After Singer's Claim, Sephora to Shut All Stores Wednesday

If you're wondering this Wednesday why the doors of your local Sephora are shut, it may be partly tied back to a tweet from an R&B singer. At the end of April, SZA (real name Solana Rowe) was shopping at a Sephora in Calabasas, Calif., when she says she was racially profiled by an employee she nicknamed "Sandy Sephora," per NBC News. "Lmao Sandy Sephora location 614 Calabasas called security to make sure I wasn't stealing," SZA tweeted. "We had a long talk. U have a blessed day Sandy." Sephora publicly apologized to SZA the next day and said it was "committed to ensuring every member of our community feels welcome and included at our stores."

It may seem that's partly what led to the Wednesday closing of every Sephora store, distribution center, and office across the country, all to allow employees to take part in what the chain is calling "inclusion workshops" as part of its new "We Belong to Something Beautiful" campaign. "Sephora believes in championing all beauty, living with courage, and standing fearlessly together to celebrate our differences," a video post on the company's Facebook page notes. However, a Sephora spokeswoman tells Reuters the workshops were planned for "months," the campaign overall was in the works for at least a year, and the store closures were not "a response to any one event." (More Sephora stories.)