There was a brief, blissful time during the early ’00s when a handful of Sephora stores popped up around the UK. Although I didn’t have any awareness of what a big deal this was at the time, I have vivid memories of my 13-year-old self and my best friends taking a monthly pilgrimage to Brent Cross (the journey involved two buses from our homes in the London suburbs and a dash on foot across the North Circular) to spend hours swatching lipsticks and spritzing perfumes there. To us, Sephora was the height of cool, and although we couldn’t afford a thing, there was something about that shop that made beauty products seem like the most exciting things in the world.
Boots, on the other hand, did not. With one on pretty much every high street and in every shopping centre in the UK, it’s fair to say that Boots just doesn’t have the same level of sex appeal as Sephora. Maybe it’s because it’s the shop that your mum dragged you to as a child to buy anti–car sickness tablets for your school trip (just me?) or where your grandma finds the best deals on her toothpaste. Perhaps it’s because a fridge full of limp-looking sandwiches doesn’t help the displays of new lipsticks and nail polishes look their most glamorous. Or maybe it’s because it’s the place you visit every month to stock up on tampons, deodorant and shower gel and then wonder how you’ve spent £50 on basics once you’ve got to the till.
