Sephora is one of those beauty destinations you may or may not know about, as having paid a very short visit to the UK and left, it has never returned. Our loss. Walk into Sephora in the Champs Elysees (between Metros George V and Franklin D Roosevelt) and you're transported into a different world, red carpet, black walls and loud music. If you're in Paris you'll either want to go there first, or run a mile. There are other Sephora stores in Paris which are much quieter, but this one's well worth a visit.
Sephora has a huge choice of brands for cosmetics and fragrance, all offered in a modern, noisy, crowded environment where you 'help yourself' although there are usually plenty of people to help you if you want it, and to hand you a little wire framed basket once you - inevitably - start to stock up on their own range and others.
There are makeup stands where you can have your face done with brands such as Marc Jacobs, Georgio Armani and Smashbox, huge numbers of colours, bath products and skincare products by Sephora itself and far too much more to write about. This is
a must-visit for any beauty product addict in France, the USA and many other countries. Just not the UK. But you can order from the Sephora US Website.
Hopefully inviting us to ship from the US website is a precursor to a return. I would suggest Regent Street, Westfield and anywhere that has a high footfall of luxury shoppers. Yes Sephora offers most of the beauty brands you can buy here already, although in the stores you can browse all the different brands much more easily, however it is also a well established brand in its own right and Sephora products are reasonably priced and seriously good, from the excellent cosmetic brushes and bath and body collections to their own makeup ranges.
How to buy from Sephora’s US website. Shipping to the UK is £6 provided you spend £75. Spend less than £135 and you won’t incur any duty. You will, however, incur VAT at the going rate which is added to your basket along with the shipping charge.
There are some brands that won’t allow you to buy from the site, including Nars, Buxom, Urban Decay and Bobbi Brown but most are readily available here already, so it’s not a problem. What is a problem is that the only way you can find out (that you can’t order something) is to add it to your basket, then look at your basket and you’ll see that it can’t be shipped to you. Oh the disappointment……
Brands particularly worth looking at are Sephora’s own Collection brand, Makeup for Ever and other hard to find US centric brands. Sephora because you can’t get your hands on it otherwise, and Makeup for Ever because provided you spend over the minimum £75 in total (on anything) you will save money even with shipping and VAT. There are also some products from brands such as Philosophy that launch in the US first.
Whatever, shopping for beauty products is as we all know, therapy, and now this makes it easy to find them all together in one place. Even if you will have to wait slightly longer for your order to arrive.
