Drugstore = Department Store?

Sure, in certain instances delayed gratification is the way to go. But when it comes to the beauty products that give you the results you want, you don't want to wait.

Which is why the growing trend toward high-end products moving into drugstore chains is a nice surprise.

But maybe it's not so surprising. Your standard-brand makeup has been slowly upping the ante for years. Maybelline foundation and L'Oreal mascaras can easily hold their own with department store brands. Now high-end haircare, skin care and sunscreen will be more plentiful on drugstore shelves too.

Peter Lamas of Lamas Beauty explained it all for me. He's moving his natural, certified organic hair care line from online and exclusive availability into stores like Whole Foods and West Coast-based Pharmacia into New York–area Duane Reade drugstores.

The reason? Drugstores have been creeping more and more upscale. They're cleaner, brighter and sleeker than they used to be, he says.

Plus, the average consumer is far more informed than in the past. As Lamas explains, organic and certified organic are very different. For the latter, you have to have to be at least 70% organic according to FDA guidelines to label it as such.

Consumers who are price and ingredient conscious know this nowadays. So bringing more sophisticated  beauty lines to drugstores is sort of a meeting in the middle.

Slight tangent: Lamas has a rich history in the beauty industry, arriving for London on the early '60s and landing at Vidal Sassoon. "Paul Mitchell was the style director then!" he remembers. Lamas worked with legendary makeup artist Way Bandy at Kenneth, graduating to even more legendary clientele such as Jacqueline Onassis and Audrey Hepburn. Movie clients have included Diana Ross, Faye Dunaway, and even more recently Kate Winslet, when he helped helm the Titanic makeup team. "James Cameron is very demanding," he dishes. There was no allowance for reshoots due to runny makeup so they came up with a scheme that stayed put.

To be honest, I've long been a fan of the Lamas line — Night Radiance (now with no parabens) and Lash Masque specifically — and just accepted that unfortunately I have to wait for it to arrive. I would certainly welcome the impulse opportunity, but that is restricted to the haircare line for now.

Another reason these lines have legs in drugstores is that a "natural" cosmetic line used to equate to "bland, boring and basic," according to Lamas. But now environmental consciousness is mainstream, so sophisticated product lines have gone that way too.

You can expect to see brands like Vichy and La Roche-Posay at your neighborhood CVS.

Because you're more sophisticated about what you buy, what's available to you has to be as well.