Sephora Wants to Change More Than Your Appearance
The beauty industry has always influenced how people see themselves. Sephora is now asking whether it can also help change how people treat one another.
The LVMH-owned retailer has launched Project Hearts Not Hate, its first social cause introduced across all 37 of its markets. Developed with the American nonprofit Right To Be, the initiative addresses discrimination, harassment and exclusion based on physical appearance.
At the Paris launch, Sephora president and global CEO Guillaume Motte described the undertaking as a continuing commitment rather than a temporary campaign. Global Chief Marketing Officer Deborah Yeh said the company wanted to express its purpose through action rather than advertising.
The scale of the problem is documented in research commissioned by Sephora from Ipsos BVA. The study surveyed more than 20,000 adults in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Mexico, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.
According to the findings presented by Sephora, seven in ten respondents had experienced appearance-based discrimination, and almost half had experienced it during the preceding 12 months. Seventy-six percent said such treatment had caused them to change or restrict aspects of their daily lives, while 59 percent reported damage to their self-confidence.
The research also challenges the assumption that appearance-based hostility occurs primarily on anonymous digital platforms. In 42 percent of reported cases, the person responsible was personally known to the target; 88 percent of incidents occurred offline, including in streets, workplaces and homes.
Sephora and Right To Be have responded by developing H.E.A.R.T.S., a training program intended to teach employees and members of the public how to prevent, interrupt and respond to appearance-based harassment. Sephora has begun enrolling employees and says the wider program will launch in 2027.
The intervention is significant because the beauty business does not stand outside the problem it seeks to address. Advertising, retail and social media have historically elevated narrow standards of attractiveness while profiting from anxiety about bodies, age, skin, hair and difference.
A credible response must therefore reach beyond inclusive imagery. It requires measurable training, transparent reporting and a willingness to examine the commercial practices that create pressure in the first place.
Project Hearts Not Hate should be judged by what follows the launch: how many people receive the training, whether they feel able to intervene and whether Sephora applies the same principles to its own representations of beauty.
The initiative deserves attention because it places responsibility alongside aspiration. Beauty, in this formulation, is no longer only about what a company helps customers see in the mirror. It is also about the dignity with which people are seen by others.
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