Boots opens first ‘Boots Beauty’ store in London
The 11,200 sq ft (1,040.5 sq m) store offers 250 curated beauty brands across the skin care, cosmetics, body care, hair care and fragrance categories, along with a dermatologist-trained Boots pharmacist offering free consultations and clinical advice on a variety of skin concerns, and a beauty studio that offers free specialist beauty advice, tutorials, and demos, including skin scan, scalp analysis and express beauty services.
The retailer, which has revamped 170 of its beauty halls across the UK over the last three years, is launching new brands such as R.E.M Beauty, Kérastase, Shu Uemura and Bubble for the first time into the store and on its website boots.com
Head of Beauty Reinvention at Boots, Jenna Ward, said: the new store was a platform for Boots to test the latest brands and new service innovations before they introduced them to customers shopping in stores across the country. “By combining Boots 175 years of pharmacy heritage with our market-leading beauty offering, we can offer accessible and holistic skin care expertise on the high street in a way that’s never been done before. The opening of this new store marks a major milestone in Boots transformation of beauty on the high street,” she said.
A focus on dermatologist-led skin care
Top dermatologist Dr Justine Hextall has given specialist training to Boots’ pharmacists, so they can offer free consultations for customers with skin concerns. In a private consultation space, they will provide one-to-one clinical advice for a variety of conditions including acne, rosacea, eczema and psoriasis.
Boots said it also planned to offer a private in-store pharmacist for customers who need access to prescription-only medicines to treat skin conditions.
The retailer revealed that it will also potentially roll out specialist skin care training to more pharmacists in selected stores across the UK, in a bid to make “clinical skin care support more widely accessible on the high street.”
The new store will also feature 35 Boots Beauty Specialists, who can offer complementary Skin Scan services using a NEXA skin imaging tool for in-depth analysis, advice and brand-neutral product recommendations.
Boots also venturing into professional treatments and will offer Dermalux LED Light Treatment services, which uses light waves to accelerate natural skin regeneration and repair, at £60 per treatment.
The retailer’s flagship own skin care brand No7 brand will offer a range of services in the store, including its new Skin Solutions Service to help customers manage their skin concerns with a series of three free consultations over a 12-week period using dermatologist-grade technology.
Hair bar, masterclasses and fragrance discovery bar
Other new features in the store will include a Hair Bar that offers a professional scalp analysis service for support with hair damage and thinning hair. There will also be weekly hair demonstrations and styling services from Dyson and Drybar and professional hair brands like Wella Professionals, Ouai and Color Wow, as well as a range of products especially for curly and wavy hair types.
Customers can enjoy masterclasses from leading beauty brands, as well as a Beauty Bar delivering free express services from Boots Beauty Specialists.
The store has also launched a new-concept Fragrance Discovery Bar with a refill station, interactive product display and a digital fragrance finder to help customers find their perfect scent.
Other customer-centric features include a dedicated beauty product recycling station is also located in the store and a free-of-charge gift wrap service.
