You can and should be asking your beauty counter salespeople to try samples of products before you buy them, but do know that they are taking note of how much you are "sampling" and how much you are actually buying.
"I would give them about two to three days worth [of product], not more than that. I am not supplying their skin care, I am just letting them touch, feel and smell," says one former counter worker. But she warns "some beauty advisors have an on-going mysterious hostility with their customers and will not waste product on someone who won't buy."
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They keep their mouths shut
There are certain things brands won't want to tell you about the product if you don't know to ask about it, says one beauty counter veteran. If an ingredient in a product you are interested in "has scared the public," like for example the media scare over parabens, the salesperson won't mention the present ingredient when selling it to you, she warns.
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They talk about you behind your back
Think once you leave the department store you are forgotten about? Think again. "If we get a particularly weird customer we may laugh about it for weeks," says one former makeup artist. "I used to have my family in stitches at dinner telling them the customer stories of the day. There are weird people out there!" she says and that was the "only fun we [could] have sometimes."
Picture this: You're walking though Macy's on a lazy Saturday afternoon. You're not particularly looking to buy anything -- you just wanted to peruse the shoe aisle or see what's on sale in the handbag department.
But then, you walk by a makeup counter and a smiling face flashes you a new "gift with purchase" promotional deal. BOOM. Just like that, you no longer care about shoes, bags or anything else, and you're chit chatting with "Melissa" about your crow's feet.
Sound familiar? It happens to the best of us. For anyone that appreciates makeup, the beauty counter has a magnetism that's hard to ignore. All those gorgeous makeup products laid out for your conspicuous consumption just beg you to buy, don't they?
But while everything on and behind the makeup counter looks harmless and the salespeople seem as though they're looking out for your best interest, the smart consumer has to wonder: Is it all too good to be true? What's real and what's fake behind the beauty counter business? Or better yet, what secrets are the brands behind these counters keeping from you in order to make you continue to come back and spend more?
To find out, we asked real women who work or have worked behind the counter in department stores across the country to spill the beans on what's free and what isn't, what's a marketing ploy and what's real, what they really think about customers, and much, much more.
