Perfume & Essential Oils

Just before lunch, we made a quick stop at Crystal Perfume & Handicraft, yes, a must tolerant on organized tour. At least on this tour, the factories we visited seemed to be quality. Now I personally wouldn’t know if the tour or the guide gets a kickback but wouldn’t be surprise if they did. Essential oils and perfume are a big part of Egyptian culture. We heard the 5 minutes talk about how they extract the essential oil and then onto the sampling. Of course, after the 3rd samples, I doubted anyone could actually differentiate the differences (remember, no coffee beans to break your smell senses as in the department stores). We started with flower essence, then, essence blend, and then aromatherapy. According to them, the store had pretty much every brand of world known perfume. For example; Chanel No. 5 is Five Secrets on their list, Christian Dior is Aida, Poison is Cleopatra, etc.

I wasn’t sure if it was the first one I smelled and therefore made the most impression, but I liked the Lotus flower fragrant the most. Then here came the marketing stuff. They had multiple sizes, but these people must be stocking up for the bathtub or something. They were Costco size, not your typical oz. I doubted too many tour mates made actual purchases here. If they were to redo their marketing strategy, they might actually get more business. Who needed three bottles of essential oils that is as large as a can of soda each??? Maybe for locals and Middle Easterners, but certainly not for Westerners!!! If they offered smaller sizes, I might have gotten the Lotus flower…just for fun.