Makeup Junkie: Bridal Makeup and the Hardsell Cosmetic Counter Makeover(!?!)

Hard sell cosmetic counter artiste

Pre-Wedding Rituals: Strange Encounters of the Cosmetic Counter Kind…

I love makeup. We all know this.

This is why my traincases don’t close, my heart flutters when MAC releases a new collection, and I still think that I will one day find a mascara that will change my life.

However, one thing threatens to spoil this perfect love. Overzealous cosmetics counter people.

Eyeshadow is NOT a weapon!

One of my closest friends is getting married at the end of June, out of town, and I will be doing her makeup. As part of our pre-wedding ritual we’ve been looking for new products, trying new colors, looks, etc.

We had a wonderful artist at the MAC store in the Flat Iron building a few weeks ago, and who knew that other experiences could be so dramatically different?

Future Bride Friend (let’s call her FBF for the remainder of this post) and I went to an upscale department store (I feel that perhaps I should refrain from using it’s name– let’s just call it “Shmarmee’s”) on Friday.

Our first mission was to find the restroom, our second mission was to find Lipstick Queen (FBF loves one of their lipsticks)- almost immediately we ran into trouble. We could not find the restroom. We finally found it, but on our way there we were accosted by a woman who insisted we find her on our way back, because “it’d be sooooo much fun.”

FBF and I are still trying to find out for whom it was fun. We returned to this woman (stupidly, i admit we should have gone elsewhere), and to make what might be an already too long story shorter– she asked us what we wanted, what we liked, etc.– and proceeded to give us the opposite. I said I wanted neutral on the pinky side and she gave me purple smokey. FBF said she wanted bridal and pinky, and she got a heavy blue smokey eye. As FBF likes to say of the experience “it was like The Awesome 80’s Prom attacked.”

As if this were not bad enough, she proceeded to hard sell both of us.

I ask you, precious reader: Don’t you think cosmetic companies would do better to work without the hardsell approach? Sure they might not sell as much in that initial meeting, but you’re certainly going to end up with more return customers, and customer referrals.

ARG!!!

The eyeliner that I bought was really good though. –MJ, the Makeup Junkie

>> Try some Virtual Makeovers!

Scroll to Top