If you needed evidence about how excited Canberra's beauty lovers were about the capital's first Sephora store, you just needed to see the 1000-odd people lined up waiting for Thursday's 9am opening.

According to the beauty giant's Australia and New Zealand general manager Mark O'Keefe, it was a line that began at 2am, with Canberrans all keen to get their hands on what the store had to offer, as well as the goodie bag given to the first 500 people.