My wife and I went there as part of a Sunday trip to the Galleria – I almost certainly would have purchased something, as I had done many times before. We were looking at the Amouage and ELdO fragrances and I mentioned to my wife that I would love to have the perfume coffee table book they had on the shelf for Christmas. She pulled out her phone to snap a picture of it so she’d be able to come back and get the right book. The brunette lady behind the counter boldly shouted at her “EXCUSE ME, what do you think you’re doing?” When my wife tried to explain, she snapped back that she couldn’t take a picture of anything without their expressed permission. When I tried to stop the lady from getting nastier to my wife, she condescendingly snapped at me that people like THEM don’t do such rude things. Really? Taking a picture so she could buy me a Christmas gift? How rude, huh? I understand that they might not want people taking pictures of their display (the lady tried to say that we could be competitors looking at display ideas), but a simple polite question would go miles further than angrily shouting across the store.

I told her that they had lost long-time customers and a considerable amount of money (I’d spent hundreds of dollars there before and certainly would have continued), then the owner chimed in with “Well, now you’ll have a picture to remember us by.” He had the chance to rectify the situation and apologize, but he just continued down the hostile road the other lady had taken and we left the store.

I am still blown away at how rude they were and how they treated us. There are plenty of other places to get the same items, but with much less hostility and pretentiousness. I’ve never encountered such nastiness from a small retail shop employee, much less the owner himself.

I’ll certainly let the owners of the small niche fragrance companies they stock know about the caliber of this shop selling their products, as it reflects poorly on their brands as well.

What struck me as sad as I was formatting these pics was how much has been used of the bottles. Oh, bottles, why can’t you refill yourselves?

Unbelievable.

When I got home, I pulled the bottle out and realized it had not only been sprayed already, but quite a few times. There was approximately 1/4 inch missing! I’ve since emailed and will be calling the store shortly, but talk about a bad taste left after spending so that much money on something. I doubt it was done intentionally, but I think that sort of thing should be double checked before they wrap something up and sell it. Now I doubt they’ll offer to do much about it since it was (poorly) engraved.

I’ll update back here once I’ve been able to get in touch with them.

***UPDATE***

I heard from the store manager. She was very sorry about the situation. She offered to replace the bottle, but it would take some time since they had no more stock. I just asked for a couple decants to make up for the missing amount, to which she absolutely agreed and said that they would do whatever it took to make sure I was happy. I was pleasantly surprised at her service, so +1 for them! Perhaps I’ll see if they won’t give me a small decant of one of the other Les Elixirs des Charnels.

We’re going back to EPCOT this weekend for an Annick Goutal event, so I’ll post again once that’s all said and done!