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Since the fragrance subscription launched about 10 years ago, I’ve been a subscriber. They approached me when they first launched to try out their service, and I did. Every month, I would receive a month’s travel spray of the scent of my choice.
I liked it so much that I joined on my own for $14.95/month once their introductory offer for bloggers ended a couple of months later.
After a couple of years, I switched from the monthly subscription to four times a year, every three months.
Over the years, I have discovered a number of fragrances that became my favorites. La Perla, Ambre 114 by Histoires de Parfums, and Oriental Lace by Oscar de la Renta. I tried a lot of other scents that were near misses or far misses. Nevertheless, they were fun to try.
Scentbird has changed a lot over the years. The prices have increased: $16.95 for most of the scents but some are considered “premium” and their costs are higher. There’s even a Saks Fifth Avenue collection of premium fragrances that are even more costly.
But while the prices have gone up, the month travel spray and its holder have gotten cheaper. Six months ago, my travel spray came in a cheap-looking, beige holder that the glass travel spray now with a cheap-looking gold top fits into. I was shocked that it had changed so drastically.
Unfortunately, this new holder is so much less attractive than the brightly colored metallic spray case that the older silver topped spray easily slipped into.
The spray I got this month didn’t work at all. I try fitting it into the beige holder that I got 3 months ago but it didn’t work at all. In fact, the gold top broke off.
Fortunately, I had an empty Travalo travel atomizer, and I managed to get some of the Velvet from Commodity EDP into it. Before I found the Travalo, I asked Scentbird Customer Service to either replace the broken spray or refund my money. They refused.
Commodity is a relatively new fragrance house, an independent, modern, unisex, niche brand. I’ve tried a few of their scents, mostly near-ish misses. Honestly, Velvet didn’t suit me either, though I hoped it would. It was described as:
“Mysterious and elegant, Velvet Expressive evokes the pure indulgence of a soft texture meeting bar skin. Its woody oriental blend is infused with roasted almond, rose petals and black amber.”
After this failure, I decided to give up on my Scentbird subscription. A key reason for cancelling is that they changed their website. It doesn’t work at all with my Safari browser, and it doesn’t work for me with Chrome either. Since I can’t get on the site to choose any fragrances or any of their other products (candles, makeup etc.), what’s the point? When I wrote to customer service telling them why I wanted to cancel my subscription after 10 years, they didn’t seem to care why. They were unwilling to help me figure out why their website doesn’t work for me. Oh well, I guess it’s easier to get new customers than to hang on to the old.
In spite of my disappointment with Scentbird, there are now millions of websites that sell smaller samples and premium and vintage fragrances that make it quite easy to try out new scents. Although I had some good times with the old Scentbird, I won’t miss the “new” Scentbird.
Too bad that they were willing to lose a long time subscriber. How can they refuse a broken product. Not good CS at all.
I thought Scentbird customer service was a little shortsighted as well. I used to have the email address for the CEO, but I lost it, sadly. Fortunately, the Travalo that I had is one that you gave me last year. I got about half of the broken travel spray scent into it, and I’ll put the rest in later when it’s used up. Thank you so much, it came in handy!
I had the same problems with them last year, which is when they lost me. Their customer service is clearly run by people who are too uncaring to work at a call center. Jerks.
Jerks is right! They must have all new people in customer service than they used to have. Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised if the management of the company has changed.
Oh, wow! What a cool presentation. Need to get a couple!
Michelle+|+con+limón,+please recently posted…Fintastic Birthday Party at Goldfish Swim School
I think you missed the point. The customer service is terrible and the new packaging doesn’t work. It’s a monthly subscription service.