Stopped to smell some scents ...
One Sales Associate (SA), showing me a tuberose based fragrance, expressing how much she likes roses.
Tuberose by any other name is swollen grey flower of the agave family.
agavaceae not rosaceae
It is easy to over-sell or over-teach. For whatever reasons, sometimes it's hard to pull in the reins and just shut up.
Though repeatedly agreeable with what various Sales Associates were saying about a fragrance, they would not stop, even when I backed up, moved away, said, yes, yes, yes.
Though I was sold, the sale was not.
Finally, it got to percentages. The percentage of oils in Creed and comparative percentages of alcohol in Creeds and other perfume brands. Creed! the hard sell ... how the oils have antioxidants, and here, the SA looked at my neck, and said, they help prevent wrinkles.
Creed Prevents Wrinkles the newest tagline?
Deah, deah, deah. My laughline crow's feet positively crowed.
I did get a laugh out of the serious, aggressive, Clive Christian rep. She told me that the night fragrance drove men bananas. I said, men are already bananas.
Thus, I got to hear about the sex life of other SAs raving about the effect of this potent potion and, though she poised to spray me, I retreated to mark myself ...with oud.
Oud Wood by Tom Ford, the tester spilled over my hand. I did not complain, though hearing a chorus of background whispered gasps; I wiped the floor with a kleenex. Acting gauche in an upscale store? due to carrying a spritz of Rive Gauche pour Homme/YSL on a kleenex on my person?
Kleenex the new tester strips no matter how expensive the appointments in decor (Calder mobile, etc.)
I was told the Tom Ford representatives train the sales help to say Ooh, or, Oh Wood, with the oud expressing a silent D.
I learned it as oudh, silent H, or OoD, pronounced D, agarwood, aloeswood or jinkoh. Caring more about the smell than pronouncetorial correctness. Some say extreeeeeme, another says extrhehhmm.
Once, smelling Fairy Dust/Paris Hilton/Parlux, I walked away shaking my head, smiling, praising how succinctly the group targeted their market. The grape Kool-Aid note with Tinkerbell magic is the stuff their target age group gobbles up, as sales show.
Paris Hilton and Guess? brands represented over 90% of Parlux's total business in fiscal year 2008 FY end March 2008 pre-Fairy Dust and Paris Hilton brand had shot up 37%.
Parlux 2008 Annual Report
Asked which scent does make men bananas, I sigh. Every perfume/fragrance/scent makes one sexual. Supposedly. Scent signals of flowers, pollen, petals, wink wink dew, nectar, sap, sweat, wink wink insects, birds, hormones and pheromones ... bottle it up, apply to homo sapiens (truth in marketing: wise man or knowing man) and it is sex in a vessel, container, bottle or grail.
Walking by a kiosk, denying a spritz of the fragrance that day, the lovely accented one yelled after me, It Will Make You Sexy!
I yelled back, don't you think I'm already sexy? wink
