Chemist refused to sell my Mother make up. How odd?

[fortifiedwithtea]

DM a bit deaf but all her facilities and aged 85 .

She wanted to buy her granddaughter (my DD2) a lipstick for her birthday. DM went to a local independent chemist. The sort that stinks of perfume the moment you walk in. She explained to the sales assistant ( who mum presumed was the owner or manager ) that she was looking for a colour to suit someone with blonde hair, fair skin tone.

Assistant replied sorry I know this sounds awkward but we only serve people who have bought a product before as its caused problems in the past.

So mum went to Boots with the exist same request and was helped , no problem. Except now she is over thinking it and worrying the lipstick could cause God knows what skin allergy.

Does this sound really odd? I wondered if first shop thought she was buying for a child. Dd2 is 20 years old btw. Or do you think its because make up choice so personal its highly likely its not to daughter’s taste. But why should that be of any concern to the shop, everyone should know make up can not be returned.

To me its a weird business model only to sale products your customers have had before. How is business growth achieved if nobody tries anything new.?

@fortifiedwithtea I'm sorry but you have missed out one of the most important details from this saga of the lipstick. What soup were you eating?

@JoanOfAllTrades Lloydspharmacy is nothing to do with the bank

@GingerNutMe 400g tin all to myself of Heinz Cream of Chicken, and I was still peckish afterwards.

Nooooo tomato all the way with fresh bread and butter yum lol did we ever find out why they refused to see your mam makeup?

Sell* why is there no edit on this thing?

@Mumof2amazingasdkiddos sorry, its still an unresolved mystery.

Nooooo I'm so ridiculously invested in this lol

If her mum knows then I’m sure the daughter does too. It is kind of common knowledge.

Yeah, it's awful.

Where I live, we wear clothes made from woven grass and shoes made from twigs and old tyres. We are running out of old tyres now though, because nobody can afford to run a car.

It's good in one way though. Our bins used to get attached by seagulls and pigeons, but not any more. Although now they've all been eaten, we are on to sparrows and they really don't have much meat on them. On the plus side, I'm about to release a cookbook - 102 ways to use seaweed - it's got recipes, curtain patterns and ways to turn it into crockery, for example. It's quite a fun way to spend a dark, cold winter evening.

@JoanOfAllTrades

If you think food is expensive in Uk, don't look at prices in NZ. I have just been visiting my Mum in UK and could not believe how cheap food still is there.

I wasn’t meaning to come across as condescending and was actually posting to that specific poster.

I actually don’t understand how people are affording to live in the UK and I know that a few members of my family have told me that they are saving up already for their post winter fuel bills. My post was a serious one, because prices seem to have skyrocketed since I lived there.

I believe that NZ is expensive as I’ve got friends from there and they always say that wages and prices are not comparable as wages are so low and food etc., so expensive (and housing compared to wages too).

Where do you live @JoanOfAllTrades ?

I can’t tell you as some of posts could be quite identifying if I gave an actual location, but I live in a big country with a smallish population (think 1 person per kilometre). It’s an island sometimes lovingly described by locals as the pimple in the boil on the backside of earth! Amazingly we do have year round tourism (allegedly) although I’ve never actually seen any tourists so they must be visiting places unknown to the rest of us!

Which makes it rather convenient for posters not pointing out how your country isn’t quite the utopia compared with the UK you’d like us to believe

@JoanOfAllTrades Your post didn't come across as condescending at all imo, am a bit baffled by the reply it got! You're absolutely right about the high cost of some things in the UK atm, we have a cost of living crisis it's in the news and on Mumsnet every day, not strange or condescending to mention at all!

It's much too simplistic to compare the costs of a small number of items from one country to another though. There are a large number of variables that need to be taken into consideration.

There are people that live in countries that could say that we are much cheaper too. And without being told what country it is being compared to - well, it's fairly meaningless. It doesn't really tell us anything. Other than one person that hasn't been here in eight years thinks it's expensive.

The UK is expensive compared to a lot countries, many of which have much lower average wages than we do. That's absolutely factual. But it's far from the full picture.

That is definitely true and I didn't think you were condescending at all

For the record - the only person that suggested the post was condescending was the person that made it.

@Mamadramatic * * What do you mean by that?

How would you kill a dead cat?