Beauty Board Is Sephora's Shoppable Instagram

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Every Monday is Cyber Monday! Welcome to Racked SF's weekly series that highlights the fashion and retail apps emerging from the Bay Area.

Social shopping is on the rise—although it's hardly a new thing. But now, thanks to the likes of Instagram, Pinterest, and (even) Reddit, we're looking way outside our immediate circle of friends for product recommendations. And now there's a social shopping site specific to SF-based Sephora's beauty offerings. It's called Beauty Board and it links user-generated selfies to the various products needed to recreate the looks. By fall, these photos will also be featured on the product pages, according to Fashionista. It's very à la Free People and its user-generated content program that has directly contributed to a 42 percent improvement in sales this year.

Beauty Board is a handy tool for discovering make-up and hair products (and styling tips)—or at least, it will be once there are more contributors and content. So while it may not be the best tool to find the perfect shade of burgundy lipstick for your skin tone right now, take that as a cue to start contributing and establishing a high-trust rating well ahead of the rest. Because if there's anything to be learned from the early days of SF/Silicon Valley social media startups (i.e. Twitter, Instagram, etc.), it's that it never hurts to be an early adopter. So go forth and create—we'll all be watching and buying.
· Sephora Beauty Board [Official Site]
· All Cyber Monday posts [Racked SF]