My (horrible) Hautelook Experience

What is Hautelook?

"HauteLook is a member-only shopping website offering flash-sales and limited-time sale events with top brands in women's and men's fashion, jewelry and accessories, beauty products, kid's clothing and toys, and home décor."

Here is my first experience with this website. I am not trying to bash on them in any way. I wanted to share my experience because I've been hearing great things about this place, but then this happened. Has this happened to anyone else? 

Anyway, I made an account to see what the fuss was all about. I get emails from them about sales and then I spotted a "Morphe" sale. It definitely caught my attention because I've always wanted to try their palettes and brushes. I woke up early in the morning just to purchase the brushes (pictured above) and two palettes - 35T and 35K because it was such a good deal. My initial thought was, I'm going to have to wait a month for this package to come in because they did state that once the limited time sale event is over, Morphe will have to ship all the orders to their warehouse and then ship out the packages from there, so it'll take 2-3 weeks and I was hesitate at first, but then because of the good reviews and good deal, I gave in. 

I was just so excited to be able to purchase Morphe brushes and palettes for such a good deal that I didn't really think of any down sides. Until, when February came around, I was getting a bit worried about my package. I was checking on the order status, which never updated. Then 3 weeks past, still no update. I decided to search on Twitter about the Hautelook Morphe sale and a ton of girls were upset about their customer service and order as well. Every other day, I would look on Twitter to see if any other people got their packages, and sadly, their packages were all damaged. They took photos of their broken palettes and my heart went out to them. I was really, really hoping that my package did not come in that poor condition, but jokes on me. Unfortunately, it did. 

These photos were taken right when I opened the box. I was extremely disappointed. There no cushion of any kind inside the box. No "fragile" label on the box like how a package from Morphe would have it. There were thin bubble wrap inside palette box, but that did not withstand anything, of course. 

35T Palette

35K Palette

I was appalled. How can a website send such a shitty (excuse my language) package? Waiting for a little over a month with poor customer service is such a shame. I had to complain on Twitter to get their attention, which several represenative's direct messaged to get my situation resolved. They sounded very apologetic and I wasn't upset anymore. It was a bit frustrating. I just wanted to have new palettes or a refund. This is what one of the representative's told me...

"...Because the actual eye-shadow powders are in tact, we cannot completely refund you for the palettes, but we can offer you 20% off for each palette. If you wish to not keep the palettes, we can create a free return label for you so you may be fully refunded. We do not have any extra inventory as we order just the items purchased during the event..."

Fair enough. I decided a full refund because I did not pay for this. I wanted good quality products. So they created the free return label for me, which I printed out and will be shipping the broken palettes back to them.

All in all, I know I won't ever be purchasing from Hautelook anytime soon, especially makeup products. I'd rather save my money and buy from the actual brand website. Good sale or not, at least have a good shipment and product packaging.