Les senteurs:london

If you are not comfortable in going to test the fragrances in their shop, you could just order samples from their website....

http://shop.lessenteurs.com/index.ht...=0&submit=back

I've said it already several times on this board but I have had very bad experiences with this shop.

Out of three sample orders two were wrong and the third I was charged for but was forgotten and never sent to me.

I ordered £150 of full bottles and was charged twice as they processed my order twice.

All this would be forgivable if they had put it right graciously. I didn't get an appology but instead was given excuses about how busy there were, including beig told how their sample orders had gone up from 150/week to 150/day (but obviously are too tight to employ someone to help).

They are rude and run a poor business. Avoid at all costs.

I feel that I must post a word or two in defence of Les Senteurs.

I am sure that if I walked into any shop convinced that I was going to have a difficult time there that I would definitely exit feeling truly psychic.

It simply is not true that anything but a warm welcome awaits the Casual Browser at Les Senteurs.

I have, myself, spent more than an hour at Les Senteurs with the full attention and guidance of Martin ( One of the Sales People)and left without spending a penny;Nothing issued from Martin other than a genuine smiling 'Thanks' for the visit and a handful of 'Free' samples which should, in normal circumstances cost £2.00 each.

The shop has bent over backwards to accomodate me in the past, even biking over a fragrance (the Last in their stock) from a photoshoot where it was being used as subject for an Ad.

Replacing a dodgy Bigarade Concentree there which was originally purchased in Paris itself was as easy as pie and they were so apologetic at my trouble.

I call all this wonderful service.The shop is good too.

Les Senteurs is a small, specialist shop and at any one time there are only two people working front of house taking calls etc.

It is clear that the shop has experienced a huge public attention from Basenotes' publicity of it and naturally volume of interest is going to have some effect somewhere.

This needs to be balanced with the fact that Les Senteurs sales people are the most knowledgeable and friendly and patient people around. As already mentioned they are generous too.

This shop is a treasure trove of niche items ; I DO sympathise with the originator of this thread but I hope that others are not put off by one tragic self fulfilling prophecy.

I've only ordered from there once, but the samples arrived within reasonable time, and were all fine.

That somewhere is here. I run a business and would not dream of treating customers the way I was treated. Repeatedly. I understand any business can make a mistake, even several at difficult time so after the mistakes outlined above were made by this company , I took the time to send feedback to them, making it clear that this was with good will, not a complaint and not assertive or aggressive. Just feedback as to my experience to help them avoid situations like this in the future. They did not even agknowledge this or thank me for this in their reply. If someone takes time to feedback to my business in a polite way, that is the most valuable thing I can receive.

No appology, no thanks for my feedback, nothing to make me feel like a valued customer, just a description of how they were too busy making money to care what happened to my orders.

I have heard similar stories from others, indeed had it happen to me with loaned tools and witnessed the phenomenon myself where our Office Photocopier works faithfully for years and years and then Someone New comes along and every time they touch it it breaks down.

It is not that the machine breaks down for no good reason either; There's always a valid reason.

No one could blame the New Person but neither have we ever abandoned the old machine either since it seems to function perfectly all the time for the rest of the office in general.

Call it a Mystery, but whatever it is, the phenomenon generalises itself into all kinds of areas.

Life just doesn't seem set up to meet all our expectations and if we are fond of Babies it seems a shame to be so willing to see them spiral away with the Bathwater.

I wouldn't want for a moment to contradict a word of what has been written critically about any experience at Les Senteurs but I write again on this topic to point out that that was not my own experience based on being a regular customer and Visiting Browser there for a few years now.

Since this shop is the ONLY place to buy certain Niche frags in the UK I think that it is important that a balanced view be portrayed so that others are not put off by one, albeit protracted and disappointing experience.

I might add that I share the disappointment of the critical Poster and will certainly mention, in his defence, his point of view , when I am next in the shop. I do indeed think that a bad experience occurred and that maybe the response to feedback was less than satisfying.

The Malle fridge encourages a deep forgiveness though.

I like to stop by Les Senteurs when walking the perfume trail - and I have only good things to say about them; they are friendly, knowledgeable, and highly accommodating. And they have some damn awesome frags. I'm really sorry to hear the earlier poster had a bad experience but it doesn't remotely reflect my own.

Also, I've yet to buy anything there, but I get a smile and a greeting every time I go in.

To try - Bigarade, Or des Indes ... hehe ... I will find -something- to get!

Guidion, I see your point that it is important to separate incidences and note that most have had positive experiences at the shop, but I don't like the way your analogie implies that Hirsch did something wrong. It sounds like Hirsch has some pretty valid reasons for being upset with the way that the store runs its business, and I think we should respect his feelings and take note of the stores shortcoming even if it is good to us.

I am amazed at the dust that this thread has started to throw up.

What interests me most about the responses to it is the way that some others are amazingly identified with the assumed idea of my 'blaming' Hirch for having done something wrong in his dealings with Les Senteurs. This is not true and I can't be responsible for any other interpretations.

Nowhere in my original two posts on this topic have I criticized anyone for doing anything wrong. Neither have I written that there were not valid reasons for complaint in Hirch's case.

I can't be accountable for whether others like what I post or not. What is important to me is that I respect what I write.

I wrote my posts on this topic to the FORUM who can choose to read or ignore me as they choose.




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I have ordered stuff from them three times and all my experiences were positive. I'm sad to hear it has not been like that for everyone.

indeeed, guidion is right to stick up for his posts, as any careful reading will show that his posts in no way attack or blame hirch for his experience. in fact, guidion spent a great deal of time doing the exact opposite--that is, defending /everyone's/ right to submit feedback in an effort to portray accurately an experience in the fragrance world. no one is wrong here.

in any case, i plan to order to order samples from the shop in question later this afternoon. if i, like hirch, have a bad experience, i'll certainly let you know; otherwise, you can assume the transaction was as right as rain.

peace and hairgrease.

Anybody know what sort of prices they charge for Creed's? They don't offer prices on the website - just the range of bottle sizes available.

You can only get samples of Creeds via the website. For full bottles you need to phone or visit. It's something to do with the arrangement they have with Creed.

I'd recommend getting samples of anything to see if you like it enough to buy a full bottle. Les Senteurs worked OK for me (I dealt with them by telephone). My only complaint might be that they are a bit slow. It took about 10 days for my samples to arrive and I'm in the same country for goodness sake!

But they arrived eventually and were generous, for example the Tabac Blond was a large amount, practically filling the vial (more than what the web site had stated). But a touch unprofessional in that there was no compliments slip or anything, just the frags. Atomisers would be better than dab-stick vials in my opinion and I'm sure people wouldn't mind paying a bit extra for them.

I'm about to soon order some more samples from them (I'm dying to try the Caron Poivre for example) so will keep you guys updated with any feedback I might have of my experiences. So far I have only dealt with them once and as I've said it was OK. Not fantastic. But definitely OK.

Have to agree about atomisers, i much prefer those to vials with sticks. I recently got some samples from Les Senteurs with a not too bad delivery time. Ordered Monday, arrived on the Friday. I was pretty impressed with Royal Delight but it seems quite hard to get hold of. Hopefully at some point i'll find a bottle for a reasonable price like i did with Green Irish Tweed and Millesime Imperial.