Shopping for Beauty - Why is the customer service so ugly?

Courtesy of Dibbly Fresh

As much as I adore beauty products, I'll hold my hands up and admit that I hate shopping for them.  I'm quite a shy person and have to say that my experiences of buying beauty products from department stores have been so mediocre I now tend to buy exclusively online.  Thanks to beauty blogs I can get a pretty good idea of what a product looks like on, so colour and texture aren't usually an issue.

For one make up brand in particular (which shall remain nameless) I always buy online because the counter is so yukky.  From the moment you walk near it you are deafened by thumping club music (which, annoyingly, you can hear in the rest of the store).  After that it's pot luck whether you get served by any of the staff as they may be talking about their boyfriends or night out.  Should you be very lucky (perhaps because there's no gossip that day or the staff despise one another), they will either be very cold towards you and not listen to anything you say, or be quite sarcastic and mocking if you happen to know the shades of product you want.  When you happen to make a purchase your items are thrown in a carrier bag (if you ask for one) and you leave the store generally feeling like poo.  Give me extortionate p&p any day!

Sadly I've countless bad shopping experiences across a number of different brands.  In fact, upon talking to friends and family it seems to be the norm.  What annoys me is that there is no other place where I or anyone else would expect or put up with such poor customer service.  Generally if I do experience it I vote with my feet and shop elsewhere.  Where I work my bosses are obsessed about good customer service, as well they should be.  So why is a billion pound/dollar industry not doing more to create a good customer experience?



Celebrity Fragrances - and a funny feeling of deja vu...

Courtesy of E! online

Whilst in Debenhams I also spotted the Kim Kardashian fragrance, which I'd heard so much about through watching Keeping Up With The Kardashians.  I love these ladies, they're beautiful, stylish and a giggle so I was keen to see what Kim had come up with.  To be honest I'd love to look like Kim, but I'll have to settle with smelling like her for now :-(

The Perfume Diaries!

I'm a bit of a perfume addict, and nothing cheers me up more than a wander round a beauty hall sniffing the latest olfactory delights.  I'm quite spoilt locally, as I have a good Debenhams for mid-range, popular scents, Superdrug for bargains and celebrity scents, and the gorgeous Williams & Griffin (Willie Gee's to locals!) department store for high-end labels such as Acqua Di Parma, Creed and Floris.


I popped into Debenhams today after finishing work a bit early, and as I hadn't been there in a while there were quite a few new scents to check out. 

Hello And Welcome

Welcome to And Blot, my new beauty blog!

My name's Lucy, I'm 26 and from the glorious county of Essex (home of the anthropological masterpiece "The Only Way Is Essex").  I live and breathe beauty products - hair, make up, perfume, tan, you name it - and so I thought setting up my own little blog would give me the chance to talk beauty till the cows come home and share my passion with all you beauty fans out there!  I had another blog at Glitz Gloss and Lotions but unfotunately I lost my password, and can't remember or recover it :-(

Ever since I was little I've loved beauty products and the power they have to transform how you feel about yourself.  For me, nothing beats having a wander round a beauty hall or Boots when I'm bored, stressed or a bit down.  I pore over (pardon the pun!) all the magazines for beauty tips and recommendations and have done this since I got my first copy of Shout magazine aged 10 and a bit!  I always buy the glossies when they have their Beauty Awards as I love to find out what the pros and celebs use.

For me there was something lacking about the beauty pages in the magazines.  Like all normal folk, I soon discovered how much magazines pandered to advertisers, so you'd often pick up a product at the recommendation of a magazine and find it was useless.  Or nearly every product in a mag was well out of your price range.  So the beauty blogs have really been my saviour.  I can get honest opinions of products, swatches galore so you can acually see what something looks like on a real live human being (not a photoshopped-doll/preened and plucked celeb), and plenty of information on products I can afford.  Plus it's great being able to join in on one big conversation with so many people who adore beauty.

I've been so inspired by the beauty bloggers that I've decided to set up my own.  I'm not a guru, and I don't purport to be, I'm an ordinary girl on an ordinary budget just chatting about beauty products. 

If anyone out there wants to listen or join in, then come on in...

Lots of love...