Wednesday 10 February 2010

Clarins Rant and the fight for ingredients

As the shade in my foundation has been discontinued I am on the look out for something else. I had seen a lot of raves for Clarins new Everlasting Foundation. Unable to find the ingredients online I went to a store and after being ignored for well over 5 minutes I was finally approached…
SA: “Do you want anything?”
Me: “Can I see the ingredients for the new foundation please?”
She stares at me blankly, too much time passes…
Me: “If I could have a look at the box please?”
SA:“You want to look at the box?”
Me: “ Yes, to look at the ingredients”
SA: “Why”
Me: “ I have acne prone skin and am sensitive to a lot of things”
SA:”Like what?”
Me: “ Like Salt, Alcohol, Corn starch”
SA sighs at me, hands me the box, I look at the ingredients which unfortunately aren't suitable…
SA: “so it’s ok then?"
ME: “No, Sorry, it contains Alcohol quite high up on the list”
SA: long sigh, grabs box from me put back in drawer and walks off.

Her manner throughout the conversation was rude and she seemed highly annoyed with me, I know working in retail isn’t always joyous so I can forgive it to some extent, what annoyed me was being questioned over the fact that I wanted to check out the ingredients. I thought she was going to refuse to show me them at one point.
I wanted to look at the ingredients of the new Cotton face powder as well and buy quite a few things from the Spring collection, but as a result of this treatment I left empty handed and won’t be going back again.
These days I think people are more careful over what they put in their bodies and what they put on their skin; adult acne seems to be on the rise as well as skin sensitivity. There is more awareness of what the ingredients mean and for someone like me who has sensitive skin, battled severe acne for over 5 years and is now on the pill to keep it under control, the ingredients in a face product are fundamental as to whether I will buy it or not.

Unfortunately I have had many negative experiences trying to get ingredients from counters, the ones that come to mind are one SA saying that the ingredients are not listed anywhere, and another arguing with me that its impossible to break out from Algae.
I’d say probably 50% of websites don’t list the ingredients, a lot of people aren’t necessarily going to go through extensive searches and emailing like I have in the past to find them out and will simply not buy the product. Out of those that don’t currently list the ingredients some are really good and will email you back with the full list, others like Chanel just replied that the ingredients are on the box and to ask in store, firstly not everyone may have a counter near them, secondly as I have cited its not always easy to get them to show you ingredients.
I think from now on if it’s a product that I need to go instore and get the SA to get out for me (not something you can just take off the shelve) I will simply not bother and buy from a brand where obtaining the ingredients isn’t a struggle.

I recently found this site which is really helpful as it has the most comprehensive list of brands ingredients I have ever seen http://phoebe.pn-np.net/

4 comments:

  1. Ooh what a coincidence - only last night was I was moaning on my blog about some brands not making it easy to check the ingredients of their products. I really hate that too!

    I sometimes ask sales assistants if I can see the boxes of products to check ingredients, but they usually make me feel like I'm being a nuisance for wanting to know what's inside their products.

    I find the Sephora website is really good for showing ingredients of products.

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  2. Hi Beauty Scribbler,

    Glad its not just me then :).Thanks about the Sephora suggestion that does seem pretty good for ingredients x

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  3. Wow, what a horrible sounding experience! I'm so sorry you had such a jerkish SA!

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  4. Hi Lillian,

    Yes, it wasn't much fun,I'll avoid that counter like the plague in future ! Thanks for stopping by :)

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