Lucent Spot Corrector Expert Set

Shiseido Urban Environment Oil-Free UV Protector SPF 42 PA++++

Sample of Ole Henriksen 3 Step Treatment

Next we went out to makeup, at this point its already been over an hour so she really did spend a ton of time with me. We had a lot of fun experimenting with different things. I found out that the trends this Fall/Winter are glowy skin, dark eyebrows, and dark lipstick. She pulled a lot of nice products from Hourglass, Stila, Guerlian, Bare Minerals, MUFE, and so many other brands. Really a nice variety. We did on one eye a purple smokey eye and the other a green eye. I told her that I wanted to learn how to better use my eye shadow colors. She suggested that I contact her to come back for a separate consultation where I could bring in my eye shadows and we could play around with different looks. I am excited to do this since I have such a variety of eye shadow from Burberry, MAC, Inglot, Laura Mercier, Urban Decay, WetnWild, Maybelline, and so much more. I would like to figure out how to work them all together.

We also went over some hair concerns at the end which was really helpful. We finished up around 12:30. The consultation is only supposed to be 90 minutes but she spent about 2 1/2 hours with me. I thought that was very generous of her. During our consultation I also mentioned the whole issue with the Friends & Family sale. She was nice enough to share with me one of her cards so that I could get 20% off. I was able to then pick up a lot of the products that we tried out today and get a nice discount. Emily, my PBA also gave me a full size shampoo and full size conditioner from Ojon as well as some samples from AmorePacifica. I'll do a collective haul on all of my purchases in a separate post.

AmorePacifica Samples

Ojon Shampoo & Conditioner Full Sized Samples

Overall this was just a great experience for me and I'm really glad that I was able to connect with Emily. She will  keep a personal file on me with the products I purchase, what I like and dislike, and I can go in to try out new products with her. She is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to the products at Sephora, skincare, and makeup.

The only negative and this is just my personal opinion is that I would have liked everything written down for me. I felt like it was a lot of information to take in all at once and having it written down would have been helpful. Especially the skincare routine. I'm sure if I would have asked she would have done it for me so that's a very minor thing but something that I did want to mention.

I really wanted to do this post because this was a service that I was not familiar with and wanted to share with you what is it all about.  So here are the details on the Personal Beauty Advisor program and how you can get in touch with Emily if you want to book an appointment.

"Shop, talk, ask, and learn about makeup, skin, hair, nails, and fragrance in this dedicated 90-minute session with a Personal Beauty Advisor. It's a 360 degree approach to beauty-where you discover all the products bet suited for you, plus, get a new look with a makeup application." You get a personalized beauty profile where they will keep track of your preferences and products that are perfect for you, first look at new products, handpicked product recommendations, access to your very own expert, gift giving made easy.

It is 90 minutes, a minimum purchase of $125 is required, and is only available at select Sephora locations by appointment only. To book your appointment with Emily at the Lexington Ave. store in NYC you can call 646-521-2200. If you would like to, you can let her know that I sent you. I don't know if Sephora has any type of referral service for this but I honestly 100% really enjoyed this and whether or not they do I still highly recommend it. This appointment really made me feel like I was getting very personal time with a Sephora expert and that no one else was really in the store but me. It's like a personal shopping experience for Sephora. I will be for sure going back to visit Emily. If any of you have ever had this service I would love to hear more about your experience and your thoughts.

xx
Meredith

**All thoughts and opinons in this post are my own and although I did receive some samples from Sephora this in no way has any affect on my opinion or review of this service. My opinions are always my own and 100% honest.