Like all retailers these days I have had my fair share of people booking an appointment for a makeup or skincare consult, leaving with all my advice, only to find out that they’ve gone and bought all my recommended products from a grey market site such as strawberry.net.
I know this because they then call me or book even more time for me to advise them on how to use the hundreds of dollars worth of products that they have bought.
I usually shrug my shoulders, bite my tongue and smile nicely with my jaws clenched. I then politely (I hope) advise them that caution needs to be taken in using anything not bought from an official supplier.
The response usually is “Oh it’s all real product – I’ve bought heaps from them and it’s always OK.”
Don’t get me wrong, I love shopping online. It’s convenient, usually safe and I am pretty much always happy with the purchase.
First cautionary tale – I can speak from first hand experience that when dealing with skin care that what you see is not always what you get.
In the last 30 days I have had two new clients presenting to me with severe reactions to one or more of the products they have bought online.
Now I can’t say for sure that the products weren’t legitimate (although the packaging certainly looked just a tad different from the one I have in stock in the Clinic), but what I had to say is that other than offering some specialized treatments to help with the results, I couldn’t help them.
At Lyte, we stock and use active skincare products – the ones that will really get results. We are proud to be associated with them, but unless you buy a product from a trained and licensed retailer, the skincare company will take no responsibility for the products you use.
Second cautionary tale – One of these clients had misdiagnosed her skin condition and made it significantly worse. We’ve put her on the correct treatment routine now, but not before wasting a whole lot of money, creating a whole lot of stress and ruining her social life for a couple of months.
So in all things, but in particular when treating something as precious as your skin –
BUYER BEWARE!!
