Notice how most makeup counter salespeople wear white lab coats or all black (typical makeup artist attire)? This is a planned scheme to convince you they are “experts,” says a former counter worker. Fact is, they’re anything but. Makeup counter workers are trained in sales, not product knowledge.

According to our source, this means that they “make stuff up” or share their “limited experience” of what they do know. And “most beauty advisors know a little more than what the average woman does about beauty,” she says.