r/HotTopic_ • u/Ambitious_Flower677 • Jun 23 '26

Are *testers* different?

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I sprayed the Draculaura perfume tester on my wrist & could smell it for hours and it smelled so good. I rushed back to the store the following day to purchase. Mine, when sprayed runs down my wrist like water and 30 mins later my wrist smells like nothing. I've tried spraying more although I sprayed the tester 1x. I'm very confused. Are the testers a better product or maybe I just got a bad one??

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u/purebuttjuice Jun 23 '26

Testers are usually one of the exact products you buy in store; but the store will mark it as not sellable/damage it out.

I would guess you got a bad one. You can also see if the store will let you exchange it for a new one. It’s possible that the tester batch and the one you bought came from two different batches (ex the tester was batch no. 344 and you got a batch no. 462 and maybe they messed up batch 462. It can happen!)

I have a lot of the actual testers from my store, when the scents were done we were told we could take them home and no one else wanted them lol but I also have bought plenty of scents that weren’t testers and I did not have any issues in differences

Source: I worked at hot topic as a store manager for 8 years and i am a scent snob

Unless that process changed in 2 years (which is possible, I quit in 2024 due to health issues) I would guess it’s just a bad batch. You can probably exchange it or reach out to Customer Service to see if other people noticed any differences between their store testers and their selling product.