In this highly competitive beauty industry, packaging is a major key to the success of product. So it’s a wonder why companies ever put a bad package on the shelf? On a recent trip to Sephora, I discovered a classic example of when a bad package happens to a great product. And the result was a prevented purchase.

What was to be a “quick ten minute once around,” with my sister-in-law grew into a research project three times as long. The shiny silver pump and 4 gorgeous pearlescent shades of the Clinique Up-Lighting Liquid Illuminators (blush/bronzer) mesmerized me. My outstretched hand grabbed Peach, popped the top and then struggled to actually make the pump depress. Suddenly, SPLAT!! Luminous cream the size of a nickel rested in my palm. It was enough to cover two entire faces, and then some.

The amount is wasteful and the mechanism should not be that difficult to operate. (For the record, I conducted a second test with another pump and got the same results.) While the consistency and color inside the tubes is brilliant on everyone, the package itself is the buying barrier.

So squirt at your own risk. (And for you brothers/husbands/boyfriends, if your sister/wife/girlfriend tells you she’ll be ten minutes, plan for thirty! Sorry Alan.)