But where's the 'je ne sais quoi'?

Every beauty junkie and victim of department store drive-by spritzing remembers her first Sephora experience. Mine was about a decade ago, just before the chain was purchased by luxury behemoth LVMH. I inadvertently wandered into the Champs-Elysees store late one summer evening, past several hulking doormen wearing headsets and into lots of moodily lit black lacquer. I looked down at the red carpet and I thought I'd accidentally found the coolest discotheque in Paris. The environment made sampling perfumes and lipsticks from the self-serve displays feel like an illicit act.

That Sephora's beauty boutique model, pioneered in France in 1969, has revolutionized traditional cosmetics retailing -- mass-market shopping at prestige prices -- is nothing new. Shoppers today prefer open-serve cosmetics and hand-sell, not hard-sell. Sephora pioneered intensive cross-brand training, enabling associates to make unbiased product recommendations. Open-sell format, discovering niche brands and testers galore also make the experience a helluva lot more fun than being sized up at the traditional counter by a woman who looks like Norma Desmond and has the gleam of her monthly sales target in her eye. Shopping for makeup was transformed into entertainment, instead of humiliation.

What does surprise is that now Sephora has so many imitators, it simply isn't as exciting as it used to be. A few weeks ago, Sephora opened a boutique on Toronto's tony Bloor Street, prime retail real estate within earshot of Tiffany, Louis Vuitton and Hermes. Its latest exclusives boast a collaboration with Laduree, with body dusting powder and lip glosses in macaroon flavours in the Parisian tea house's distinctive celadon and gilt packaging, and an entire aisle devoted to Ojon, the wildly best-selling Canadian hair-care company (now owned by Estee Lauder). The Bloor store is just the opening salvo of Sephora's aggressive expansion plans for Canada. But the Canadian Sephora stores are so brightly lit, you barely notice the chain's trademark graphic black and white stripes. It's more coffee shop than nightclub. Frankly, it's hard to tell the difference between this and the Shoppers Beauty Boutique.

When Sephora opened its first Canadian store in 2004, its traditional department store competitors such as Sears, Holt Renfrew and The Bay, who carry the big-name brands like Arden, MAC and YSL, were sanguine and responded with occasional in-store beauty parties, increased personal appearances and make-up demos. Then Shoppers Drug Mart created its sleek Beauty Boutiques, where you can now find a mix of high and low --prestige brands like Clinique sharing space with Bonne Bell. A state-of-the-art Holt Renfrew store opened in Vancouver's Pacific Centre last summer with a 16,000-squarefoot cosmetics department; it includes a 1,200-squarefoot Holtsceuticals lounge to bridge the great counter divide between customer and adviser and creates a cozy nook for conspiratorial cosmetics shopping -- cozy banquettes for beauty advisers to sidle up to their prey. Nearby, the Holts Colour Studio has niche cosmetics brands (like Pout and Jemma Kid). Even The Bay has introduced its own take, a Colour Destination area (at Toronto's Queen Street and downtown Montreal flagships). It mixes brands, has all-access tester units and has niche lines like Cargo, Make Up Forever and Body & Soul -- the Canadian makeup line in retro 1940s packaging and free daily makeup tips -- touch-ups and makeup applications.

Longtime Sephora executive Marie-Christine Mar-chives was in charge of planning that mythic Champs-Elysees store, and the wildly successful global flagship at Rockefeller Centre in 1999. Her arrival in Canada as Sephora Canada's VP and country manager earlier this year means that Canada is on the fast-track in Sephora's expansion plans (30 new stores over the next 3 years, possibly more). I just hope she brings back the discotheque.

COUNTER CULTURE:

The urban myths about electric toothbrushes and their alternative use can finally be laid to rest: The same seamless rechargeable technology that has made the inexpensive cordless electric toothbrush category explode has officially made the transition to the luxury sex toy industry. The pioneering pleasure device is called the Form 6 ($210, comeasyouare. com) and, strangely, its purple curves recall Barbapapa. It's silicone-coated, water-resistant and completely cordless, with a button lock for travel (so no more nightmares about it going off at security, either).