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I apologise now, this is going to be a rant.
I went to the Oracle in Reading today with the express purpose of buying three things: creme eyeshadow, Thornton’s Easter egg, L’Occitane candles.
Firat stop, Thorntons. Straight in and out again. Kids with sticky fingers plastered all over the goods, and a queue out the door. Serves me right for not buying Andy’s Easter egg sooner but I lost my temper and walked out again. Don’t worry though readers, he won’t be going without, even if it means me doing a last minute dash to the petrol station later.
Second stop, L’Occitane. They make nice candles, and I also like their Lemon/Verbena range of shampoo and conditioner. It has a strong fresh scent that is perfect for getting you going in the morning, and the candles have a strong enough pong to erase cooking and cat smells (not cooking the cat…oh, you know what I mean).
So, I was just planning on popping in and out. But no, thwarted. The lady there pounced on me straight away and offered me some herbal tea to sip whilst I browsed. What?? I’m shopping and trying to do so unattended and speedily. Sadly that was not the case.
I grabbed the candles and shampoo I wanted, whilst being aware that she was following me around the very small shop. Then I was asked if I wanted to try the new range. She took hold of a bottle of body wash and asked me to follow her to the sink. I think she was going to wash my hands for me! I’m not into unsolicited touching, and thought I’d get away quickly by saying “No thankyou, I have psoriasis on my hands” thinking “Ha!Sshe won’t want to touch me now”.
Oh no. I then got the full story of how her husband has psoriasis – apparently due to the chromium in British chicken. Now I have had psoriasis all my life and that is one cause I’ve never heard of. Maybe I’ve been getting it wrong all this time? Huh.
Anyway, after a LOT of allergy chat I was making it fairly clear I wanted to pay and get out. The other reason I go to L’Occitane is because I love their gift boxes. I can house about 40 bottles of OPI in one, and I needed a new box to store my overflowing polish collection – seen here:
They were not thrilled when I asked for my purchases to be gift wrapped, given that they knew by then that I had no intention of giving them away. I had to ask three times for one of their boxes and they finally gave in.
I feel a bit guilty about writing all that but I was really in a rush. I felt sorry for her actually as I don’t think she gets to talk to anyone about her husband’s condition or kids’ allergies all that much.
On to the next stop. House of Fraser for creme eyeshadow. Damn you Urban Decay for having the perfect formula but packing everything full of allergy-inducing glitter (see, even I’m banging on about allergies now. Must be contagious. Errr…). Damn you Clarins for doing lovely colours but in really crappy little tubes where more ends up on your finger than on your face. Damn you Chanel for having a lovely creme eyeshadow that quite simply, I am bored of having worn it every day for the last two years. And damn you Victoria’s Secret for having the best creme eyeshadow I have ever bought but not selling it in the UK.
So off to the MAC counter I went. House of Fraser is hot, heating on full blast and full of low-level lighting. I am getting over a cold and getting sweatier by the moment. Enter stage right the spitting image of Lindsay Lohan (before she got all anorexic and bleach blonde). Just what I need. Not only were they out of stock of every single thing I wanted to buy, she must have called me “gorgeous”, “darling”, “lovely”, “sweetheart” and practically every other endearment under the sun. All within about four minutes. I have never felt less like a gorgeous darling lovely sweetheart in all my life. Had LiLo referred to me as “sweaty, angry and minging” it would have been more correct. Humph.
However, some good came out of today. I went to rent a DVD at Blockbuster and the nice chap let me off the £4.00 overdue fee we owed. Apparently I looked as though I’d had a rough day. As if!
[…] fact, so scared am I of MAC that I haven’t been to one since this grim day out. And seeing the queue that was about 50 deep at Westfield didn’t make me […]