Enter at your own risk

The MAC outlet in Delhi is only for the braveheart.

Full disclosure: I am a MAC devotee. Till, that is, the cosmetics brand that was co-founded by a make-up artiste and an owner of unisex salons in Canada, came to India.

My foreign sojourns were dictated by whether or not the destination had MAC outlets (on my first visit to Dubai there were no MAC stores there, and was I disappointed!).

So imagine the pure joy that was experienced by yours truly when MAC first came to Mumbai and then, more recently, to Delhi.

This is where my love for the brand has been tested. The products are still first-rate, but the service is another matter altogether. A colleague and I walk into a MAC store in Saket in Delhi and our nightmare begins.

Upon entering, I ask the first available sales/make-up person to help me choose an appropriate foundation for my skin tone. This person pushes me lightly with the tips of her fingers when I, thinking that she has found the right foundation for me, start to move towards a make-up chair.

This is the beginning of a rough ride. Once in the chair, she starts to apply the foundation with all the skill of a wall-painter trying to scrape off old paint.

My objections, howls of protest, are met with the steely response that what she's doing is what's meant to be done. With my long and happy experience with make-up and badly-run neighbourhood beauty parlours, I can say that their staff is better-trained and behaved than MAC-India's make-up person.

Meanwhile, my colleague isn't faring any better. Her attempt at getting help finding the right shade of lipstick is fobbed off with, "Why don't you take a look, it's there," said with a hint of impatience and irritation.

Internationally, make-up artistes/sales staff at MAC stores are brilliant, making the experience of shopping there just divine. The company has kept millions of its customers, including me, extremely happy. Alas, in India it was too good to last.

The second person at the MAC store who tries to help me not only has lipstick on her front teeth (horrible, horrible), she tells me "" by now an irate customer "" "Your forehead is darker than the rest of your face."

I have to say, this isn't the best way to sell cosmetics.

My colleague and I walk out without buying a thing, and with this thought in our minds: MAC belongs only in countries where the service industry is more evolved than it is here.

Score: 2/10; buy MAC, but not in Delhi, for sure

Note: Mystery Guest is a reality consumer survey in which reporters analyse a service anonymously. We welcome company responses as feedback and will be happy to carry rejoinders to any piece featured here.