Daily Egyptian
Fall '04 Edition
Risqué Business
Kate Galbreath
Daily Egyptian
As a nervous young couple entered the store, Alice Patterson put on her warmest smile and displayed her array of sensuous Bedroom Magic products.
Patterson slowly ran her fingers over the array of flavored and scented body lotions and powders, and held out a small pink feather dabbed in a sample of "A Touch of Honey" edible body powder for the couple to try.
"This isn't so bad," the young man said with a smile.
Bedroom Magic, the new store in the Illinois Centre Mall in Marion, is the first in the area to combine UndercoverWear, a line of intimate products and sex toys available through group parties, with romantic furniture, lingerie and skin care products in a store that one customer dubbed "a Victorian Hollister."
Patterson said she often sees people tentative to enter, afraid the shop is less of a romantic store and more of an X-rated porn shop. She and the other salespeople, some of whom are SIUC students or former students, ease worries of the customer with what Patterson said is one-on-one attention.
Randi Reed, a former SIUC student and current Bedroom Magic salesperson, said she receives an occasional eyebrow raise when people find out where she works.
"A lot of people ask, 'What's that?'" she said. "And then when I explain they say, 'Oh!'"
Reed was attracted to the store because of its interior design: high, pink walls with faux cement brick arches and rooms filled with antique beds and furniture.
Patterson said when the 6,100 square foot store first opened the day after Thanksgiving, arguably the busiest shopping day of the year, misconceptions of what Bedroom Magic was were cleared up.
"There were rumors because of the nature of our parties, but people came in and saw that a store like Spencer's had more risqué things than we do," Patterson said.
The idea was spontaneous for Patterson, who originally wanted to open a kiosk for UndercoverWear products. When a space opened at the former House of Somersby space in the mall, she decided to take action.
"What I ended up doing was combining romantic gifts and lingerie with antique furniture," she said. "We're still filling the store."
One room, adjacent to the lingerie fitting rooms, left vacant by the sale of a four-poster bed has become Patterson's new leopard and jungle print area, for which she is currently acquiring new merchandise.
Though the store has a line of skin care products of the Bedroom Magic brand name, as well as UndercoverWear products and hemp seed products, ranging from $8 to $25, a customer occasionally wanders into the store expecting to find more "active" gifts.
"They can book a show for the toys, the adult products. We have catalogs here for the adult products, but we don't have them here because it is inappropriate in the mall," Patterson said.
Though the more risqué products are not available in the store, Patterson said the availability of such products through parties and catalogs is enhanced by the store's existence.
"Now we have a central location," she said. "Parties have always been word of mouth or through advertisements in the newspaper, but now it seems like since we have a centralized location where people can say 'Oh, let's book your bachelorette party.'"
Though the store does not sell adult toys, a variety of sensuous products including edible panties, flavored shower gel, sex dice, massage oils and handcuffs are in stock.
Reed said during the upcoming holiday season, the store would probably attract a lot of business.
"I think it will be a lot of guys who come in to do their last-minute Christmas shopping," she said.
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