Shopping for high-end cosmetic products in Zagreb

Basically, if you really don't have to, don't do it.
I, on the other hand, don't have any choice because there is no trip abroad anywhere on the horizon for me so I did some shopping today. Well, I do it often enough to have gained some insights I'd like to share even though I don't suspect many of my readers might actually find themselves in this situation. :)

My first stop was Martimex, which used to be one of my favourite shops for high-end cosmetics and perfumes (while I still knew nothing about niche). This is not the first time I arrived and whatever I asked for particularly, they didn't have. So, I didn't find the face illuminator I wanted and ended with Touche Eclat by YSL again (it's not bad but I wanted something different). They didn't have any primers of any kind. And the eye cream I didn't ask for anything specific so I took Guerlain's home with me.  This is really starting to get on my nerves, each time I come, they don't have most of the products I'm looking for, even though they carry the lines. My purchase got me one Moschino perfume sample (one I got last time as well).
I have no idea what's happening with them, I mean, I have a pretty good guess but the way they are going, they are just losing customers. Yes, I know it's recession time and I guess they don't earn as much money as before but hey, this way they are not going to improve the situation.

Although, if they are losing customers, Iris perfumery is probably not going to be getting them. Each time I get there, all the SAs try and sell Sisley products to me. Always and all of them. Then, when I say that I have something else on my mind, we move on to that. So, today, after saying I'm not giving 200$ for a Sysleya primer (or however you spell that), I got the Sisley one. :) And lo and behold, they have a special offer - when you buy one Lancaster product, you get the other one for free. As I'm a proficient shoppingholic, I could not pass such an offer (and I'm almost done with those I have) so I got a day and night cream. All this amounted to almost the double what I paid in Martimex and earned me no samples. I guess that free cream counts as one big sample. I wouldn't even be mentioning this if it were the first time, which it isn't. And I'm certainly not going to ask for them.
You see, the thing here is, all the SAs working in stores like that don't need to buy any cosmetic products - they have all those free samples just lying there and why give them to customers when they can use them themselves.
Btw, here is where I should mention that I get more cosmetic samples from Bamapharm pharmacy where I don't buy the stuff.

And to end my rant today - I'll just mention Douglas which I didn't visit today but do it often enough. They usually have what you are looking for, if the SA can find it. Although, most of them need to be asked to just give you what it is you want because usually they cannot be trusted to suggest the right thing.
Plus, just a word of caution - which I learned the hard way, anything available to public with a lid on it (like a body butter or similar) needs to be opened prior to purchase in case someone decided before you to partly remove the foil and test the product.
But at least your bag will contain some samples.

Sorry, I had to get this off my chest - this is years of frustration pouring out. :)

Better than this? - Not likely

To start with the spring again, it's still warm and hopefully it will stay around this temperature a while yet. I like it when it's not too warm and not too cold, I want to enjoy spring this year. Last few years what was happening was that we went directly from winter to summer, without those lovely green, fresh, sunny spring days. Well, this year it has lasted 10 days for now, and we keep counting. :)


That was just the beginning, what is actually making these days so perfect is the fact that there is Douglas store freshly opened in the center of Zagreb! That is good news on so many levels. First, they carry several perfume brands that were previously unavailabale in Croatia, like Prada, Acqua di parma, Viktor & Rolf, Ed Hardy, and those are just the ones off the top of my head. They also carry Orlane which wasn't available either and it's just well, unbelievable. :)


One of the reasons this is making me so happy, is because now there are several such stores in Zagreb, and most of them concentrated in the centre of the city so my hope is that now they are all having such heavy competition, getting samples and all sorts of gifts with particular purchases are going to increase. I don't know if that's typical only of Croatia but since I've been getting much more samples for much lesser purchase everywhere else, I'd say it's typical for us, anyway sale assistants seem to be very stingy with samples, and I'm not going to talk about what I think of that, but you can guess.


So, it seems Zagreb is slowly becoming somewhat of a heaven for a budding perfumista. :) Sure, we don't have so many brands, but we have Institut Parfumeur Flores and some similar stores (smaller and with much less of a choice, but still niche brands) and all this generic brands in quite a lot of different stores. And on top of that, I got my Lucky scent Le Labo sample pack, so I'll be enjoying that this week as well. Ahh, spring is just perfect this year! :)