As much as I’ve relished ditching my makeup and embracing my ‘natural beauty’ (lol), as lockdown measures ease and I prepare to see my friends IRL, my insecurities are creeping in. Zoom can hide a multitude of sins but as someone with bad acne scarring, the prospect of showing off my skin in broad daylight is freaking me out and my trusty Morphe foundation is down to its last dregs.
Online beauty shopping is all well and good but nothing beats seeing a foundation in real life and having a trusty makeup counter advisor colour-matching it to your specific skin. As beauty halls prepare to re-open, I’m left pondering what our post-lockdown beauty hauls will look like and will I ever find my perfect foundation again?
After getting a sneak peek at what hair salons of the future will look like, we’ve just found out that from next week, Boots will begin to re-open beauty halls with new ‘safe shopping measures’ in place (hallelujah!), so what will this look like? According to Boots, this will include no contact beauty advice, new product testing methods, upgraded colleague PPE, new social distancing guides and equipment and customer hand sanitising stations.
“The health and wellbeing of our customers and colleagues will always be our first priority,” Joanna Rogers, Trading director and VP of Beauty at Boots told GLAMOUR. “We have explored just how our customers can enjoy our much-loved beauty halls and shop for the beauty brands they love with confidence, in a socially distant way.”
Here’s what you can expect on your next trip to Boots…
- Boots Beauty Specialists will be available to offer brand-neutral advice and guidance through touch-free consultations and can chat through hints and tips on application without the need for physical contact. Boots is also trialling online consultations with its Beauty Specialists following the successful launch of virtual appointments with No7 and Liz Earle advisors. From tailored product recommendations to application tips, customers can get personalised, expert skincare and makeup advice from trusted advisors over the phone or a video call, from the comfort of their own home.
- For those who may face the high street with trepidation, Boots is exploring geo-targeted ads that will let people know when their local store is less busy. Handy.
- Testers for makeup, fragrance and skincare will be removed from stores and will be reintroduced when it is safe to do so. When they return, testers won’t be on public display in the beauty aisles, and will be dispensed by a Beauty Advisor with strict hygiene and hand-washing measures in place. Perfumes will be spritzed onto an individual fragrance blotter, liquid foundations will be pumped into a disposable pot and powders will be swiped with a single-use sponge and placed into a disposable pot.
Tia Samuels, a Boots Beauty Specialist, says that she and her colleagues are constantly learning and upgrading their knowledge about all the products across the store so that they can advise correctly and thanks to years of experience, can accurately match makeup to their clients.
“We have had training on all skin tones and types, as well as the science of skin. We also receive empathy training which allows us to really understand the needs of our customers. Being in this role, it’s important to understand the customers thoughts behind why they want to buy the product. The touch-free consultations will mean that we will have to adapt the way we build a rapport with our customers and ensure that what we’re recommending is right for them.”
