My trips to the posher parts of London are usually prompted by the desire to catch an exhibition. But Knightsbridge tube station is back on my radar, since BeautyMART set up shop on the third floor of Harvey Nichols.
BeautyMART opened a mere few months ago, at the beginning of September 2012. I’ve made several trips there now, and found myself just as excited on my most recent visit as on my first.
Why is BeautyMART so exciting?
It’s tiny.
It’s shiny.
And it’s absolutely packed to the gills with a diverse range of perfect product.
Founders Anna-Marie Solowij (formerly Beauty Director at British Vogue) and Millie Kendall (added to the gaiety of the nation by bringing Shu Uemura to the UK AND co-founding the brilliant and affordable Ruby & Millie line) have fabulous form in the field of beauty, and it shows on the shelves.
Products stocked range from high street staples like Bourjois, Barry M and Revlon, to desirables you’ve never heard of, but yearn to try. And of course you can try – BeautyMART is nothing if not welcoming. Tissues, cotton buds and removers abound for wiping away everything you’ve swatched, swiped and sampled as you make your way round the shelves. There are mirrors to hand, and testers have little Try Me! stickers on them, to encourage even the shyest to get stuck in. In fact, the Try Me ethos of BeautyMART slightly freaked out the Youngest Great Beauty, when she spotted one of the stickers on a box of Trinkets (prettily packaged health-conscious tampons ) …
Because it’s not a huge space, it can’t go overboard with any one brand, so what’s chosen has to be, as Miss Jean Brodie might put it, ‘la crème de la crème’. And it’s odd and kind of wonderful, to see just a few lip colours from a HUGE brand holding their own and competing for your attention, with something gorgeous you’ve never heard of and a few other choice little delicacies that you know, but have never tried. I look at beauty products A LOT, and I get great pleasure in scanning the smart line-up of a full range, but the BeautyMART approach really refreshes your eye and gets your sense of adventure fired up!
Let’s look more closely at the advantages BeautyMART offers in being small but perfectly formed …
I am obsessed with the nail polish display (to the right). I love the neatness, I love the prettiness, and most of all, I love how contained it is. I know that each brand and colour represented will be wonderful, because BeautyMART don’t have the floor-space to stock something ‘just because’. Every product has to really earn its place. You can test a different polish on every nail (including your toes and your friend’s nails) and still not exhaust the colour choices available to you. And you can carefully consider just which one you want, standing in front of the display and giving it proper thought. Compare and contrast this easy, edited and totally joyful experience with my usual polish shopping trip BEFORE BeautyMART turned on its neon sign:
I had three options:
a) I slog around a considerable number of counters (and a huge amount of floor-space) chucking different polishes into my basket for a final comparison once they’re all collected. Since I’m polite, I then return the rejects to their rightful places once I’ve made my decision, which is twice as much effort.
b) I try to remember which colour I favour from each counter as I’m slogging around, but am left with a vague sense of unease and incompletion.
c) I give up on happy accidents and lucky discoveries, pick one brand that I fancy, and take what they’re offering, colour-wise.
Heavens, I’m exhausted just thinking about the old ways of shopping, let’s return gratefully to the thrilling newness of BeautyMART.
There’s something here to suit every beauty freak, whatever their age or budget – which makes it a fabulous place to remember when you’re buying gifts: nothing bought from here is likely to be unappreciated. And the mix and match feel of all those fabulous brands: young, old, niche and mainstream, is genius. When I see something I already own and love on the shelves, I get a little ‘ooh’ feeling of recognition, and a further little boost of confidence that whatever I spend my hard-earned on at BeautyMART is going to be just right. Why would it not be – that little ‘ooh’ just reassured me we have tastes in common, right? I’m currently lusting after some Face Stockholm cheek colour, but contented myself with just two nail varnishes and a hair treatment on my last visit. I was trying to be (financially speaking) ‘good’. But soon, mark my words, Face Stockholm will be mine.
The beauties that work at BeautyMART are friendly and helpful (but never pushy), passionate and knowledgable about products, and very happy to chat. Maude (to the left) is quiet, but very good at demonstrating Curlformers. I think that BeautyMART and the CHANEL Pop-Up at Covent Garden might change the way we buy beauty products in this country. These small, brilliantly stocked shops are such good fun to visit, with none of the exhaustion that can be either experienced or sensed in a department store. There’s no pressure to buy, no sense that the size of your spend matters … only a desire on the part of the store that you enjoy yourself: whatever combination of browse, try or buy you’re moved to do. And that’s what makes the perfect destination shop.
So, will I really travel all the way to Knightsbridge, just for a look round BeautyMART? Yes, whenever possible! And I hope to see you there …
Visit BeautyMART at Harvey Nicholls, 3rd Floor, 109 – 125 Knightsbridge, SW1X 7RJ
If you’re in Liverpool, visit BeautyMART at Beauty Bazaar, Harvey Nichols, Liverpool One, 16 Manesty’s Lane, Liverpool, L1 3DL
And, if you can’t check BeautyMART in person (or just want more BeautyMART joy in your life), then visit the BeautyMART blog which (as you might expect) is engaging, well thought out and addictive!
