Anyone who knows me knows that I am absolutely addicted to perfumes. I have a growing collection (going on a little over 30 now) of perfumes. Of course buying brand name perfumes can get a bit costly, but I tend to make my purchases online. I never understood why anyone would buy a perfume from the mall when you can get the same perfume online for almost if not more than half the retail price. Of course, that was before I discovered Sephora.
We don’t have a Sephora where I’m from so if you wanted to buy perfume, you would buy it from a department store or one of those perfume carts at the mall. Neither option was very cheap. One day I received a coupon in my inbox for $15 off of a Sephora purchase. Those who know about Sephora know that they very rarely give coupons so I decided to head to a Sephora in Austin (where I go to school) and take advantage of such a rare occasion. I went with a group of friends (of course they just wanted to see the mall in general…I was strictly interested in Sephora).
As soon as I walked into Sephora, cool air carrying the scents of hundreds of perfumes wafted toward me. The spicy scents, the sweet scents, the fresh scents, the musky scents…I felt like I was in heaven. I walked to the wall of perfumes on my right, finding my favorites and spritzing some on the tester sheets. I shared my favorite fragrances with my friends, and they shared theirs with me. I then took one of those fragrance personality tests that Sephora has and smelled all the perfumes recommended for me. As I drifted farther down the wall of perfumes, something else caught my eye. Bare Minerals makeup kits were on sale for $40!
I was surprised that anything besides perfume even caught my eye at Sephora. I had been meaning to get a Bare Minerals make up kit for months now but the price (at $60 was too steep for me). I kept comparing Sephora’s perfume pricing to the pricing I would find online for perfumes, and even with the Sephora coupon, I couldn’t bring myself to spend that much for a small bottle of perfume. However, the Bare Minerals kit would cost me only $25…compared to $60, that’s a steal!
Happy that I had made a purchase decision, I asked a worker at Sephora to test my skin for the right shade. The employee said she would send someone over to test my skin. I waited for 10 minutes and no one came. Since I was still next to that big, enticing wall of perfume, I decided to explore more scents.
Sephora allows you to get 3 samples of perfumes a day. I couldn’t narrow down my choices to 3 so I asked my friends to get some samples for me as well. The employee getting our samples ready became annoyed, even going as far as saying “that’s the last sample for you” to one of my friends (who had only asked for one sample). Normally, I would be annoyed with the crappy customer service. After all, long waits and bad attitudes aren’t the way to win customers. But I was in heaven…who gets mad in heaven?
Eventually my friends got tired of waiting with me and decided to explore other stores at the mall. I continued to smell perfumes. I had to remind an employee that I needed to get my skin tested before someone finally came over to test the make up on me. Having made a decision on the color I wanted, I walked to the register to ring up my purchase. When I got to the register, the makeup showed up as $60. I was alarmed! I told the cashier that that could not be right. He called the manager over who told me that the sale was technically over, but she would give it to me for the sale price. I provided my coupon, charged the makeup on my card, and happily headed out of Sephora—but not before stopping to sniff one more perfume on the display at the front of the store.
So what did this experience tell me about myself? No matter how crappy the service, if I think that I got a good deal, I’ll be happy. In fact, the first thing I did when I left Sephora was call my friend to gloat about the amazing deal I got on Bare Minerals. I also noticed that even though waiting is painful, when I’m surrounded by something I love (perfumes), I don’t mind the wait. I was entertained during what could have been a bad customer experience. I walked out with what I deemed a great price and two or three perfumes to add to my wish list.
