Today, at 11:17am, my husband and I arrived atΒ Aesop.

I know the time, because when we got there, the door was locked. The door, however, had the store hours printed right on it.

11:00AM – 7:00PM. 7 days a week.

We peer in through the door and see that there’s a person behind the counter. Perfect. Door must be locked on accident. NO PROBLEM.

I smile at the sales associate and gently knock. She looks up. 

Doesn’t smile. 

FLASHES HER HAND AT ME WITH ALL 5 FINGERS TO SIGNIFY THAT SHE NEEDS 5 MINUTES. 

Weird, but again, NO PROBLEM. We wait.

7 minutes go by and she unlocks the door and then turns her back and goes behind the desk. We walk in and greet HER. Say thank you so much and I ask her where a specific soap is. 

SHE POINTS. 

I go to the soap. I glare at Daniel so he knows that I’m not liking her attitude. He doesn’t pick up what I’m putting down. I try to let it go. But, I can’t so I TEXT HIM LOL. 

No matter, I have soap to buy. I pick up 4 FUCKING SOAPS AND WALK TO THE COUNTER. That’s the biggest Aesop order of my life, by the way.

I again GREET HER. I place the 4 soaps on the counter and say, “Just these 4, thank you.”

She does not look up. Checks us out in complete silence.

At this point I couldn’t resist. I ask her, in my nicest, most-squeaky voice, “What time do you guys usually open?”

I’m sorry, I’m not 1 to let things go. 

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She looks up, and says “11”. And then, back she goes! Head down. 

We tap to pay, she comes around from behind the counter and hands us the bag (that is nice, but even Nordstrom does that by rule), and Daniel and I turn to leave.

If I didn’t need those 4 soaps, I would have left in a huff from the 2nd unpleasant encounter. If this was Hermes, then yes, I expect to be treated like shit. But this is Aesop, I’m trying to buy soap, it opened late, and I had a silent fight before noon on a Sunday. 

Almost luxury is a concept that I think we need to talk about more. This is exactly that – 1 factor got in the way of the brand’s identity. Here, it was Miss Tude. 

CONTENT I SAVED

WHAT A HOOK from Havre Studio.

“2019: Mum, I’m moving to Mexico City, if it doesn’t work out I’ll move home!”

This IG Reel was posted on Saturday, perfectly timed to the TikTok shut down. It should be now turned into an ad across both platforms.

Also, if I’m honest, I saved it because of that two-toned-blazer. I then followed the brand, because of that two-toned blazer. I’ve now landed on site, and I’m on this collections page DEVOTED TO WHAT THE BRAND CALLS ‘CONTRASTED BLAZERS’. There are 29 versions!!! 

I just checked on Built With (let’s you see inside any brand’s tech stack) and they don’t use Aftersell. That’s a mistake. Can you imagine how much they’d clean up by upselling the matching skirt in the cart and post-purchase for all blazers? $$$$$$$$

2025 FORECAST

On February 5th, I’m sitting down with the CEO of Prescient AI to cover forecasting and modeling in 2025. It’s free, and you can please sign up here to be part of it. 

If you’re a growth marketer, I think you will quite literally be mind blown by how we forecast. By how accurate we are. 

I’d like for you to be accurate in your modeling, too please!

WEEK 4/52Β Β 

You might feel the urge to pause your TikTok ads because of the instability of the last 12 hours.

I don’t think you should. You know when you have something you love taken, and then you get it back, you tend to love it more?

This is that. TikTok usage this week (once it’s fully restored and functioning) is going to skyrocket. Don’t pull back unless your performance declines. This is the time to stay the course.

I’ve been using this Biossance Vitamin C (1.01 Fl Oz, $74).

I started to run low, so I put it in my Sephora cart last week. I then went back to my cart a couple days ago. And today, I fully ran out of the Vitamin C.

I have no backups because I can’t keep stock of anything because I change my mind too much LOL.

I think that’s why I can’t get myself to pull trig. Do I love this Vitamin C enough to order it again and use it for 3 months? Maybe not. But, do I have something else I want 100% more? 

No. 

So, here I am. Without Vitamin C. $74 doesn’t feel great on this to me for a Vitamin C I’m not like EAGER to have. But, what I was considering more expensive options. (Like this). 

In the process of writing this, I decided what to do. I just went on Amazon and Biossance sells a .05 Fl Oz version of the Vitamin C for $40. (I just checked and Sephora usually sells this .05 Fl Oz version but it’s sold out). 

I just bought the .05 Fl Oz Biossance from Amazon. I needed that smaller format to push me over the edge today. I needed that Prime shipping (it arrives tomorrow, which Sephora and the DTC don’t do and can’t do for free). 

Good job to Biossance for showing up in multiple places and in multiple formats. I appreciate it and maybe in a month or 2 when I run out, I’ll shop directly from their store online. I hope so. 

Ari Murray
Ari Murray

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