For many people growing up in the 2000s, our source of makeup tutorials was limited to counter girls, a novice YouTube video filmed on someone’s mobile phone, or the web camera attached to their family computer. Though that has changed significantly in recent years, the need for counter girls has never gone away.
But what exactly is a ‘counter girl’? A counter girl, though not limited to just females, is someone that works on a beauty counter within a retailer such as Boots and John Lewis. Boots was founded in 1849 and is the UK’s leading retailer for health and beauty. It is found on many high streets throughout the UK (as of August 2023, there are 2514 stores throughout the country), and is the most commonly visited place to purchase makeup.
It had been a goal of mine to become a makeup artist. Except I had no prior training or education in beauty. I had an interview for the brand ‘B’* and was hired in July as a beauty assistant, set to start in November. During that 4-month period, I had no contact from ‘B’, that should have been the first warning sign. On my first day, the manager had no idea who I was; the person who had hired me was no longer with the company.
After some back and forth with upper management, I joined the team. Within 2 weeks of working for them, my manager left. I and one other beauty assistant was left to try and run the counter by ourselves. In hindsight, this should have been my indicator to leave too, but I stuck around for 2 more years.
I must have looked like a deer in headlights because the girls from the other beauty counters would always offer their help, all of whom had previously worked for ‘B’. Despite being a part time worker for the first 6 months, I was pushed into the manager role, upper management still required someone to send them their weekly reports and takings. At this point, I had received minimum training on how to do the basics of my job, and no training on the management aspect. The glamourous job I had signed up for had become a bleak reality very quickly. A key component of my job was waxing facial hair. I was given 1 week of intensive training, that was meant to be certified; 6 years later, I am still waiting for that certification.
The burn scar that was left on my face is proof of that training session.
This was a brand that had a young target audience, people between the ages of 13-22 years old. However, this was not reflected in the pricing of their products. In the brief time I was there, I watched the brand have 4 price increases making it unrealistic for their target audience to purchase anything. This meant that we were unable to hit our target sales goal for the day and would face questioning from higher management as to why we couldn’t make sales. If there was a customer in the shop, they expected us to go out, find them and bring them back to our counter to sell them makeup – there was no excuse to not hit target.
I once had a customer ask me where they could find nail polish, something that ‘B’ does not sell, I let her know where to find it. The area manager happened to be there and pulled me up on it asking why I didn’t show her something from ‘B’. I felt dumbfounded, how could I?
She decided to role play the situation to show me how:
‘Hi, do you know where I can find some nail polish?’
‘Of course, I can take you there in a moment but why don’t you have a seat first and try out our new mascara?’
Now this interaction has never made sense to me; why would I offer someone a seat to forcefully show them something that they have not shown any interest in?
It made both me and the customer very uncomfortable.
Working in the retail industry, you can become remarkably close to other counter girls, make life-long friends. These people are people you see more than your own family. I went back to interview a few ex-employees of ‘B’ and got their insight on how their time with the brand was.
– Trigger warning: miscarriage and death –
‘G’ said: ‘One of my girls had a miscarriage and then got pregnant again and understandably didn't want to train far from home. They eventually accommodated her, but the regional manager basically said, ‘well I had a miscarriage, and she needs to get on with it.’, my team member filed a grievance report against her.’.
‘J’ added that during a visit from an area manager, a part timer received a call that her nan had passed. The young girl was understandably distraught and wanted to go home to which the area manager had said, ‘I know you're sad and I'm so sorry about your nan but I'm sure she wouldn't want you to risk losing your job because of an unauthorised absence. Why don't you go, and traffic stop and bring a customer over it will take your mind off it?’.
‘[Area manager] called me and told me if I didn’t start hitting my goal I should look for another job. I was 20 years old in my first beauty job. I cried on the shop floor.’ – ‘H’
Girls would cry when area managers would visit, the trauma faced by those working for that brand pushed them all to leave. Each one of us left and worked for other brands that respected and supported their staff, no other brand treated us the way ‘B’ had. All of the girls I interviewed had the same thing to say, ‘they are so pushy and treat the staff so badly, with extreme pressure and never any appreciation. Never get a well done for good work just constantly what you can do better. I’d never work for them again and I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone as a company to work for.’.
Retuning as a customer is a gruelling task, as soon as you near a counter, the workers swarm to you, bees drawn to nectar. With a smile that doesn’t quite reach their eyes, they use all the keywords to push a product and it’s incredibly frustrating, but I can’t be mad at them. They are simply doing as they are told to, sell products, meet targets and make commission.
Beauty standards are constantly rising, but the treatment of staff has never been of significance. Brands just want to make money even at the cost of the mental health of workers. Theses experiences have taught us that our mental well-being is worth more than trying to appease people for a multi-million-pound company.