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" ...The answer is yes. And here&amp;#039;s why we&amp;#039;re asking: According to the NY Daily News, Harlem woman Starkeema Greenidge, 28, alleges she contracted the virus when a rep for MAC Cosmetics applied a used tube of the Rihanna-inspired RiRi Woo lipstick to her lips at the singer&amp;#039;s recent concert at Brooklyn&amp;#039;s Barclays Center. &amp;quot;I wasn&amp;#039;t able to work for two weeks. It cost me a lot of money,&amp;quot; Greenidge, a waitress, told the Daily News on Wednesday. Now she&amp;#039;s suing MAC in Manhattan Supreme Court, saying: &amp;quot;The company should train its employees to use disposable tubes or swabs to apply the lipstick. This is going to happen over and over again if nothing is done.&amp;quot; But while the jury is still out on whether or not she got the virus from a tester at the concert, Greenidge is right in that you 1. can in fact contract the herpes simplex virus from a lipstick that&amp;#039;s been infected by it, and 2. that all beauty companies should be mindful of training their employees to use disposable tubes or swabs to apply lipstick to their customers. As consumers, we should also be looking out for ourselves, double-checking that the lipstick we&amp;#039;re about to put on wasn&amp;#039;t previously used by someone who may or may not have a contagious cold sore, for example! &amp;quot;In general, it&amp;#039;s a good rule of thumb to not use anyone else&amp;#039;s lipstick, toothbrush, what have you,&amp;quot; says Larry Beatty, M.D. &amp;quot;If you had chapped lips or a break in the skin and swipe on a lipstick that someone used that&amp;#039;s infected with the herpes simplex virus, then you&amp;#039;re more susceptible to contracting it. But even if your skin is 100 percent intact, it&amp;#039;s still not a guarantee that you&amp;#039;d be protected from getting it; there is still a degree of risk.&amp;quot; The best practices moving forward to avoid getting a cold sore of your own? Don&amp;#039;t pull a Starkeema and let a makeup rep swipe you with used lipstick. Instead, ask the sales associate at the beauty counter to shave off the top layer and use a cotton swab to apply the lipstick to your lips. And skip using your BFF&amp;#039;s or co-worker&amp;#039;s favorite color on your mouth, JIC. Photo: istockphoto Follow Carly Cardellino on Facebook and Twitter. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/style-beauty/beauty/how-to/a13064/can-you-contract-herpes-from-lipstick/>