This is a beautiful store with incredibly well trained attentive sales people. Every inch of the store is merchandised exquisitely. I went in for the $2.95 hand soaps (Blackberries and Basil, Strawberry Pound Cake, and Champagne Toast) and ended up getting 3 full sized body products resulting in 3 free products (Shower gel, lotion and spray sets from the Champagne Toast and Autumn Drive scents).
I started to notice in the store that I was getting a headache from smelling so many of their products by spraying the little white cards, trying out a couple creams on my hands, smelling candles, hand sanitizer, handling some decorative items, and washing my hands with one of the soaps. I shrugged it off and thought I was just hungry perhaps. I used the Autumn Drive lotion later on and it smelled so good. I took a shower to make sure any random scented sprays were not lingering in my hair or on my body and tried another lotion, champagne toast and used the spray in the room I was in but didn't put it on me. I also used that foaming hand soap. The headache has taken a turn into a pretty bad headache that will not go away. I knew that this was going to be a likely scenario for me but I was hoping to find a cheaper alternative to my favorite pricey lotions from Lush and Clarins that NEVER cause a headache. Clarins is a European brand so even though they use chemical fragrance it is not an issue for some reason. Lush also NEVER causes an issue and I think some of their fragrances are from actual plants etc. I shopped at Body Shop ages ago prior to acquisition and NEVER had issues with their products including scented oil (Mango).
One of the sales women who helped me told me that 'Champagne Toast' doesn't trigger migraines for her personally but I don't recall if we also talked about the other scents I purchased, 'Autumn Drive', 'Strawberry Pound Cake', and 'Blackberries and Basil'. I am so frustrated because I wasted so much time driving there and trying out all the scents and driving back. I also feel like the soap (Champagne Toast foaming) is not actually moisturizing even though it has 'natural essential oils, vitamin E, shea extract and aloe'. I know that my hands would be way more moisturized if I used a product that actually had a noticeable amount of these ingredients in it from individually using all of those ingredients on my skin at different times. So the reality of what is in these products and the side effects I experienced leads me to believe that the other ingredients including chemical fragrance are what is causing the issues and that the amount of the ingredients that are actually good for my skin in my experience are in such little amounts that it is meaningless to my experience personally. I am hoping they will take the products back. I think I am done with shopping all L Brands and Victoria's Secret Brands (Victoria's Secret, Pink) after this experience. It's just not worth another headache like this from being in their stores. I assume their formulations are similar.
I am dreading going back into this store to return the items now because it could trigger another headache for me. read more
