Confessions From Behind The Fragrance Counter

This episode takes us back to the mall, back to the department store beauty counters, where the perfume girls lurk, waiting to spray...

We all remember navigating the mall through the huge beauty floors (because you always had to enter the mall through a department store for some reason) where your friendly fragrance sales associates would be demo-ing the latest,  pungiest (you know what I mean), designer-iest fragrances. Well, we have always wondered what it's like to have one of the most glamorous jobs at the mall: perfume girl. So we decided to talk to one former fragrance demo (and current illustrator and artist extraordinaire), Lauren Tamaki, who has over 10 years of behind-the-counter experience shilling scents to the world (well the part of the world that visited Canadian department stores). Selling fragrance is not unlike speed dating — you're getting to know someone's desires and aspirations and what makes them cringe or go weak in the knees — all in just one sense. It is also not unlike a well-heeled territorial game of survival of the spritziest, as Ms. Tamaki tells us from her time on the sales floor. 

Check out Lauren Tamaki's  work: http://laurentamaki.com/

[What we smell like today: Victoria's Secret Tease Crème Cloud, Burberry Hero]

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