Funnily enough on my travels around Europe, the accommodation I stayed in always happened to be right around the corner to a Sephora or two! Weird right? haha. In all honesty it was never intentional but maybe reflected how common stores were in places like Nice, Rome and Barcelona. Nowhere was the the Sephora goodness more real than in Paris its self. I was in Sephora Paris heaven.

From the local “Sephora Speedy” in the Marais (where I was living) to the giant stores on Rue du Rivoli and of course on the Champs!

I visited quite a few stores and noticed a few differences between those in Europe to those in the US or Australia

SOLDES!

Or for those of us who don’t speak too much French SALE! Both of my visits to Europe happened to fall during the mid year or Summer sales. I was really surprised to see a lot of sale bins full of lots of high end brands on 20, 30 and sometimes even 40% off. Brands such as Lancome, Giorgio Armani, Marc Jacobs and more were in there. In one of the stores there were even Laduree cosmetics in there! I was very well behaved and only picked up a couple of sale items.

Diversity is key

I was really happy to see a specific brand in Sephora Paris Black Up which catered specifically for consumers with darker skin tones. It wasn’t limited to just foundations however but also all sorts of face, eye and lip products specially suited for a wide range of skin tones. Even other “mainstream’ brands seemed to carry a lot of darker shades which is something which is often missing from our stores. 

High to Low

While the US and Australian stores tend to carry only more expensive brands Sephora Paris also had a few more affordable brands in store such as Loreal Paris, a french brand called Lollipops and the one I was most surprised about Sleek!

Range

There was a lot of similar products ut some brands were available in store that are not in Australia, namely Too Faced, NARS and Urban Decay (Distribution agreements mean that they are available in Mecca Maxima here in Australia) It was actually quite strange seeing all those brands together. Other brands (especially skin care) has a much larger range than we can get our hands on. What was missing though was Kat Von D.. not sure what the story is there!

Follow me around one of the Sephora Paris stores on Rue Du Rivoli which was one of the biggest and most popular stores in Paris.