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| - While on vacation my fiance and I stopped at CrossIron Mills for a snack and some shopping. Walking by Premier, we were greeted by a female sales associate (wavy brown hair, unfamiliar accent) with samples of soap and what looked like bath salts. She held up the soap, and I asked if it had SLS in it. She said that it contained "no chemicals, just salt from the Dead Sea," while putting down the soap on her tray. Improper use of the word "chemical" aside, I took this to mean that it contained no synthetics. She told me and my fiance to hold our hand open and poured some of the salt in each of our palms. No idea what happened to the soap.
The sales associate ushered us inside and as we were exfoliating our hands with the salt, she began listing the various benefits of salt specifically from the Dead Sea. She went on about the wonderful minerals contained in it (specifically sodium, calcium, and magnesium... minerals that aren't exactly hard to come by), and made small-talk with us. When we rinsed the salt off of our hands it was apparent that the salt contained some sort of oil as well. I regularly do home made salt scrubs with Epsom salts and olive oil (dirt cheap and effective) and the way my hands felt after this particular scrub was considerably worse.
When the sales associate asked how it felt and I told her my hands felt like plastic, weird, and that I disliked the residue, she seemed supremely frustrated! I would have been happy at this point with a "thanks for trying, have a nice day," but I guess that was asking too much. Instead, after asking me to elaborate and getting more of the same answer, she got even more frustrated. She picked up a wood stick and took some body butter from a different container, but before she could put it on my hand I told her I needed to read the ingredients first. She asked if I had allergies, and I responded that I am just careful about what I put on my body.
I was not happy with the ingredients (fragrance!!!) and commented that I would not be putting that stuff on my body. At this, the sales associate began to give us more "information" about the sea salt (a bunch of hooey, trust me). She showed us the product on shelf (the size of the bottle being less than 2 cups) and told us that it was a year's supply if you use it on your whole body once a week. Wow, ok, no. Based both on the amount she gave us just for our hands, as well as my own personal experience, I can tell you that the amount there would last less than a couple months. She told us that it was on sale from $120, half off so it was only $60. WHAT!? That is a rip-off (can I say scam?) if I've ever seen one.
Just to be thorough I checked the ingredients of the salt mixture. Lo and behold, listed right on the container was fragrance. No "chemicals" my butt!!! I actually started to get a little ticked at this point, 'cause I would not have used it if I'd known that. Instead of saying something about it, I calmly remarked to my fiance that we could just make this stuff. (The oils were commonly available.) The sales associate, at this point bordering on angry, said we couldn't because it was salt from the Dead Sea. Not wanting to argue that Dead Sea salt is both cheap and easy to obtain, I rolled my eyes and said I could make something *very similar* to it. I looked over at my fiance and mentioned that I could instead use magnesium sulfate (Epsom salts). The sales associate let out a frustrated exclamation and left us.
Summary: Horrible sales tactics, really poorly trained sales associates (did not even know what was in the product), and prices bordering on a total scam. I feel sorry for the poor sucker who falls for this.
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