A Day In The Shop, Part 2

1:10 – 2:20 PM. I start last Friday’s Olivia Giacobetti blog post. It ends up taking two hours, much longer than usual. Partly because I have to keep editing out the creepier lines (eg: “Giacobetti reportedly formulated Byredo’s hair perfumes. OLIVIA I KNOW WHAT YOUR HAIR SMELLS LIKE”), but mostly because I haven’t been writing much. The longer I go between blog posts, the more self-conscious I become about writing.

2:20 – 2:50 PM. Customer! She loves MFK A La Rose, but not the price. We spray every other rose fragrance in the shop to try to find a more gently-priced alternative. We get close with Miss Charming, another Kurkdjian creation, but A La Rose wins out in the end. Love conquers all, y’all.

2:50 – 3:50 PM. Finish up Olivia Giacobetti post! I reward myself with the second mug of the day: Trader Joe’s Candy Cane Green Tea. (They only sell it in December, so I bought five boxes to carefully ration out.)

3:50 – 3:55 PM. Customers! A young couple. They spray a few scents, make quietly horrified faces, and leave as politely as possible. Can’t win ’em all!

3:55 – 5:30 PM. What do you think the worst part of running a shop would be? Accounting, maybe? Permits? You might be surprised to learn that the correct answer is THE GODDAMN CHALKBOARD ART. Can I tell you all of my chalkboard problems, please? If you don’t set chalk art with adhesive spray, the chalk just washes away every time the board gets caught in the rain. But if you do use adhesive spray, the chalk becomes impossible to remove. The only thing that works is maximum-strength nail polish remover, applied with significantly more upper-body strength than I possess.

Erasing one side of the board takes about half an hour. Thinking of a perfume pun that I haven’t already used takes about 10 minutes; 15, if the nail polish remover headache is particularly bad. Finally, we get to the art itself. My handwriting, much like Hatchet Face in Crybaby, is best described as “having character.”

Whenever possible, I beg more legible friends for help. A few of our past chalkboard artists:

But today, it’s up to me. Behold my masterpiece! Bury it with me, you guys. And inscribe on the tombstone: “She really should have just bought a whiteboard, right?”

5:30 – 6:05 PM. Customer! We sent this gentleman home with some Escentric Molecules samples last time, and he’s back for Escentric 01. It’s the last bottle of Escentric 01 in the shop- our first Escentric Molecules scent to sell out! (Interestingly, we haven’t sold a single Molecule 01 yet, which is generally considered to be the star of the line.)

6:05 – 6:55 PM. I scour Ebay and FragranceNet for mini bottles for the International Women’s Month event. We need Fracas to represent Germaine Cellier, Youth Dew for Josephine Catapano, and a Parfums de Nicolai or two. I also snag some White Diamonds for a future celebrity perfumes workshop. I definitely do not get distracted by $52 Serge Lutens at any point during the search.

6:55- 7:00 PM. Super secret closing procedures. (Turn off lights, arm alarm system. Please do not rob us, robbers.) Now I get to go home to Zelda and play some Fire Emblem.

Thank you for sharing a day in the shop with me!