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Touchy-Feely Jobs for Touchy-Feely People

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Reach out and touch someone — for a living.

(Photo Credit: David Robert Wright/Flickr)

“Face feeler” is a real job. A face feeler is paid by the company to feel the faces of other people right after they have used specific skin products, such as soaps, lotions, or razors.

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One Professional Face Feeler

In “Odder Jobs: More Portraits of Unusual Occupations,” author Nancy Rica Schiff introduces us to Anice Robel, a professional face feeler. When evaluating the quality of a specific brand of razor blade, Robel waits for her male subjects to complete a shave. Then she touches their faces everywhere; she runs her fingers around the edge of their lips, under their noses, all around their cheeks and including their necks to judge how the product left their skin. Perhaps one requirement for the male touchees is not being especially ticklish.

After she finishes touching one subject’s face, she washes her hands and moves on to the next subject. She then rates all of their faces the same as one rates grades of sandpaper, from “fine” to “coarse.”

Feeling faces is not all about feeling newly-shaven men. Face feelers also feel the skin of others after using various and sundry facial care and skin products.

Robel was employed at the Sensory Analysis Center at Kansas State University. In addition to feeling the faces of men after a shave, she would also feel newly washed hair and compare how different shampoos and conditioner made the hair feel.

She would also touch non-human items. She felt the seats of cars and the the bristles of toothbrushes with her both her sensitive fingertips as well as her own teeth and gums. Items that we consumers touch every day were first rated by Robel.

Face Feeling Data

It is difficult to dig up data on how many hours face feelers may expect to work in any given week or their salary range. But companies do need to test their products, so if you have sensitive fingers and would like to work as a face feeler, you may consider contacting different skin-care product companies directly.

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