Helping designers to develop skincare products was not what Sophie Clapp (above) had in mind when she trained as an archivist. But after working with Churchill’s wartime papers — via a spell in Unilever’s archive — that is what she ended up doing, at Boots. The result was Boots Original Beauty Formula, an apothecary-style range marking the company’s 160th anniversary.
“Our formulators had a field day,” says Annabel Franks, head of beauty brands at Boots UK. Her team spent days with Ms Clapp rooting through handwritten recipes, illustrated price lists from the 1920s, and painted tins and jars. “It was one of those magical moments when everything came together.”
