How clean are beauty testers?

All department stores have rows of different eyeshadows, lipsticks, blush, mascara, and other beauty products waiting for you to test them out.

But honestly, how clean can hey be after they’ve been sitting there daily for a while collecting dust, germs, and even worse: fecal matter… tiny bits of poop from those who don’t wash their hands after going. >:(

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photo credit: Idhren

It is a fact that only about 80-85% of people actually wash their hands after using public bathrooms.

All department stores should offer plastic applicators to offer their customers, but sometimes fingers are used. It’s definitely better than applying directly from the bottle or container, but it can still cause problems. Serious infections can be spread from sharing cosmetics between women like  pink eye,e-coli and herpes (ocular herpes, it’s real). If a woman has a cut on her lip and tests out a lipstick shade at a store directly from the tube and five minutes later another woman tries on the same lipstick, there’s a chance the second woman will get a herpes blister on her lip soon after (quoted from an LA times article). Same goes for if she didn’t wash her hands and touched the lipstick, the second lady would ingest small fecal particles. Gross right? Most often than not, those beauty store testers are usually hoarding germs, bacteria, dust and occasionally infections.

If you must use the tester products be sure to use the plastic applicators, wash it off soon after and avoid getting it in your eyes, mouth, or nostrils. Then again, is it really worth it? What are your thoughts on this topic?!

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photo credit: XcBiker