First Week at Alchimie Forever

Day 5 , 6/9/2011

Hi Guys,

This summer I'm working at Alchimie Forever, an upscale skincare line located in Georgetown, DC, right by Georgetown University and the Potomac river. It's a great place to be, for anyone who has ever been to Georgetown, it's such a pretty place with a million and one upscale boutiques, shops and eating places. I love it so much, it's like an hour away from my house but I never spent much time there when I was younger.

So I'm Alchimie Forever's sole summer intern and its a pretty sweet deal. Despite being an international company, operating out of both DC and Switzerland and selling to customers in Canada, France, the US and Switzerland, the DC office pretty much runs like a start-up. In the office there's me, Kate, the assistant, and the CEO Ada Polla (look her up and follow her on twitter and facebook!). And since Ada travels ALL THE TIME, from beauty conventions to client meetings to distributor meetings and so on, out of the 5 days I've worked there, she's only be there twice. It's a busy job being the female CEO of an international brand.

My first 5 days were pretty good, I'm still learning the ropes, trying to learn some of the the applications that Kate the assistant uses, how to do all the backoffice stuff so that I can make her job a little easier, and ultimately at the end of the summer take over when she'll be gone for two weeks on a trip to England with her grad. Ps, Kate is awesome, she's only 23 and whenever our boss Ada isn't there, we turn up the showroom stereo and jam out to Adele and Natasha Bedingfeld. Good times.

The highlight of my first week was definitely on my second day when the store's esthetician came in to train local spa workers on how to use the store's products and me and Kate got complimentary facials! I've never had a facial before and all I can say is, MAGIC. She gave me a neck massage and hand massage too, and with the candles flickering and mellow music in the background, I was just so at peace for the 30-40 minute process.

Although the position is unpaid, I'm definitely getting paid in products. The line is relatively expensive, with items ranging from $40-$91, but almost every other day, they give me a product to try for free. I know they want to convert me into a regular customer, but for now I'm just appreciating all the free stuff. Their products make your skin feel amazing, and if I was richer, I'd be a regular.

I'm definitely looking forward to the rest of the summer, I'm going to be responsible for doing a lot of market research and event planning which is great because event producing and marketing are the reasons why I applied to Wharton in the first place. It's going to be a wonderful experience and I hope to share it all with you guys. Thanks for reading, more to come!

-Nanette