Dillard’s Inc. has alerted the U.S. Postal Service and the national media that an advertisement in its Christmas catalog contains white powder.
The Dillard’s 2001 Christmas catalog, which mailed last week regionally to one million consumers, includes a four-page insert promoting fragrances, each page with a scent strip. The scent is encapsulated in white talcum powder that is released when the reader rubs the sample strip.
“This is an issue of sensitivity not safety,” said Dillard’s spokesperson Skip Rutherford. “These are no ordinary times and we wanted to be very up front about the matter.”
Based on quality control at the printing plant, less than one tenth of 1% of the catalogs will have white powder visible outside the seal of the insert, Rutherford said.
“They’re going to see this white powder and you can’t blame the post office for being supersensitive these days,” he said.
The printer alerted the post office to the inserts while Dillard’s issued a press release to the media to get the word out to consumers who may be alarmed by a white powdery substance on the 110-page catalog.
Dillard’s has no plans to omit scent strips from its catalogs. “At this point, no,” Rutherford said.
Scent strips have been used for years to help sell fragrances.
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