Yesterday, I was in blissful ignorance as to what Molton Brown could be.  Then it was requested as a Christmas present and I have today been on a voyage of discovery.

First, I found it was unctions of various different flavours.

Later this afternoon, I ascertained that it cannot be procured in Boots, and finally got around to googling it.

It’s unctions that have their own boutiques or outlets in the high end department stores like John Lewis and House of Fraser.

Nottingham is one of the fortunate few towns to qualify for its own boutique, and it happens to be around the corner from the Council House, so around the corner I duly went.

It’s one of those stores that has largely empty shelves, with a few delicately placed, uplit bottles stategically surrounded by expensive-looking wood.  There are price tags, but you have to hunt.

Some of their range includes hand wash and moisturizer perfumed with unpronounceable and unheard of botanicals.  And if you’ve ever been to Lib Dem conference, they’ll be familiar.  I’m pretty sure that the bottles of fancy handwash in the gents of the Hilton Brighton Metropole are Molton Brown.

Presumably, they don’t pay the £14 a bottle the Nottingham store fleeced me for.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure that money buys you something.  But not sodium stearate in a bottle.

Whilst I was queueing to hand over my cash, I was struck by the quality of the staff.  In particular the blond man with the biceps, the expensive hair do and the nose – which could only be described as ‘aqualine.’ Long, pointy, delicate.

Then my focus widened.  The other staff members, all women, had exactly the same nose. I was on the verge of asking if they were related, because their faces were similar, but then it occured to me that good bone structure is probably a job requirement for working there.

They were excessively curteous, boxed my purchases, apologised profusely for the delay (one of their tills was out of action).  They’d clearly had a rough day selling fancy soap to posh people and explaining what naran ji is.  (“distilled from the delicate white blossoms of Moroccan orange trees”)

I asked them how long the store had been open, and they told me nearly two years.  That’s two years where I’ve walked past it a couple of times a week and never spotted it once.  It’s a prime location just off Bridlesmithgate, which has some of the poshest shops in the City.

My two bottles of lotion were wrapped, boxed, and tied up with ribbon.  Then that box was put into a heavy paper bag with fancy handles and tied up with another ribbon.  Which leads to a further dilemma – how much of what I carried out of the store do I give as a gift?  Does it come out of the bag?  I clearly paid for that as well, so does it count as part of the present?  Do I wrap the whole lot and leave it as layers so that the recipient can unwrap it very slowly?  – it cost so much they’re not getting anything else!