Anyone work in beauty retail? How can people sample make up in store safely?

[worldsworststepfordwife]

Just that my teen daughter mentioned she would treat herself to new bronzer once the shops open I mentioned you’ll have to test it first as it’s spendy but she said I’ll not be able to test

I said I’d check on here there’s bound to be someone in beauty retail who will know how it’ll all work next month

Space NK day that they will sanitise the sample pot, use disposable sticks to get the product out, then sample it afterwards. Cosmetics might be different and your DD might be right - no sampling first.

My cousin is a nurse and works with cosmetic products used for medical purposes, including make-up to cover scars. She has been working remotely but the clinic where she works has been taking some patients since about a week ago. I asked her this same question.

She said they keep the sample pots out of customer reach and she or a colleague gives the client a spatula with some product on. Also, as usual they will put some product from a spatula into a tiny pot if it's something the customer / patient will want to try on over a few days or after bathing, before sleeping, etc.

I imagine on the high street there will have to be some norms, and I hope retailers and customers follow them. We may see a difference between the upscale brands with counters giving hygienic samples (like above) and perhaps the more bargain products being sold sealed. Then I guess they will see how customers respond and tweak the process (or lobby the government to tweak the process) so their sales are not affected negatively.

I suppose it could work in places like department stores and Space NK when there's a higher staff to customer ratio.

I went to Boots the other day just looking for a standard lipstick, but they were all sealed, no testers and signs saying that you weren't to touch anything unless you were going to buy it. So I just couldn't buy anything...

I think shops like that might have to come up with something different, but I don't know what!

They will have to start stocking mini testers of the products, and either letting people have them for free or charging a token amount for them. I would rather pay 50 pence a few times for testers I can take away than stand in the aisle getting other people's finger germs all muddled up with what I'm putting on anyway. But I don't use testers. I only buy fairly cheap products and I tend to make an educated guess on colours. I have bought a couple of dud lipsticks this way, but otherwise pretty smooth sailing so probably only wasted about £30 in the two decades I've been wearing makeup