Xinú Perfumes — Local services in Mexico City

Although Xinu promises bespoke scents peddled in a luxury setting, quality control is spotty, so BUYER BEWARE.

In June 2024, I bought a $240 USD full-size bottle of their Aguamadera perfume at their Polanco location while on a vacation to Mexico City. My experience in-store was delightful; however, that's where the positives end. Due to the high cost of the bottle of perfume, and in acknowledgement of its fragile state, I carried it back to my hotel, put it in my carry-on luggage, and gingerly cared for the package through the airport and on the car ride home. When I opened the pristine-condition box, I not only found some inconsistencies with the inner packaging (e.g., the ingredients listed for Aguamadera were accompanied by the botanical names and images of ingredients from their Monstera perfume), but TWO cracks in the bottle, one small and one so large that it nearly reached the liquid contents. I emailed their customer service team with photos and videos to see whether I could mail back the damaged bottle for an intact one, and was told that I would need to FLY BACK TO MEXICO CITY with the bottle and packaging in hand and visit the Polanco store to determine whether or not my product qualified for an exchange. I sent them an email explaining the infeasibility of this proposal, but they rigidly stuck to their demands. It cost me over $800 USD and 14 hours round trip to fly from Seattle to Mexico City and back the first time around--an unreasonable request from their team for me to repeat this journey to resolve this issue. I followed up with their team, but received only radio silence in response.

It's only a matter of time until the crack expands and the bottle breaks for good. I'd caution anyone who makes an in-store purchase to open the product before you leave it and inspect it VERY carefully. It's strange...one would expect so much better from a luxury brand that claims--but fails miserably--to put so much effort into the customer experience from start to finish. I'll never return to this shop, nor buy anything from them online in future.

Response to owner's statements:

How can you state that Xinu has "unparalleled control over quality" when the booklet inside the box contained several pages that belong to descriptors and illustrations for the Monstera, not the Aguamadera, perfume? That's a quality control issue, isn't it?

Not everyone has the travel budget or the luxury to take time off work to fly back to Mexico City to exchange a damaged item. A much more reasonable solution would be to have the customer mail back the item in question at their own expense, then ship them back a product that reportedly meets your standards of quality.

I find it offensive that you're attributing the cracks in the bottle to my handling of the product from the time it left the store to the time I arrived home. I wrapped the box in clothes I had packed and worn on the trip, put it in my small carry-on, carried the luggage through the airport, and put it under the seat in front of me on the plane. I have flown with fragile items many, many times, and none of those items got cracked or broken. I also worked for many years in retail settings, and know that shipments from the warehouse to the store can get damaged, displays fall over, things get dropped on the floor by customers, and we replaced damaged items in a friendly and timely fashion to ensure customer satisfaction.

It boggles my mind that a company that invests so heavily in the customer's experience up to the point of sale abandons meaningful customer care as soon as they have the customer's money in-hand. The price per ounce of a full bottle of Aguamadera is $141.17 USD/oz. That is incredibly expensive for perfume. The fact that you cannot accept exchanges of items by mail--only in-person, even if the person has to spend hundreds of dollars to travel back to your store--suggests that you are out of touch with all but the wealthiest...

AMAZING experience! Loved how the entry was very unique. You call to be buzzed in and walk through their paper room and walk up 3 flight of stairs and into their experience floor. We were greeted by two young ladies, Pol(?, medium length brown hair, she explained the process) & Lillian.

They offered a perfume side and the home side. Their perfume side had 6 scents. Starting with stage 1: base note, stage 2: perfume exposed to the environment (encased in a glass fixture, very abstract pieces), and stage 3: what it smells like on fabric. This is a well thought out process of how perfume changes.

I would highly recommend this place if you love unique scents! It is so worth the find and the time to explore each scent. Highly recommend at least an hr to enjoy the place calmly and see how your body chemistry reacts to the perfume. **key: they don't blast the AC in here so you actually get to smell it and see how your body temp reacts to the perfume! Loved this!

I went home with scent number 5 OroNardo. I have smelled many other night jasmine perfumes. However, this one lasted the longest and smelled the best on my body chemistry.

I loved the attention to detail they put from the moment you enter their shop to their showroom table to the final moments of your purchase. They sprits the perfume you purchase in your bag, and you get to walk home with the lovely perfume. 😍 🥰 THANK YOU to the lovely ladies for making our perfume...

My husband requested that we visit Xinú after finding out that all the products from Casa Polanco came from the shop. It was a short walk from our hotel and upon approach we were worried that it was already closed. To enter the boutique we rang the bell and they buzzed us in and told us to come up to the 3rd floor. The entry was a cool display of perfumes and florals that you passed through to get to the staircase. The boutique on the 3rd floor was like nothing I have ever seen for a perfume store and it smelled absolutely insane. There was a large rectangular table in the center of a cavernous black room topped with an assortment of natural and organic objects. They only make a handful of scents but each one had a section of the table for presentation. The women working there walked us through how to experience each perfume and then let us go to town. My husband and I each purchased a new perfume as well as a candle to bring home. The scents are incredibly potent and the candle has a great spread that really permeates a whole room. Even if you aren’t in the market for a new fragrance, I cannot recommend the...