When Beauty Gets Ugly: "Energy Vampires" and "Shopping with Husbands"

Energy Vampire – n. A person who feeds off the energy of humans they come in contact with.

A customer said the most interesting thing to me the other day. Not interesting ‘Oh’, but interesting as in ‘What? Well, FU lady’. Sure, we weren’t really hitting it off to begin with—you know how sometimes you and a customer just don’t click? Well, there I was putting on this woman’s eyeliner as she sat in the chair—her arms crossed tight against her chest and her lips pursed. I got the impression she was barely tolerating my existence.

Out of nowhere, she says to me, “I don’t know how you people do it sometimes. Look at that woman over there…”

I pause and glance over my shoulder. There’s a lone salesperson walking through her area, looking over her cases.

The woman continues with, “You people have to spend so much of your time doing nothing, I don’t know how you do it—”

(...and here’s where it gets good…)

She goes on to say, “I know you people who work retail are born to do this job, but still…I don’t know how you tolerate it.”

Wait, what? Did she seriously just say that?

What’s funny is, I understood she wasn’t intentionally trying to be rude or insulting. But that didn’t stop me from resenting the hell out of her. I mean, some of the smartest and most talented people I’ve met work in retail. Anyway, by the time we wrapped it up, I was done with her. I was spent. Drained. Ready to break away from everything and recharge—too bad they don’t let you do it with margaritas, huh?

Because some customers just do that to you.

And all that brings me to my main topic. I’ve been pondering how to start this subject for a while. I mean, how do you describe ‘Energy Vampire’ to someone who doesn’t work in retail? Because unlike other customer archetypes I’ve covered, the Energy Vampire doesn’t have any typical characteristics. They can be anyone, anywhere. Sometimes they’re nice, sometimes they’re shy. Sometimes they’re other things and other words I have no need to say here. As with the woman above, you all know what I mean.

So what is the Energy Vampire? Well, they are the customers we get, probably more frequently than most, that drain us completely. When we’re done with them, it’s generally time to call it a day and start drinking.

There’s really no rules here. Most times, but not always, they take a lot of our time. Sometimes it’s searching for lipstick (What? Lipstick? No way...), sometimes it’s just a quick touch-up. Sometimes it’s eyeliner, or skincare, or foundation…and on and on and on.

Bottom line is, there’s no way to spot this person until you’re already ass-deep in helping them. Suddenly it’ll just hit you as you’re reaching for that next color. You feel weak, tired. It becomes harder and harder to think of things to talk about. There’s this little whining voice inside you saying, “I hope this is the last one.” When it’s not, you damn near whimper with fatigue. Unfortunately, this goes on and on and on…seemingly forever and ever. Amen. Too bad garlic and crosses don’t work on these vampires...and anyone who doesn’t believe in the dreaded E.V., obviously wasn’t born to work retail.

 

Who of you out there are familiar with this particular scenario:

A husband and wife walk up to your counter. The husband reaches you first, his eyes bright with humor. He lifts his lips in a cheery smile and says, “So, can you make me look beautiful?”

Ha, ha. Heh.

After giving him my standard, ‘you’re so funny’ laugh, I say something like, “Sure…you want a little blush, a little lipstick?” Everybody laughs. Kind of. To be fair, that joke was funny the first two or three times I heard it. But over a decade later, and after hearing it a hundred times over, it kind of loses its charm—and my laugh is no longer capable of being genuine.

Besides, at this point I’m too busy trying to figure out what kind of experience this is going to be. Good? Or bad…

Husbands, especially controlling ones, are the banes of our existence. There’s nothing so frustrating as hearing a woman say, “I need to ask my husband first before I buy” or “Oh, I really love this color but...my husband doesn’t like it when I where [pink, red, bright, nude, or even just] lipstick.”

No. No, no, no, NO! You husbands do not get to tell your wives what to do or wear—especially if it makes them feel pretty. My hubby doesn’t like it when I do my bright and crazy makeup—and you know what I tell him? Tough shit. It’s me. It’s who I am.

So when I see a husband and wife walk up together, I’m wondering if he’s going to be the husband that gives encouraging feedback or wanders off until we’re done, or the husband that hangs over my shoulder and tells me what to put, or what not to put, on his wife’s face.

Ugh…Worst moment ever: being told what to do by a man who knows absolutely nothing about makeup. No, sir, that camel eyeshadow will not look good or natural on your pink-porcelain skinned wife.

What? You want me to put it on anyway? Sure…obviously I don’t know what I’m doing.

What? It didn’t look right so maybe I should have used a different brush? Sure....that’ll make it look better…

I’m sorry, did you say you want me to put that brick-red lipstick on her too?  Okay, but just remember…you asked for it, bud.

Thanks for sticking with me—this was an especially long one!

 

Cheers to all my peeps out there, and happy selling;)!

 

 

 

When Beauty Gets Ugly: "Beauty Disaster Montage"

I know we all can relate to a plain old, flat out, exhausting week. I’m going to touch a bit on the whole theme thing for a minute because I swear, it seems like whenever the crazies come, they come in droves. The most hilarious thing—that I just realized at this very moment as I sit here typing—is that so many of my infamous customer archetypes came to see me this week.

That’s why this post was such a long time coming—I had no idea where to start. My first thought was gifts…because that’s always a fun thing to talk about. Gift Events have the unique, wonderful ability of bringing out the hag in haggle. It never fails that when the foreign bus coughs out its load (no really, I’m not being jerk—there really is a foreign bus), the topic of gifts always comes up.

That was my first clue that this was going to be a bad week.

I was bombarded by a family of five travelers from _____ (I will let the experts out there fill in the blank) who insisted on receiving five gifts from La Mer—plus five gift bags from the department. To be fair, they were purchasing over a thousand dollars’ worth of product. However, I stood fast and refused them—mainly because they threatened me with online ordering. I do not deal well with threats. And seeing as I don’t work on commission and this wasn’t my line, I didn’t need the sale.

So I brought them down to a more realistic, more acceptable limit. Bully for me.

Yet low and behold, at the very moment I was putting their gifts together, I caught sight of The Endlessly Annoying and Always Indecisive Woman—and it was just my luck that she was waiting for me.

Trust me, I did not hold back the groan. I even cursed under my breath—which happened to be loud enough for a coworker to hear.

Luckily, we were both on the same page.

And here’s where I’m forced to bite my tongue. She only took up a half hour of my time (most of which was spent looking for a gift bag with decent sewing on the inner lining…ugh). But she purchased from my line, AND I only had to try on three orange nail polish colors—just three…mostly because I lied and said they were the only orange nail polishes in the department (don’t you judge me).

All in all, I consider this to be a major victory.

Other visits this week included the Constant Returner, the Sample Whore, and always, always the Lipstick Lady (Bless her heart…she never really leaves, you know. I’m convinced she has a secret home built under one of the clothing racks).

And last, but don’t you dare ever call her least, was the Know-It-All.

Oh, I can see that hair coming a mile away—not to mention the contouring. It was a blessed day for me as it was the day I chose to wear my flats. There are some benefits to being S.A.H. (Short As Hell), when I’m in flats I don’t have to bend over to hide from people. All I have to do is lean forward a bit and poof! I’m gone.

So I spent a good fifteen minutes leaning forward and circling the five foot wall of the counter I had to hide behind. I’m sure it was a great moment for the LP people (the Eyes in the Sky), watching me move like a gerbil on a wheel as I avoided making eye contact with this woman.

Do I feel bad that one of my good friends was forced to help her?

Yes.

Would I do it again?

You bet your ass I would.

 

What? It was a really bad week…

 

Cheers to you all! And happy shopping…

To BS: I didn’t forget, I promise;)

 

Tune in next time as I finally call out ‘The Energy Vampire’ and ‘Shopping with the Hubby’!

 

When Beauty Gets Ugly: "Makeup Messes"

 

One thing about working with the public is—they never cease to surprise and amaze. It seems as if every week I have a new story to tell about a person who did/wore/said something crazy. Each and every time, I laugh or remark on it. And I file it away. As a writer, I love to catalog the people I meet—especially the remarkable ones. You never know when you may need to mix and match those personality quirks for a good story or side character.

And man, do I have a lot.

I still remember my first ‘huh’ moment in cosmetics. I was trying to find a lipstick for an almost fortyish woman (Man, it always comes down to a lipstick, doesn’t it?), when she asked me if I had a color that would match her hair. I’m pretty sure I just stared at her, trying to figure out exactly what she meant by that. Was she saying she wanted it to compliment her hair? I mean, she wasn’t actually asking for an ashy brown/streaky blonde colored lipstick, was she?

I hesitated, taking a moment to scan my color wheel. Still unsure, I plucked out a beige nude lip color and held it out to her. My eyes jumped back and forth from her face to the tube. I was anxious over how she’d react to my pick. She lifted a brow, staring me down. She did not look amused. Then she grabbed the tube and held it up to her short, choppy locks.

“Does this look like it matches?” she asked me.

I couldn’t help picturing her lips covered with tiger stripes of blonde and brown color. The answer was nope, it sure didn’t. So I did the only thing my newbie brain could think of—I passed her off to a different makeup line.

We’ve all had our moments of ‘huh’ and ‘isn’t that person interesting’, haven’t we? I mean, we’ve all seen the women who’ve had way too much plastic surgery—you know, the ones who resemble the alien sketches shown on Unsolved Mysteries. And we’ve all seen the women who look like they never wash off their makeup. Yeah, some of them actually admit to just adding more makeup overtop yesterday’s worn and crusty color.

(This is where I take a moment to cringe)

We’ve all seen these people. They’re remarkable, sure, but still more commonplace. Yet every now and again, I’m confronted with someone who stands utterly alone and unique. Someone who, even though I consider myself a creator of fiction, I would never have believed if I hadn’t actually seen them with my own eyes. Like the woman I talked about in my Crazy People blog post. Anyone who’s read it knows exactly which one I’m talking about. For those of you who don’t, take a moment to read it.

And just like the mantra says—you never forget your first.

I’ll never forget the night I saw my first. This woman I can still visualize entirely and with perfect clarity to this day—that was how impactful she was. It all started with me helping her husband. The man was closing in on eighty (and I think I’m being a little generous here), and wanting some bath products for himself and his wife—who was standing with her back to me, looking at lipsticks across the aisle (See? It really is always about lipstick). My first thought was, Oh, you dirty, dirty old bird, you. His wife had blonde, curly hair that flowed all the way to her hips. And she was tall, thanks to the knee-high, shiny leather boots with four-inch heels she wore. Layered under them was the fishnet stockings (I know, such a cliché) covered, barely, by a black leather mini skirt.

I was amused—and certainly a little grossed out—when something very unexpected happened. She turned around.

I have no idea what my face did at that moment, but I’m sure it wasn’t pretty.

The woman blasted me with a brutal vision of heavily lined, sagging sallow skin—except for the area at her temples where she’d used industrial strength tape to tug back her flesh. The effect it had on her eyes was more than just unnerving. It was terrifying. Because there was so much loose skin, the taping had pulled the corners of her eyes far beyond the yellowing whites, leaving an elongated triangle of shiny, puffy red flesh for all to see—which she’d graciously highlighted with a thick chunk of uneven, black liquid liner. Her ancient blue eyes were cloudy with age, yet still they managed to pierce the comfy layers of my brain.

But worst of all for me, worse than even the eyes, was when she ran the pink lipstick she held back and forth over her mouth. Peeling skin, still stubbornly attached to her dry chapped lips, flicked back and forth, up and over, as she drove the lipstick again and again. I could see vestiges of an old dried out coral layered under them. The eighty year old woman, dressed like a twenty year old rocker chick, then handed the lipstick over.

“And this one,” she said.

A piece of the woman’s dried skin had managed to escape her, hitching a ride on the soon-to-be disposed of lipstick tester.

Like I said, I can only imagine what my face must have looked like.

Who says life isn’t still full of surprises? Probably someone who doesn’t work face to face with the public, I say.

Cheers to you all, and happy shopping!!

 

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And thank you all for taking the time to rant with me;)

When Beauty Gets Ugly: "Rude Ass People"

Rude ass people. Am I right?

Most of us carry some sort of filter in our day to day conversations. Sometimes thoughts pop in our heads that can take even us by surprise. I know I’ve had those moments where I’m like, wow, I’m glad I didn’t say that, or, I can’t believe that thought came from me. We’ve all had them. Our brain gives us a bit of a window to decide if what we’re constructing in our minds is worth vomiting out all over others. Most of the time, we make the right choice.

But apparently, not all people’s filters are working correctly.

There are people out there that just let it fly. I find it amazing, the things people feel compelled to say. Like, for instance, pointing out slight grammatical errors in your language—even though most everybody speaks informally nowadays.  Hell, we’re lucky if we manage to get all the words out. Because unless we’re standing in front of a judge, or maybe our boss, most of the time we’re falling into ‘text speak’. Lots of times, at least for me, that also means falling into a bad accent as I say it.

What? It’s fun.

I once had a customer first correct the way I stated something, than chastise me for not taking such communication seriously in a job where I had to speak formally with other people. Really, lady? I’m selling you a stick of fragranced aluminum wax that you’re going to rub back and forth over your damp and sweaty arm pits. Formality seems a bit…overrated.

Fine. How about this:

My sincerest apologies, dearest customer, for not taking the time to plan and plot each word whilst you and your husband search for the correct and preferred form of scented deodorant.  I am a disgrace to my business and to the human race.

There. Feel better?

All I’m saying is people just need to relax. Settle down. But some customers want to be angry.

I had a customer yell at me today for not helping her in fragrance—even though she was already being helped by another associate. And to make matters worse, that associate was the one who could actually answer her questions. Yet she stared me down as I was in the middle of helping another group of women, and when I finally acknowledged her heavy, beady eyes—she immediately accused me of ignoring her on purpose.

I guess sometimes you just can’t win.

Luckily, I’m one of those people that can just shrug it off. Yep, that’s me. Shrugging it off. Seven hours later. Totally letting it go. Yep. Not peeved about it even a little bit…

…Ah, Hell. Fuck it.

 

Cheers to you all, and happy shopping!!

 

When Beauty Gets Ugly: "Themes"

Themes. They’re everywhere. Not all the time, but often enough. I notice it the most in movies. Every year it seems there are two movies that carry the same theme—always released a month or two apart. This year that theme is blowing up the White House, like they do in Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down. But remember when the theme was asteroids and meteors in Armageddon and Deep Impact? Or what about the summer of magic with The Illusionist and The Prestige?

What I’m saying is, every now and again, you can sum up your day with one word alone. Today—for me—that one word is Lipstick. Not what you were expecting? It’s certainly not as dramatic as explosions and heroes flying out into space. Then again, this is how real life works.

Imagine starting your day with lipstick in your hair. Now, it’s in your hair because your daughter loves sneaking your lipstick out of your drawer or purse and stashing it away so she can use it at another time of her choosing. However, this time she stashed it while watching Ultimate Spiderman in your bedroom. On your bed. Laying on your pillows. You see where I’m going with this, right?

I’m a restless sleeper. I toss and turn, flip and kick. Bunch and re-bunch my pillow. Well, during one of those ‘re-bunching’ episodes, I must have knocked out the lipstick my daughter stashed in my pillowcase while she was watching her ‘stories’. And she didn’t leave the cap on it. So…a few hours later…I wake up with pink smashed in my hair, along with Pepto-Bismol streaks across my face and pillow.

And that’s the start of my day.

A few hours later, I’m working alone in my bay. I’m reorganizing, trying to keep myself busy—dying for the coffee break I know is coming any minute. Finally, I have my wallet in one hand, phone in the other, when up walks a woman who stops at the lipsticks. She grabs two and swipes them over her hand, all while I’m cursing my luck and setting down stuff.

“Can I help you find anything?” I ask (I’m sure my voice had that resigned, slightly annoyed tone to it). I really, really need that coffee.

“Actually, yes,” she says, unaware of my anguish. “I’m looking for a new lipstick. I want red, pink and orange, but I want it all in one lipstick. You think you could find that for me?”

Pause. Then blink. My first thought is Oh, screw you…(actually it was the f-bomb, but no need to frighten people). Luckily, I was smart enough not to verbalize it. Besides, she doesn’t know my brain is screaming for caffeine and drowning in frustration. She just wants help finding her lipstick—that’s red, orange and pink all at the same time. Sigh.

I don't think she realized how utterly ridiculous that statement sounded.

In the end I did find something (which we were out of), and she left happy. Job well done. Catastrophe averted.

A few hours and a few normal customers later, I get round three. Up comes Lipstick Lady, the archetype from my very first blog. The one who’s on an endless hunt for the perfect lipstick. However, this particular breed has cross-pollinated with the Constant Returner—which caused a mutation that laced her with traces of the dreaded Energy Vampire.

Good thing I drank that coffee earlier.

All in all, the day wasn’t bad—it was just strange. Strange because it all revolved around one thing.

Lipstick.

 

Cheers to you all, and happy shopping.

 

 

 

When Beauty Gets Ugly: "Ridiculous Returners"

Truth: Returns are frustrating in general. Nobody likes having their hard work brought back to them, even if most of the time it’s not the customer’s fault. We don’t get angry with people for returning…mostly…so please understand—we have numbers we need to make, and returns push us further away from our goal. Any of you out there would get frustrated in that situation. However, some returns are just totally bogus.

You’ve heard me rant about the constant returners. And the ones who cleverly try to disguise face creams with body lotions. What you haven’t heard about yet are the ridiculous returners…

Man, oh man. These people have some serious balls. It never ceases to amaze me how some people act during a return. My favorite is when they walk up and hand over a jar of face cream or a bottle of foundation and ask to return it. Oh, yeah…and the damned thing is empty! Yep. Empty. As in all gone. Completely.

“It just didn’t work for me,” they’ll say.

Well, obviously…

“Yeah, and it gave me a reaction.”

Of course. The bottom of the bottle can do that sometimes.

I mean, seriously! That’s like me buying a pair of Seven Jeans, wearing the absolute hell out of them until their ripped and frayed, stained and faded and damn near shapeless—and then returning them because they didn’t fit right.

Balls, I tell you. Balls.

I once had a woman who returned an eyeliner sharpened nearly to the bottom. She told me the color wasn’t right for her eyes. Maybe she should try a powder eyeliner instead. Sure, I told her. We picked a new color—at which point she asked if she could return the small nub of a pencil she hadn’t liked. Uh, really?

Wait…it gets worse—

I paused, giving her the eye. Then I said, “Alright. We can do that this time.” —Because let’s face it, at that time and place I didn’t really have a choice.

So I start the exchange on the register. As I’m nearly done, she asks me what I’m going to do with the pencil now that she’s returned it. I tell her it gets put with the other returns to be disposed of. Then I finish the return—but apparently, she’s not done yet.

“Well,” she said, “if you’re just going to throw it away, can I have it back?”

That’s when I blinked at her. Long and slow.

“It seems like a waste to just throw it out,” she continued.

Seriously? I’m thinking to myself.

“Unfortunately,” I told her, “You just gave this pencil back to me in exchange for that new eyeliner.” I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when she continued to argue with me.

“But if you’re just going to throw it away, what’s the difference?”

“The difference,” I said, “is that I gave you money for this pencil—”

I picked up the pencil so she could see it.

“—which you then spent on this eyeliner—”

I held up the bag with her new purchase. “I need to have some kind of product on my end since we did an exchange.”

To which she said, “You people are so wasteful! I can’t believe you would just toss it in the garbage. It’s people like you and companies like this that are destroying the world!”

Yeah, lady. It’s all me (I’m shaking my head right now, just so you know).

I can’t even really get mad at people like this—because their behavior is so utterly…well, ridiculous.

 

Cheers to you all—and happy shopping!

 

When Beauty Gets Ugly: "Musings..."

My apologies for the long absence! I took a break for two very good reasons:

1.      After the Boston bombing, I felt the world had enough negativity going around (even though mine is all done with the most playful intentions). So I took a break from the beauty blog to work on a short story I was getting ready to submit to a contest.

…and..

 

2.      I spent last weekend out of the state, visiting a house that time forgot. What I mean is, there was no WiFi—oh, the humanity! It was a great trip and we had a lot of fun, but now we’re back and it’s time for me to get back to work.

So, I was chatting with a coworker the other day—and something interesting came up. Something we in cosmetics have all noticed or brought up at one time or another. I’ve even hinted at it in previous post. I found myself, for the first time, really considering the possibility that staying in the cosmetics industry for a long time really does drive many of us crazy. Literally crazy. Not just ha-ha, every now and again crazy, but truly, actually, totally butt-fuck bonkers.

Now obviously this doesn’t apply to everyone—but think about all the crazy AE’s and cosmetic managers out there. Not to mention the trainers and National Artists we come across. I know all of us—every single one of us—has run into someone like this before. We’ve all had them. Doesn’t that make you wonder if you kind of have to be crazy when you take these promotions? Or are you normal when you take them, and it’s all the bullshit events, pain-in-the-ass customers, and wild personalities you need to keep in check that finally shoves you over the edge?

After fifteen years, I could kind of see how this could drive a person mad. I guess. Then again, maybe it is something they slip in the water…

 

Sorry again for the delay. I promise next time to be back and ready for action on how not to shop in cosmetics. Hmmm…I think maybe that should be my blog’s new name. What do you think?

For now, I wish you well…and happy shopping.