Tao's - Chinatown — Local services in Boston

I don't usually write reviews, but it is what it is.

The store itself isn't bad; there's a huge variety of Asian beauty and self-care products with snacks, drinks, and cute plushies here and there. The only issue with the products is that if you're looking for something affordable, I recommend doing some research for similar or even the same products online for slightly cheaper prices.

The reason why I ended up writing a review is because of a problem that I experienced recently after being a pretty frequent customer ever since the store opened in Chinatown. A few days ago, I came into the store alone in the morning and bought one product with no issues. I later came back in the day with my friends after eating because one of them was interested in the Asian beauty products that the store provided, but this experience was truly discomforting. We were constantly being watched and followed around the store by two staff members but chose to ignore it even though it seemed off, only to be stopped before leaving the store right after checking out. We were asked to show them the insides of our bags and our receipts to prove that we bought the products that we bought even though they didn't ask the people in front of us to do the same. In the end, we proved that we were falsely accused of stealing and regretted the fact that we even allowed them to check our bags knowing that we didn't do anything wrong.

Unhappy with our experience that day, my friends decided to write reviews where the owner responded. Now this, is what encouraged me to write a review of my own. As a customer who has supported this store for a while now, I'm truly baffled at the fact that the owner of the store replied by stating that they had sent camera footage to the Boston Police Department of the day that we were there, even after they checked our bags and receipts. Is it that hard for them to apologize for not only making us uncomfortable the entire time but also continuing to falsely accuse us of thievery? All that will be seen in that is the four of us looking at products around the store comparing which would be better to buy, checking out at the cashier, and us being stopped for no reason as innocent customers.

In the most respectful way possible, please do better. I hope all goes well for the store in the future, but I will probably not be...

This is a super cute store with a lot of really cool products to browse. But unfortunately, I will definitely not be returning to this location. I came in with my mom and younger sister. We were not greeted by the woman at the front, but rather met with very hostile staring. The woman proceeded to follow us around the store and continued giving us very dirty looks. It was in the high 60s when I visited, and the inside of the store was very hot. I didn’t buy anything, and my sister was still looking so I said “I’ll go wait outside” because of the temperature. The woman followed me all the way to the exit and I turned around, she was right behind me following me all the way out of the store. I was so confused because I didn’t even touch anything, I was just looking. As the front door shut, I also noticed that it’s covered in photos of other customers that I can only assume are more victims of falsely accused thievery. In a nutshell, very cute store but it definitely will not last much longer if the owner continues to treat all customers as thieves. Or maybe...

Very underwhelming, first people in the door today at 11:00 sharp, many items seemed to be out of stock and products (especially lips) were grimy, it also very hot in the store, I sweated more in my 20 minutes in Taos then I did walking around Boston for 6 hours. Makeup is kinda secondary to the amount of hair care, which wasn't too clear by the pictures, looking at pictures online and comparing them to irl, I believe some pictures are of different branches which was disappointing not seeing those things when I went. It's also very crowded, they do not have enough floor space for the amount of merchandise they have, rows are very narrow, and you're bumbing into other customers or things on shelves. They do have cute things, like plusses and figures, but they're all quite expensive, so I'd buy them elsewhere. I did end up buying some applicator sponges that seem to be good quality as well as my favorite oil cleanser and some cute cat stickers. I would like to go to other branches of Taos as I don't believe this store was a good...