The directive requires sales associates to sanitize hands in front of the customer, sanitize the bottle with alcohol spray and a tissue and spritz the sample on a blotting card to hand to the customer to smell the scent. Testers on counters will be strictly for display purposes.
— From the new 'tester practices' protocol Saks Fifth Avenue will reportedly use at the perfume counter when stores reopen. (Not surprisingly, fragrance is doing much worse than other beauty categories during the lock down.) Read more in How Will We Buy Our Perfume Now? at The New York Times. Hat tip to Kevin!
Such a good question. There are so many scents I would go to the shop and have a sniff to decide if I like it. If I do, I might order a sample. But ordering samples for all perfumes I‘m interested in would get a bit expensive over time. So trying new releases is near impossible at the moment, getting samples of the ones you want to try unlikely or expensive. But even for a scent nerd, I felt like the amount of annual releases and growth in the perfume industry wasn’t sustainable anyway and will change directions permanently. Thanks for the interesting article in any case.
Even before the lock down, I rarely went into brick and mortar department stores anymore, so not sure this will really affect me much, but you are right that things are going to change.
So many department stores are on their last legs anyway, this just hastens the need to find new ways to sell. The industry is going to have to find more sephora-type alternatives, or really take mail sampling much more seriously.
To me, this is the most valuable NST post published this year. It produces a simultaneous sensation of sadness and hope. Thank you, Robin, for your steady supply of relevant infotainment.
What with mask-wearing, lipstick has lost most of its relevance, but I’d so like to think one might again enjoy in-store fragrance sampling.
I so rarely put on lipstick that I hadn’t even thought of that…but maybe that just ups the attention to eye makeup?
Covid-19 must have been harder on the beauty industry than I thought. Since nobody can go anywhere except the grocery store and the gas station, what’s the point of makeup and perfume?
I wear perfume at home, for myself, but you’re right that that isn’t how most consumers approach fragrance.
I’m in the “woo, I can wear more perfume and re-up multiple times per day because I don’t have to worry about offending any sensitive noses at the office” category.
Buy yeah, that category is likely small—in the world at large, not here!
I hope the sales associate can at least spray on the customer’s skin when asked to do so.
I am assuming, but who knows.