Another Sephora Order Comes With Yet More Waste

I received another order from Sephora the other day. My order came in a cardboard box.

From the size of the box you're always expecting bigger items than you actually end up receiving.

Upon opening this box and removing the paper receipt and the mass of brown paper, the box appeared much too large for the order.

Why is this box so large? Surely a slightly smaller box at lease or a bubble wrap envelope could be used to mail this instead.

I only ordered three items, Ren Moroccan Rose Glow Perfect Dry Oil, Kate Somerville Eradikate, and Tarte’s liquid eyeliner called Sex Kitten. Everything else in the box was samples, either 100 point reward samples, the normal samples that come with each order, and bonus samples.

These are the only items I directly ordered.

The packaging of the three items that I ordered was mostly fine. I understand why the Ren and Eradikate products had boxes because the bottles were glass, so this was not superfluous packaging. I was confused as to why the Tarte eyeliner came in a box though. Why couldn’t it just have had a sealing sticker on the cap? I see this again and again with lipsticks, mascaras, concealers, etc.. We could reduce the amount of packaging that we produce in the realm of cosmetics by getting rid of these boxes that serve no purpose other than looking "pretty." Why not just stick a plastic seal or sticker over the cap of these items so that people can tell if they have been used or not when they receive them? I don't think that most people would object to these redundant boxes disappearing.

Why do we need these cardboard boxes? Put a sticker seal on the eyeliner cap and reduce packaging.

Some of the samples came with an incredible amount of packaging, for instance Tatcha The Water Cream, which was in a box about three times too big and the sample of Atelier Cologne Sud Magnolia perfume which came as a glass vial with a postcard inside a paper envelope.

This tiny jar does not need this giant box.

Does a little perfume sample in a vial need a postcard and a paper envelope?

So, from ordering three items, I ended up with ten items. And a bunch more packaging. Overpackaging strikes again. . . .

From ordering three items to receiving ten and all the packaging that comes with each item.