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Lady Gay: Perfumed beauty products for Africa
In 1971, Boots launched its Lady Gay perfume in South Africa with a dazzling beauty competition, celebrating African beauty and marking the company’s entry into a growing and modern African consumer market.
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Ibuprofen: A discovery of global significance
Today, Ibuprofen is used as pain killer and anti-inflammatory. But when it was first launched by Boots, as Brufen in February 1969, it was heralded as the miracle therapy for arthritic problems, particularly Rheumatoid Arthritis.
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A land of opportunity? Boots considers American ‘Self-Service’ in the 1950s
Between the world wars, a UK-based branch of Boots the Chemist was easily recognised. Large wooden counters dominated the shop, separating staff and customers and placing most goods beyond the customer’s reach.
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Boots in Fiji
In the 1930s, Boots began to expand its retail presence outside the UK. It wanted to grow its overseas business from a strictly wholesale venture, where local agents sold Boots goods to independent shopkeepers, to running its own Boots stores…
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Go East Young Man
Frederick Harrison was itching for an adventure when he set sail from Liverpool in February 1941 to join Boots’ export and wholesale business in Calcutta [Kolkata], India. He chronicled his first year with the Kolkata office in his 1993 posthumously…
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Puncturing the rubber romance
In the 1920s Boots was especially proud of its extensive rubber hot water bottle range. It stocked an impressive variety with models suitable for all price brackets. At the top of the collection, introduced in 1923, was the ‘Regaid Super…
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Ushering in the ‘vitamin age’ with cod liver oil
Long reviled for its distinctive taste, the popularity of cod liver oil surged in the 1920s when it became one of the first household remedies to be studied for vitamin potency.
