Free Republic

A California mom-of-three has been accused of masterminding an organized crime ring that stole nearly $8 million worth of makeup from stores like Ulta, T.J. Maxx and Walgreens — and then re-sold it online to churn a profit. Michelle Mack, 53, ran the sprawling enterprise from her $2.75 million, 4,500-square-foot mansion in the San Diego foothills, according to authorities. Mack allegedly paid as many as 12 women to steal from stores across the country, stockpiling the hot goods and then selling them on her Amazon storefront at a fraction of the retail price, according to authorities, NBC San Diego reported....

A group of teenage girls were caught on camera allegedly testing dark makeup to do blackface inside a Boston Sephora, with a staffer slamming their chaperone over the “incredibly offensive” act. The group of three girls were seen in a viral TikTok video trying the makeup testers at the Sephora store in the Prudential Center, with two of them covering their faces with cosmetics meant for darker skin tones. Temi Ojora, a University of Southern California track and field athlete who filmed the girls in the now-private video, described the scene as “genuinely so disgusted and disturbed.”

International makeup chain Sephora is implementing sweeping changes in its merchandising, marketing and employee training practices in one of the most public efforts by a major retailer to mitigate the potential for racial profiling and other discriminatory practices at its stores. The initiative announced Wednesday is the culmination of customer and employee surveys, interviews and academic research that have been underway since 2019. But issues around race and inequality took on new urgency following the summer’s Black Lives Matter protests and the police killing of George Floyd in May, executives said. The chain also has faced backlash from Black shoppers,...

Cosmetics retail chain Sephora will reportedly close all of its brick-and-mortar U.S. stores, distribution centers and corporate offices Wednesday for a company-wide diversity training program. The closures come after R&B music artist SZA, who is black, said in April she was racially profiled by employees at a Sephora store in Southern California, according to a Reuters report. In a post on Twitter about the incident, SZA said a Sephora employee she identified as “Sandy” called security to watch her and make sure she was not stealing. Sephora spokesperson Emily Shapiro told Reuters that the company-wide closures of Sephora stores is...

...Beginning today, Amazon plans to feature one original short film each week in a prominent spot on its home page for the next five weeks -- all commissioned by Amazon and available for free downloading by the site's visitors. The four-to-seven minute movies will star a variety of Hollywood actors in fictional stories fashioned loosely around a theme Amazon describes as "karmic balance;" characters, in essence, learn valuable life lessons.... Instead of a traditional advertising hard sell, the movies mark the escalation of an effort by Amazon to provide unique online content free of charge to its customers, some of...