Mirrors, lighting, scent, and layout are no longer just about selling products. Beauty stores now double as free studios for hauls, GRWMs, and "come shopping with me" videos.
Okay, but real talk—walk into a big Sephora or Ulta on a Saturday and try to tell me anyone is just shopping. Like, actually try.
The second I push through those doors there's already a girl with her phone up, filming the slow-motion entrance like it's the opening scene of her vlog. Logo pan, ceiling lights, wall of minis—full cinematic treatment. Then she flips the camera: "Hey guys, I'm so excited, we're at Sephora!"
She's technically browsing. In reality? She's in full production mode. And she's not even the only one—over half of us are on our phones in-store researching, comparing prices, or straight-up filming.[1][2][3]
Comic Sans Tea Alert
Let's be real—half of these "immersive experiences" are just glorified selfie museums designed to make us do the marketing for them. Brands are essentially "fanum taxing" our social feeds. We post their cute neon signs, they get free promo, and we leave with a $40 lip balm we didn't need. Is it a scam? Maybe. Does it look fire on Instagram? Absolutely. We are all clowns in this circus, but at least we’re glowing.
From counter to theme park: a very short history
Beauty counters used to be little theaters, right? In the early 1900s, Helena Rubinstein[4][5][6], Elizabeth Arden, Coty, L'Oréal—they dragged cosmetics out of back-room salons and into the middle of department stores. Sit down, get made over, walk out "improved." Half medicine show, half social ritual.
By the mid-century, the beauty counter was the gossip hub of the department store. Makeovers, samples, chairs that felt suspiciously like thrones. You didn’t just buy powder; you got a micro-plotline.
Then came the specialist chains. Sephora (founded France 1969[7], scooped by LVMH late 90s) said nah, open-sell everything, touch whatever you want[8][9]. Ulta mixed prestige and drugstore and built 1,300+ locations on the "one-stop mascara + shampoo" dream. Testers everywhere, mirrors everywhere, zero permission needed.
The twist in 2025? All that playfulness isn't just for your eyes anymore. It's for the camera. The store went from "fun place to swatch" to "recurring character in everyone's TikTok universe."
The "Main Character" Flagships
Glossier NYC: The Subway Aesthetic (But Clean)
Glossier’s SoHo flagship is the ultimate example of "doing the most" in the best way possible. They literally designed their store to look like a New York City subway station, but without the rats and the mysterious puddles. We’re talking floor-to-ceiling mosaics, barrel-vaulted ceilings, and a "wet bar" that looks better than my entire apartment.
It features a 500-square-foot lounge with what they call a "boyfriend couch" (or "dad couch"), acknowledging that someone has to hold the bags while we disassociate in the selfie room. It’s a "homecoming" for the brand, moving away from "Millennial Pink" to a more sophisticated vibe with taupe walls and red accents.
- The Vibe: "I take public transport, but ironically."
- The Gimmick: You can play a carnival claw machine to win G-shaped cookie cutters. Because nothing says skincare like winning a cookie cutter.
Sephora’s "Store of the Future" (Shanghai)
If Glossier is the cool art student, Sephora Shanghai is the tech bro who won’t stop talking about AI. This store has seven digital touchpoints. It uses RFID sensors so when you pick up a product, the screen instantly tells you the ingredients and reviews (the "Lift and Learn" feature).
They have an AI-generated look analysis that scans your face and tells you what’s wrong with you—I mean, recommends products to "enhance" your look. There’s even a "Beauty Live Studio" for masterclasses, because we are all apparently in beauty school now.
Comic Sans Tea Alert
This "Store of the Future" sounds impressive until the AI scans your face and recommends a full coverage concealer for your "tired eyes" after a night of doom-scrolling. The machine reads you for filth in 4K. It’s rude, it’s invasive, and I will absolutely be trying it.
The Literal Playground (Superdrug's "Beauty Playground")
While Sephora is doing high-tech surgery, Superdrug is throwing a party. They have launched the "Beauty Playground" concept in stores like Westfield Stratford, and are rolling it out to 30 more locations by August 2025.
They aren't subtle about it. They have "Try Me Tables" (basically a sandbox for makeup), interactive displays, and dedicated social media stations with ring lights so you can film your TikToks right there in the aisle. They know exactly what they are doing. They are inviting the chaos. They want you to film. They want you to make a mess.
- The Strategy: O+O (Offline plus Online). They are trying to make the physical store feel like your TikTok feed.
- The Brands: They are partnering with TikTok-famous brands like Smuuti and Daise to drag you off your phone and into the store.
Comic Sans Tea Alert
Putting ring lights in the store is a dangerous game. You just know someone is going to film a "storytime" about their ex while swatching concealer, blocking the aisle for 45 minutes. It’s going to be a content war zone. If you see a teenager with a ring light, run. They will crash out if you ruin their shot.
Pop-Up Madness & Sensory Overload
Sol de Janeiro: The "Body Badalada" Energy
Sol de Janeiro is currently running the retail game like a "Rizz Boss." Their pop-ups are sensory overload. At Istanbul Airport, they built a "Shine Together" installation with a luminous arch and digital screens everywhere, basically turning the terminal into a disco. In LA, they had a mystery box vending machine and live drum performances.
It’s not just lotion; it’s a lifestyle. They are capitalizing on the "Cheirosa" (smelling incredibly delicious) mindset. You walk in feeling like a potato and walk out feeling like a Brazilian goddess who just danced at Carnival.
Laneige: The Virtual "Dreamland"
Why go outside when you can shop in the Metaverse? Laneige partnered with Obsess to create a virtual store with five custom rooms, including an "Underwater World" and a "Carousel Candyland." It’s gamified—you do a scavenger hunt to win free products.
They even have a "On Set with Sydney" room featuring Sydney Sweeney content. It’s giving "parasocial relationship," but it works.
Designed for the camera, not just the eye
Lighting: Warm, diffused, basically a built-in ring light. Sephora's own design team talks about "spaces for discovery and experimentation"—translation: spaces that make your front cam auto-adjust to "snatched."
Mirrors: Oversized, logo-placed exactly at caption-bar height, with a ledge that can balance a phone and three compacts without immediate disaster. Perfect for before/afters and whispery "it's actually so pigmented" tutorials.
Layout: Color-blocked walls that read clean in a three-second pan, products at chest-to-face level so nobody has to crouch on camera. Every aisle is thumbnail-ready.
Even the scent and playlist are background mood for the feed—soft enough that trending sounds will slap right over them later.
Stores as free studios for creators
If you just stand near a tester wall for five minutes you'll see the same movie on loop with different faces: full GRWMs using only testers, transition cuts from bare face outside to glam inside, live reviews ("testing the viral blush so you don't have to").
The store gives them lighting, props, wipes, and that instantly recognizable backdrop. Creators bring the phone and the followers. Brands get free advertising every time someone hits post.
"Realizing that a lot of people who do this have family/friends who work at the stores and they allow them to come in to create content during closing hours." — @TAJEETW0
The strange etiquette of the beauty theme park
We've all invented the rules on the fly: the awkward sideways shuffle to stay out of frame, the silent apology when you accidentally walk through someone's shot, staff learning to restock from the edges like movie extras.
Reflections still snitch, kids still wander in, and at least once a day someone realizes their lunch-break face is now background in a six-digit-view haul.
"Setting up a camera just to walk back out and record what you could've already done when you first went in there will never process for me…content creation is truly stupid asf." — @SlfCeline
Who's actually winning?
Brands and retailers: every haul is free media, shelves empty themselves, physical stores become showrooms + sampling labs + broadcast channels on the same rent[10][11][12].
Creators: free refreshed studio, believable backdrops, new launches without buying everything.
Everyone else: we're the unpaid extras who just wanted a lipstick and ended up in three strangers' B-roll.
Beauty stores in pop culture: from makeover montage to micro-episode
We've been primed for this forever. Princess Diaries, Miss Congeniality, every 90s/00s rom-com where glasses come off and lip gloss = personality upgrade[14].
The difference now? Instead of one director-controlled montage, there are dozens of people filming their own micro-makeovers in parallel. Same stage, way more cameras, zero "cut."
Where the beauty theme park goes next
It's not hard to guess: dedicated content corners with ring-light mounts, AR mirrors that record clips for you, more creator meet-ups and livestreams straight from the floor.
And yeah, the backlash is coming—quiet zones, no-filming policies, indie stores marketing "no TikTok energy, just shopping." Because not everyone wants their face in a stranger's GRWM forever.
Comic Sans Tea Alert
The store stopped being the star somewhere around the first neon slogan wall. Now the main character is whatever ends up on the feed.
Final vibe check
Beauty retail rewrote its whole job description. It's still where you go to get shade-matched (under suspiciously good lighting), but it's also where you film a micro-episode of your life with better illumination than your apartment will ever have.
The cash register is still there. But the real transaction? That happens when someone hits post.
