First look at Scotland's first ever Sephora store as beauty giant moves into Edinburgh's St James Quarter

The beauty retail giant will be opening to customers on the second floor of the shopping centre on Thursday, July 9.

It marks the first Sephora location in Scotland, with a Glasgow store in the city’s Silverburn Shopping Centre set to follow in August.

Sarah Boyd, managing director of Sephora UK, told the Evening News: “I came to the store for the first time three and a half years ago. It was one of the first malls that we came to look at because we were so obsessed to get open in Scotland.

“It's an incredible mall. They're doing such a great job. And because they're doing such a great job, nobody ever leaves. So trying to find that perfect location with 5,000 square feet has been almost impossible.”

As part of Sephora’s move into the Scottish high street, brands including Hailey Bieber’s viral beauty label Rhode, Lady Gaga’s Haus Labs, Makeup by Mario, and many others will be hitting physical shelves in the country for the very first time.

Ms Boyd said: “That's something that I know consumers will be very excited about because they can't buy them in-person anywhere else.”

The new shop has also hired 60 local beauty enthusiasts, who have been preparing for the big launch, with the managing director saying: “They've been with us for the last couple of months, training and getting ready to provide that incredible Sephora experience, and they are just amazing human beings.

“I'm so excited to unleash this group of amazing people on the Scottish and the Edinburgh consumers.”

Launching Sephora’s first Scottish location in Edinburgh was a no-brainer for the brand given how many beauty fans reside in the Capital.

Ms Boyd said: “The beauty community is so vibrant and so alive here. Edinburgh is such a creative and innovative city anyway, and we've had so much social demand from the Edinburgh community for a Sephora store to open here.

“When we first started opening, we were looking at social media to see how much commentary we got from different cities. We also have a very big online business, and so we look at where we have the majority of our orders coming from, and that really drove our decision-making for what cities we wanted to be in.

“We're expecting strong performance from this store.”

She added: “One thing that we really recognised was that the UK isn't a London-centric place.

“Communities in cities across the UK feel very negative about brands turning up and opening a store in London and assuming they've ticked the box of the United Kingdom.

“We opened our first two stores on the outskirts of London because we needed to test and trial and we needed proximity. But beyond that, we said nothing in London until we've reached every major city across the United Kingdom.

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“And Edinburgh marks the last country that we will be opening in across the United Kingdom, the one that we are particularly excited about.”