The Selfridges Experience

Try layering Tropical Cherimoya (Base) and Green Wheat and Meadowsweet (Top)!

By now, I think you guys should know that I’m an avid fan of Jo Malone and ya know ~ bargains. LOL. 

I was browsing Selfridges one night, scanning through the fragrances section. Prior to this, fragrances or inflammable products such as diffusers, pressurized alcohol and etc. are not allowed to be sent to overseas via air freight. 

One fine day, I tried to place one of the Diptyque’s room spray into the cart and try to check out. Boom – Selfridges allowed it to be shipped to Malaysia. Curious me, I went back to fragrances section and tried it with several other brands such as Tom Ford, Le Labo and Jo Malone (duh) and surprise surprise – I CAN FINALLY IMPORT PERFUMESSSSS!

You see, fragrances are not cheap in Malaysia as most of the niche ones are imported by third party such as Sephora or Ken’s Apothecary (profit margin blah blah blah). On top of that, any cosmetics or fragrances that companies wanted to import and sell in Malaysia must go through Malaysia Depart of Pharmacy with valid licenses and fees (another cost reflected into consumer). 

I ordered a 30ml fragrance and it came with this humongous box.

However, if you are a normal consumer, you are allowed to import fragrances for your own personal use. Per my conversation with one of the DHL staff (they are always super helpful!), they postulate that personal use should be below 100ml and order in minimal quantity (eg, 1 bottle per each variation) and it is better if you could separate the multiple fragrances into few separate shipments (albeit higher shipping cost).

Box-ception 

And thus, I went ahead and order my first fragrance imported from overseas. I picked Jo Malone Green Wheat and Meadowsweet since its one of the limited editions and I would say cheapest among the choices of brands that I would want to try. If something goes wrong in the customs, I would not lose that much eh?

When you try to order from Selfridges, if your input country of shipping is outside of UK or EU, they will deduct their VAT for you and charges you in advance in case if your country charges duty for the product you ordered. Hassle free shopping. On top of that, you could also subscribe to their Selfridges +membership for GBP 33.33 (after VAT deduction) to receive ONE YEAR complimentary DHL Express Shipping for any kind of item (including dangerous goods such as perfume). Bargain indeed!

After tax and conversion should be around MYR200+- (Malaysia is way higher!)

Selfridges checkout process is pretty straight forward but it took them some time to send your item out as they would have to send the order to their store, package it up and send it out to you. But once they handed it to DHL, you pretty much can expect the parcel to arrive within one-week time (depending on your location). 

My parcel got dispatched after 2-3 working days and it took around 3 more days to arrive Kuala Lumpur. Then, everything went downhill (lol). Apparently, my parcel got stuck in their warehouse for god knows how long (almost a week) due to custom clearance. To cut the story short, DHL told me that Malaysia’s Department of Pharmacy (yes, I want to emphasize it) cannot comprehend the meaning of cologne. 

Comes with the iconic cream packaging and paper bag!

WTF? Cologne is basically perfume but a lower concentration of perfume oils. How hard can that be. Are they living in stone age or they only have access to Baidu Search (China Great Firewall). So, this DHL manager helped me to sort everything out by explaining to the customs at Department of Pharmacythat cologne is basically just perfume and it’s no biggie. Well I do understand that they are doing their job but the lack of English command at such a simple vocab is utter speechless. 

Ta-daaaa~

After much drama that surrounds the customs officer from Department of Pharmacy, they released the parcel and voila – got my parcel at last. Without any warning letter or whatsoever. So, folks, if you want to import fragrances, try to be modest and order anything below 100ml, it will save you the time of customs processing and make sure it is not cologne. Or else, these customs might detain your parcel like how they did with mine. Happy shopping and good luck! 

PS: Tom Ford or Byredo? Hmm..

-Willy-