Hello to all of you beautiful nerds and welcome back from traveling the vast nerd universe! I’m back with a new topic that came to me.

MakeUp Stores Stopping Testers!

That is today’s topic because I saw on my Newsfeed on Facebook that someone posted about how Sephora and Ulta are stopping store testers alongside the link to the article. I did take a read and this is what I think!

Disclaimer: This post is based on thoughts and opinions of the writer of this blog. Please respect her thoughts on the topic at hand. Thank you!

All thanks to what has been going on in the world with Covid19 and how the stores are starting to slowly open up and letting customers back into their locations even if it’s not more than ten or so at a time but one thing is that someone wants to do is try out a new foundation they have been eyeing on online and want to try it in store. Once they get in and head over to the counter or the shelves where it may be there are no testers. Why is that? Well, stores are putting customers’ safety first especially with the pandemic we have gone through for the past few months and thinking of removing the testers due to how they are a petry dish for bacteria to form. This includes foundations, concealers, mascaras, and even lip products since those carry the most infectious diseases on display.

If you remembered my story with what had happened to me at NYX, if you’re new here I will tell it again. During 2017 and still living with my parents, I went to one of the NYX locations in town and decided to try out the Alabama lipstick since I heard good things about it and it was a dupe for the Sephora liquid lipstick that was in the same color. The associate who was helping me hands the tube and I look at it in my peripheral and she asks, “Do you want to swatch it on your lips or hand?” I just froze because I have heard a horror story about testers causing infections and then swatched on my hand and it fit my skin. Got a fresh tube and a few more items and did my transaction and left. I was kind of annoyed because the associate could have harmed me with the lipstick if I did swatch it on my lips. Heck, even Sephora got sued that same year for a woman getting Herpes from trying out a lipstick in store. And of course with today’s pandemic the lips, the eyes, and nose are the biggest parts of the face where a disease can go and that is why we got the messages to wash our hands and use hand sanitizer all this time and seeing why that testers may be removed.

Yes, these things are part of the experience and the product should be tried out before buying but do you really want to risk it? Heck, even people have been risking it by using the mascara wand directly on their eye and even lip glosses on their lips but now that won’t be the case. That would go for perfumes too because your fingers are touching the bottle and you have to clean that bottle off after the person touched it. Besides the testers this would also cause the makeup artists in store be more careful with products when they are doing someone’s makeup for events and may go the same way with freelance artists too since products do have to be cleaned and sanitized plus you do have the disposable wands to use for mascara tubes.

Going back to testers and knowing that they are important for the experience I think brands should jump in and change the idea of testing and I am using this as a good example. To me brands should make sample cards with foundations ranging from light to dark, going the same with their concealers, blushes, and even lip products and send them to stores and explain to the customer to use this to match themselves and purchase the product online or come back with the match. It worked with Pretty Vulgar and Becca Cosmetics when they have sent BoxyCharm cards with samples of their concealer and foundation for Charmers to try out and answer surveys with their match to get that product in a future box. I got one of the Becca cards since I prefer trying new foundations and was able to match myself with Cashmere in the shades and got a bottle of this foundation. It worked out because it saved me time from trying to have a store associate going through samples and did it safely from home and having this cards for stores can do the same thing but who knows if it will be implemented or people are going to complain about the lack of testers.

Which brings up another point, with the experience part of it there are going to be people that may break into the products on display since that has been a big issue even before the pandemic happened. I have seen YouTube videos of former Sephora employees talking about customers breaking into gift sets to try out that ever-so-famous charcoal peel-off mask and other times customers go into the foundation drawers which they’re not supposed to and it also happened at MAC a couple of times too. Hearing these stories make me wonder if people don’t want to look at the display would they get into the product more? That can be even more risky because the item does get compromised and can’t be sold once it’s broken into. I remembered seeing this happen once when there used to be a Kmart near my parents’ place and a girl went up to one of the displays and opened the product and took it out of there and who knows what had happened to it. Plus some of my YouTube personalities have experienced while shopping for a foundation or a mascara or lip item that some of them were opened and swatched and like earlier that can have something going into it and build up over time if left on the display until an associate sees it. This does lead to tossing the product afterward because since it is broken into that would lose money and of course throw it out because the store doesn’t want to cause an uproar if someone gets sick. Which also brings to another point.

How stores throw away items when they are returned! I know this is about samples and testers but bringing this up is also important because some people have seen a video of an Ulta employee poking out eye shadows with a sharp instrument before throwing them away and this was a pallet that was returned by the way. Reason being is that when an item is returned after being swatched or partially used it has to be destroyed and tossed out. If they were placed on the rack again people will be more at risk because they don’t know what the previous customer may have had Covid 19 or not and in order to destroy the returned product keeps germs away and also discourages anyone from dumpster diving for it too. Remember how some people have done that at Ulta locations in the past? Best to just buy a new item anyways and just save yourself from being infected.

Conclusion: So, what will happen with ending these testers? It’s hard to say because it can be a safety thing since we don’t know who has passed by and what they may have and if they had Corona in the first place. I think stores want to keep their customers as safe as possible and don’t want to go through issues if it were to happen. What I’m worried about is that there is going to be someone who may break into a product though and leave it after testing it since that can happen. I would prefer if the brands would do the sampling cards because it can be done safely and once the card is used and the shade is matched it’s thrown away in the person’s home versus being at risk in the store and the store will still get it sale online or in person. And also towards mascaras, I didn’t get to mention, good idea is to watch reviews on it before buying because YouTube is a good source for reviews and of course you have customers posting them almost every day and month to express their experience. People have gotten sties and I don’t want that to happen either. So, in the end it will be interesting to see how this change will happen and how effective it would be. Yes some people will be annoyed if they can’t get a foundation or concealer tested but keeping that safety is important.

Well, that is it for this post! I know it was a bit rambly but at the same time trying to talk about the topic at hand and seeing what protocols are being in place as things are starting to open up again and trying to get back to a somewhat normal. Well guys, stay beautiful!