The Rudest, Grossest Things Customers Do, According To Beauty Store Staff

If you’ve walked around a big beauty store when it’s busy, you may have experienced the chaos that employees face daily. They often have to deal with annoying issues, from returns of expired products to people using unsanitised testers and “Sephora babies” raiding the store for Drunk Elephant skin care.HuffPost spoke to three past and current employees who work in big beauty retailers – and they shared the most entitled things customers do in stores. Are you guilty of these? The most entitled “I can’t believe they just did that” behaviour Often, customers think it’s OK to open products not marked as testers to try them on, but that’s not the worst employees have to deal with. “I once watched a 40-plus-year-old woman squeeze a tube of foundation out onto the display and smear it around like she was finger painting in art class. I was stunned,” said Sophia Burow, who worked at a beauty retailer for three years.“Another time, a couple came in with their 5-year-old son, who ran around unsupervised for two hours, destroying anything he could get his hands on. Entire eyeshadow palettes were scratched out, and a bottle of body oil was sprayed onto the floor. It took us hours to clean everything up,” Burow said.Customers can get abusive, said NJ, who has been working at a beauty retailer for two years (they asked to go by their initials to protect their privacy). Once, a shopper forcibly took an object from NJ’s hands.“I once saw a customer expose their full breast at the MAC counter to swatch a nude lipstick, so they could shade match it to their nipple,” saidBM, who has been working at a beauty retailer for four years (and also prefers to use their initials for privacy reasons).“There was also a customer who sprayed a Snif fragrance in their mouth because they wanted to see if it tasted as good as it smells,” said BM, and finally, “multiple customers have attempted to use display brushes to do their full makeup; the ones that are bolted to the display, and they tore them off”.Think about how many people before you have put this on their face.The big issue with testersOne of the worst things employees see in store daily is the use (and misuse) of testers. “I have seen horrific things done to testers,” Burow said. “People sneezing on them, babies teething on them, I even caught a person eating a few [testers] once. That was an interesting conversation.”In reality, if the employees aren’t informed that a shopper wants to use a tester, they aren’t always sanitised from one customer to the next. “Despite employees’ best efforts to keep everything clean and up to store standards, testers will always be a risky venture in terms of sanitation,” said Burow.“People smear testers straight on their face, and it gets quite bad. Our No. 1 problem are the skin smoothies from Drunk Elephant,” said NJ. “A good 90% of customers I see in store still try to smear products directly on their face,” agreed BM.“I would recommend that shoppers only swatch products on their hands and then clean them well afterwards,” BM said. “Never use any product intended for the eye area or lip area [directly on your face].” It’s even worse for items with a sponge-tip applicator, like the popular Charlotte Tilbury wands, which are nearly impossible to sanitise properly. “I would not be surprised if the [used testers] are collecting mould, I wouldn’t even swatch them on my skin,” BM added.“There is never any shame in asking to have a tester cleaned, or even using a bottle of alcohol and cleaning it yourself if the store is busy. Trust me on this!” Burow said.Here’s what BM recommends: “Swatch a colour product on a tissue rather than your own skin, and if you must try it on your skin, use the provided sanitary applicators, or partner with an associate to see if they can sanitise it before using it.”Abuse of the return policyEmployees often see people try to return half-used products, which some stores’ 30-day return policies essentially allow – but some people take advantage of it and go too far.“Someone returned what was supposed to be a 3.4-ounce Viktor & Rolf fragrance, and by the time the customer left, we realised it was a different-sized fragrance in the box,” said NJ.“I’ve seen people use half a product and try to return it, and also customers attempting to put a product in the bottle or packaging of another product,” BM said. Again, at certain stores it’s within the customer’s right to return a product within a 30-day window; however, there are some exceptions.Half-used products or products that have been overly used may not be suitable for return. Most times, people don’t mind when being told that. “There is never any shame in returning something that just didn’t work, even if you’ve used it,” Burow said. “Be mindful that when you return a product, there’s always an associate in the back who has to completely destroy that product before it is disposed of, to help ward off dumpster divers.”“I had someone try to return a lipstick from 2017… in 2019. She could not fathom how it had been that long and insisted I was lying just to inconvenience her,” said Burow. “She also came in 10 minutes before closing time and kept me at the register 34 minutes past closing. To make things worse, I was also the shift lead at that time, so nothing else could be done until I was finished with her,” Burow said.The one rule employees wish every shopper would follow All three employees we spoke to shared similar feelings when it comes to customers in the store. Hygiene and politeness go a long way. “Treat the employees (and the products) the same way you’d like to be treated,” NJ said.“Simply remember, you’re not the only one that shops here; people have used a product before you and will use it after you. The personal hygiene and safety of yourself and associates alike is within your control,” BM said.“Treat the testers and products in the store the same way you would treat them at home. You wouldn’t dig your fingers in your highlighter or let your baby drool on your lipstick. So why is the cosmetic store any different?” Burow said. Related...This £15 Sunscreen-Primer Is The 1 Beauty Product I Can't Live WithoutIs This 100-Year-Old Beauty Hack Really 'Botox In A Sticker'?This Skincare I'd Never Heard Of Gave Me The Smoothest Skin Of My Life

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