My Sephora experience in Aix-en-Provence

One of the things we did to sweeten the girls during our time away in Europe, was the promise of French perfume for their birthdays.  I decided to look for perfume in a French chain store called Sephora which sells cosmetics and skincare in addition to the most delicious French perfumes you've ever heard of and more.  For those who live in Australia, think of about when you walk into the fragrance/skincare/cosmetics department in either David Jones or Myer and try to imagine the smell being 100 times better.  This was just a small part of my Sephora experience.

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It's glitzy and glamorous, with assistants waiting to help you and kindly give you a basket in which to place your intended purchases.  Not a bad idea really as you are inclined to buy more if you have somewhere to put them as you stroll about.

I was  buying perfume for myself as well so the first thing in my hand was a bottle of Chanel No. 5, my signature perfume.  I was first introduced to Chanel No. 5 when I was 18, my parents bought me a bottle while visiting Europe.  They and they alone are responsible for getting me hooked on this fragrance and I'm very grateful.  (Hubby found out it was my favourite perfume when we were first going out and bought me a bottle.  I knew by then he was a keeper.)

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Next  on my list was Chanel Mademoiselle, Genevieve's perfume of choice.  She had taken herself of to do some smell tests before we went away.

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Then it was choosing a perfume for Charlotte who had not a clue what she wanted.  There after followed one of the most interesting experiences I had in France and a first hand experience of the language barrier between an English speaking and a French speaking woman.

I had a couple of fragrances in mind for Charlotte, I'd done smell tests in Sephora and tried to match a perfume to her personality.  It was at this point the most delightful mature French lady came to my assistance with a basket.  I asked in my very poor French did she speak English which of course she did not so I proceeded to use the best sign language to explain what I wanted.  I showed her a photo of the girls, pointed to Genevieve and then pointed to the bottle of Chanel Mademoiselle.  I pointed to me then to the bottle of Chanel No. 5. and lastly pointed to Charlotte in the photo and shrugged my shoulders, palms facing up.  The French understood this gesture I was sure, I'd seen them do it often enough.

So then the real fun began.  My lovely French assistant had me sniffing all the perfumes she though would suit Charlotte and my poor nose in the end could hardly decipher one perfume from the next.  Everything she had me smell was heavy, sexy, sensual and earthy and was accompanied with hand gestures and body movements to suggest the same.  Earthy and heavy was not what I had in mind for Charlotte, but something more flirty, light and airy with a touch of floral perhaps.  Can you imagine two ladies using hand gestures, one lady doing sensual, the other light and airy.  My shopping experience was nothing at all like the photo below which suggests sensible, mature, elegant women going about the business of buying perfume.  By this stage we were both in fits of laughter with the assistant pretending to wipe her brow with exhaustion.  She was determined to help me at all costs, language barrier or not.

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 After about 10 minutes, I finally asked hubby to venture inside to translate for me in his more than passable French.  The perfume I thought would suit Charlotte was Miss Dior.

 My French lady was having none of this.   It was too light, it would fade away into nothing, it was too inconsequential for my daughter.  She was absolutely delightful in her descriptions, accompanied with yet more hand gestures and body movements.  Hubby was able to tell her that I wanted a perfume to suit my daughter's personality and finally she understood.  We finally decided to purchase the parfum rather then the eu de toilette I had picked up and she was all smiles.  Everything was good.  She even put a few little product and perfume samples in my basket.  I was delighted.  We went off to the register to pay and the young man made a show of wrapping each bottle of perfume beautifully in paper and ribbon, giving me more samples and the most delightful Sephora bag (a very usable tote like bag) in which to place them.  What an experience.  Would I do it again tomorrow?  YES, a thousand time yes. The sheer joy that was derived from such an experience on so many levels is not one I will forget for a long time.

As always, thank you for taking an interest and visiting.

Have a wonderful week,

Anne  xx

Paris - Monday and Tuesday

Hello everyone.  We are back home in Australia having had the most wonderful holiday we could imagine.  We seemed to have slipped right back into domestic life, very happy to be sleeping in our own beds and not living out of a suitcase.  Before too much more time passes I have one remaining post on the last two days we spent in Paris.

Tuesday was a designated shopping day.  We walked to the Galeries Lafayette Department Store which is a huge store selling top designer label shoes, handbags, cosmetics and clothing.  It was very glitzy and perhaps just a little bit over the top.

The floor levels are in a circle with a big open space in the middle.

Looking down on the cosmetics and perfume section.

 

This dome in the building is absolutely gorgeous.

I loved these lights in the store.

The Parisian lady's best accessory - a dog.  We couldn't believe our eyes when this lady walked through the store with her dog.  I have images of Sophie in a store like this, they're not good ones.

This photo is not too good as it was taken rather hurriedly after my jaw was picked up off the ground.

On the roof of the store is a terrace which gives very good views of Paris.

After deciding we'd seen enough of Galeries Lafayette Department Store we went on to another department store not far away called Printemps Department Store Paris.  It was very similar to
Galeries Lafayette and I found some very, very comfortable Italian leather shoes.  As we were wandering around we came across this brand of beauty products.

I tried one of the tester hand creams and it was quite hideous.  My brothers cowshed smells better!!  :)  We also saw this brand name.

After an amusing few hours in the shops we had some lunch at Brioche Doree the French equivilent of a fast food outlet only the food is superior in taste and price to that found at McDonald's etc.  For about 8 Euro we had a combination meal of a chicken and salad baguette, a sweet item which could be a cookie, a tart, brownie or little pie etc, a cold drink and an espresso coffee.  While sitting in the eating our lunch inside we spent time people watching and I snapped a few photos of Parisians going about their day.

This lady is riding one of the many bikes you can hire in Paris.

We walked back to an arcade opposite our hotel as I had spied a rather lovely jacket but alas the few kilos of bumage and tumage had caught up with me so it remained the property of the lovely little boutique.

After a rest at our hotel we headed off on the Metro to a very special appointment, an appointment with the Eiffel Tower.  We had prebooked our tickets and at 8.00pm we went up to the top avoiding the queue which was incredibly long.  Some people had queued for 2 hours before they went up.  Here are some of the photos we took going up in the lift, on the different levels and coming down.

Underneath

Looking up.

Looking down on the way up.

Going up.

First level

View of Montmartre in the distance.

Close up of the Seine from the first level.

Views from the top level.

Arch de Triumph in the middle of the photo.

Looking down one of the legs of the tower.

On the very top.

We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to the Eiffel Tower, the views were incredible.  I expected it to be very cold and windy but it was very calm and not too cold.

Tuesday we visited the Musee d' Orsay which is in the centre of Paris, on the banks of the Seine and installed in the former Orsay railway station.  It's a magnificant space and houses a fantastic collection of impressionist and post impressionist paintings.  Photos were not permitted so I've nothing to show in the way of paintings.  We saw paintings by Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Renoir, Cezanne and Vincent van Gogh.  There were works by other painters too.  It was wonderful to see paintings I've only seen in books and on greeting cards like Monet's waterlilies, van Gogh's haystacks etc.

Here are a few photos of the museum.

After a wonderful visit we decided to head to Champs-Elysees to have a drink at the King George Cafe where we visited the first few days we were in Paris.

It was a lovely way to end the afternoon and we finished off with pizza at another restaurant not too far from our hotel.

That evening after our bags were packed for our flight in the morning, we spent a lovely hour or so chatting to Samy the lovely, helpful, welcoming and very friendly night reception attendant who made our stay in Paris so enjoyable and two other English fellas Gordon and Nigel we met when we first stayed at the Hotel Chopin and were guests again. 

The lovely Samy.

 

A quick snap (out of focus sorry) of Nigel on the left and Gordon on the right.  They both work at the Bordeaux University.

So ends our visit to Europe.  We had an amazing time and hopefully will get the chance to visit again sometime.  Thank you everyone for joining us on our holiday.  I hope I haven't bored you too much and will forgive the excessive volume of photos posted, poor grammar and spelling mistakes.

Bye for now,

Anne   xx

P.S.  My next couple of posts will be about some of the lovely things I found on our travels.  They have their own stories attached to them which I hope you will enjoy.