More limited edition collector fragrance bottles, with the usual disclaimers: in most of these cases, the juice is unchanged, just the bottle is “special” (or not, as the case may be), and some of these may not be available in the US.
From Houbigant, Quelques Fleurs in Extrait: "In honor of Quelques Fleurs' 100th anniversary, the House of Houbigant introduces a centenary edition of its highly celebrated fragrance in a perfume extract, showcased in a lavish, handmade lacquered-hardwood box with an engraved emblem." $600 for 100 ml at Nordstrom.
From Biotherm, limited editions of their Eau collection in bottles with ocean-themed designs by illustrator Kera Till. Available now at Douglas in Germany in 100 ml.
From Bond no. 9, a special edition of Central Park South: "The bottle has a removable, pink rose-blossom accent which can be worn as a bracelet or brooch. Wear its double rows of beads on your wrist, or detach the vintage-style rose centerpiece to use as a brooch. This limited edition flower is adorned with 450 Swarovski stones." $390 for 100 ml Eau de Parfum.
The New York Yankees for men fragrance in a limited edition bottle by "graffiti legends Mint&Serf". $85 for 200 ml. (via prnewswire)
Only interesting one is Houbigant
I am not a fan of that cap, but the bottle is nice enough. I do like some of the Biotherm bottles too, but wouldn’t kill for any of them.
cap looks like an ice cube. bottle also no-go for me.
The Houbigant looks like veins on a thin, athletic person’s feet.
LOL!
double lol, good one!
Ha, that Bond No. 9 bottle–had a minor tangle with a pair of Saks SAs recently, as I’d gone in thinking of taking the plunge on a Marni bottle only to have them usher me away from that display to pitch me very. insistently. on the Bond bottle instead. Undeterred by the fact that I said directly that I didn’t care for the bottle or the fragrance. I wonder whether the pay structure really is such that these particular people only make money on a Bond sale and nothing on Marni, so it really doesn’t matter to them that I walked away empty-handed?
Often as a promotion the SA’s will get a bonus (spiff) for each bottle of a specific brand, so yes, I would suspect that they were pitching Bond because they got a spiff for each one sold. Spiffs are rampant in the cosmetic industry, also the mid-range jewelry business, watches are a big one for that.
Not to imply that they made NOTHING on Marni, obviously they made their salary, so it was foolish of them to let you walk away because I’m sure they had basis sales goals, but Marni wasn’t paying a bonus that week or month, so their push went elsewhere.
Oh, this is so interesting! Thanks for the details; I wouldn’t have guessed but that makes so much sense. It seemed so weird that they were so fixed on selling me something that not only I said I didn’t want, but something that bore no resemblance to the thing I said I did! Of course I’d be entirely happy if a department store SA ever said, “Oh, you like that Marni? You might like x,y,z other things as well.” For anyone who hasn’t smelled it, I’m gonna go ahead and say–I don’t really think liking the Marni is a good predictor of liking Central Park South 😉
Yes, this explains why the SAs at the “big” Nordies in town seem to show me no attention/assistance at all once I show little interest in the latest mainstream release. I had assumed it was a bias against my blue hair . . . :]
You have blue hair! I am so jealous! One day I will take the plunge…
Did you accidentally reveal yourself as a perfumista to them? I had a similar experience at a Saks. My experience wasn’t negative the way that yours sounds, but I also didn’t buy any Bonds.
BTW I loved Silver Factory until it morphed over the course of two hours from burnt metal and smoke into a standard amber oriental. Purchase averted. Sad tho, I would have bought it if it hadn’t transformed like that.
Lys, such an interesting question! Do you find you get worse reactions when SAs know you’re into perfume? I had assumed they didn’t know it about me, just based on some of their remarks (“What kind of fragrances do you like? Sweet? Probably sweet.”) But maybe they were a little hostile because they sussed me out as someone whose enthusiasm is too heavily distributed toward the juice rather than swag side of the equation to suit their business model–they do seem more about appealing to the general luxury market than to perfume connoisseurs.
Such a bummer about Silver Factory. Really about many of them. If the fragrances were better, I could be into the New York-theme marketing. Although the wallet sure does appreciate my disinterest!
LOL @your wallet having apprecitation.
C.H. I don’t wear my perfumistaness on my sleeve and was impressed at how the SA at a new location read the cues – in my case it had to do with my familiarity with LEs in her brand – and was able to suss out my collection without asking directly. And, yeah, the Marni recommendation got dropped like a hot potato when I was ascertained to be a “collector” (not my word).
I think if an SA is too hellbent on pushing a juice and pushing their sales-pitch, just your being a perfume fan could create a weird passive-combative atmosphere. But that has to do with the SA being bad. I don’t mind being steered toward new or high-end stuff (or gaudy low-end crap that’s pretending to be luxe!) but if they do that, understand that I might not like that stuff – perfume is so subjective and no one is right or wrong here! When I got taken to the Bond display at Saks even though I wasn’t looking for a Bond, the low pressure, browserly and informative attitude of the sales people made the experience lovely in spite of my not being a Bond girl (XD).
Wow, tl;dr reply much? Anyway, what’re your thoughts?
Hahaha not tl at all, on the contrary I’m so interested in this diagnosis! I think you’re totally right and that would never have occurred to me, as usually I have the opposite problem (i.e. I tend to get pegged as someone who doesn’t know anything/is therefore an ideal receptacle for all manner of dubious “wisdom”. But this is not limited to perfume counters. Once on an airplane, as I tinkered with a broken track pad on my laptop, the businessman in the seat next to me turned to explain my computer would only work if I pressed the power button first. You can’t even imagine how much easier grad school has been since he let me in on that little secret 😉 )
I digress! Yes, it makes total sense that active/informed perfume fandom could be pretty odds with selling the flavor (flanker!) of the week–I bet you’re right that lots of department store SAs develop a radar for who such shoppers are. It’s just too bad, because I really was on the cusp of spending some retail dollars and wound up buying a decant instead–seems like that’s the last thing they’d want!
Oh my goodness, CH! You have me rolling in the aisles with the power button story!!! I would have had a very hard time not responding in a very inappropriate way! Maybe ask him what all those funny buttons were on the keyboard for, next? 😀
Ha, so glad, I like to extract as much amusement from that encounter as possible, since at the time (I’m sure you can imagine), I was None Too Pleased. The worst of all is that I didn’t remotely manage the kind of retort he deserved. It was so outrageous, I actually thought I couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly, and just gave him a look of total confusion–so he repeated himself: “You have to press the power button first. To turn it on.” Yeah, not how I’d like to have handled that exchange! On the upside, now I definitely know what a power button does. I can’t wait to find out what happens after that! People seem really into something called the internet?? 🙂
If you haven’t read it already, check out Rebecca Solnit’s essay “Archipelago of Arrogance; Men Explain Things to Me.” She relates an amazing incident of this variety.
I hate when that happens. Sometimes it turns out they’re not even store employees, but employees of the distributor — if you ask they’ll usually tell you.
Ohh very interesting! The Bond corner of this Saks also happens to house basically all the rest of the fragrances not associated with a specific makeup counter, so I just assumed that these SAs were responsible for all of the above, but indeed, a lot of my experiences there would make a lot more sense if in fact these are Bond employees.
(For that matter, maybe I’m annoying them, coming over looking for things that aren’t in their purview. They’re probably really frustrated they have to share their display.)
Usually they work for a distributor that handles several brands, & usually they will in fact help you with any fragrance, even those they don’t cover…but when it’s time to ring something up, they’ll hand you over to a store employee.
So interesting. I’ll def ask. (This all sparks my sociological curiosity; now I’m wondering if I can get the store manager to talk to me about how this works.)
I used to work fragrance retail (Macy’s). I can probably answer a lot of your questions if you want. Feel free to email me, somerss at gmail dot com.
I actually love the MIRF Yankees bottle – the collaboration makes a lot of sense in terms of the brand and the target customer.
BTW, for the record, Yankees suck!
Agree on all!! 😉
I’m a NL girl myself, but wouldn’t be obvious to anyone who would buy a Yankees fragance that this year’s “Limited Edition” legends should be Jeter and Rivera?
(Or perhaps a very special “Eau de’ ‘Clear”, a musky testerone scent in honor of AROD, with “secret” ingredients and its flanker “Eau de LGH”- so subtle it remains impossible to detect without blood testing).
Hahahaha so brilliant! Thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed these proposals.
Lys: this is the second time I’ve seen “tl; dr”. What does it mean? Too long and ?
Love the Biotherms!
As for SA’s, in my world, the dept. store has its own paid employees and the fragrance companies dispatch their own demos. The employees are also paid commission with their hourly wages. The demos get an hourly rate. That’s it! Sometimes there’ll be a competition to meet a goal and the prize is a luxury brand handbag or scarf, giftcard, etc. If a demo doesn’t produce in spite of impossible odds, his/her hours are cut until they get zero and are forced out. Altrusim in sales, meaning seeing the customer leave with exactly the right purchase and thus never return it (because she was high-pressured into buying some vile swill instead), just doesn’t cut it.
too long; didn’t read
if a post is too verbose/meandering. like my reply to CH was.
um…yes…this does apply to many of my posts, and e mails which may explain why d.g.r. – didn’t get a response!
Wow, thanks for this account. That’s so brutal. Def makes sense in terms of how I experience perfume sales at this Saks at least, but pretty grim for all involved. Axing everyone who isn’t good at pushing terrible products–not exactly how economists tell us “the invisible hand” of the market is supposed to work for improving quality of goods and prices.
It has been a long time since I took economics but if I recall, economists are also (in)famous for prefacing everything with “all things being equal…” which we know is never the case.
Indeed! Hard even to imagine what that would mean, in the realm of something like perfume.
Oh, this is a perfume bottle collector’s dream! I love all the new bottles. It’s sometimes disappointing, though, to see a new bottle on a counter and then realize it’s one you’ve already tried before.
None of these appeal to me.