The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Friday May 4 2007
In the article below, we described the face cream featured as both a lotion and a potion. Lotion is correct; a potion is for drinking. This has been corrected.
First there were the Anya Hindmarch shopping bags to save the environment, then the Kate Moss signature range at Top Shop to acquire supermodel style. Now consumers have an even better reason to form a disorderly queue around Britain's high streets as another must-have product goes on sale: a lotion to beat old age.
This time the shopping scramble will be for a face cream launched four years ago. Boots is expecting a frantic rush tomorrow morning for its No 7 Protect and Perfect anti-wrinkle serum. Stores in London, Nottingham, Manchester and Edinburgh are opening before breakfast so shoppers past the first flush of youth can start fighting their wrinkles first thing.
In a process planned like a military exercise 200,000 bottles of the lotion have been shipped into stores. Supplies are to be rationed at one bottle per customer as Boots tries to prevent "flipping" - where savvy consumers snap up stocks to turn a quick profit by selling them on eBay.
The huge demand was prompted by a Horizon programme, screened on BBC2 in March, which concluded that Protect and Perfect does what it says on the tin.
If, indeed, it does roll back the years, Boots is on to a big winner with its £16.75 lotion. For the £6bn cosmetics industry wrinkle reduction is the holy grail. Customers, almost all female, are prepared to part with serious money for a cream that works. La Prairie Skin Caviar, for instance, costs up to £340, a price that might by itself prompt the emergence of a few frown lines.
Word spread fast about Protect and Perfect - and shoppers cleared the shelves. Boots, which usually sold just 1,000 pots of the lotion a week, knocked out 60,000 in the 10 days after the Horizon programme and stocks ran out.
Unseemly scenes were witnessed in some branches as women desperate to get their hands on the serum tried to search stock cupboards. Orders came in from the US and Australia.
The 30ml bottles started changing hands on eBay for up to £100. Boots stopped production of other creams to divert capacity to Protect and Perfect and more than 100,000 women have since joined a waiting list to be first in the queue for the cream. Yesterday Boots said it was in the process of notifying them that the wonder stuff was back. A £2m advertising campaign is also planned. Graham Hardy, head of customer care at Boots, said: "We've heard many stories as to why women should be top of the list to receive the serum, including 'It's my son's wedding in three months' time'.
"Most women don't even know the name of the serum, simply referring it as the miracle cream, vanishing cream or simply as 'that cream'."
Boots' wrinkle-buster is Steve Barton, a biologist who spent 12 years in dermatological research before joining the chain as a scientific adviser 17 years ago. Mr Barton, who develops new skincare products in labs at the headquarters in Beeston, Nottingham, asked an acknowledged dermatology expert, Professor Chris Griffiths of Manchester University, to test his serum and admits he "whooped with delight" when the professor called to say his results were positive. It was the professor who told the Horizon investigator, Lesley Regan, a 50-year old gynaecology professor, of Boots's secret success.
Mr Barton, however, said he already knew it worked - not just as a result of his own consumer tests but because the 56-year-old is himself a devotee. "Yes, I use it," he said, "to keep my skin in good condition rather than to keep wrinkles away. But my wrinkles are probably better than they would be if I didn't use it."
The serum, he said, has no magic ingredient. "It is just a combination of products," he added. Skin ageing, mostly caused by the effects of sun, he explained, is a result of damage between the epidermis and the dermis caused when a protein called fibrillin disappears. The only surefire way of reducing that damage, is a cream called tretinoin, a type of vitamin A, which is available only on prescription and is used by dermatologists in the US.
The lotion, which takes 4-8 weeks to work, has similar effects, said Mr Barton. "Wrinkles won't disappear. This is not botox, but they are significantly improved."
He admits to being "taken aback" by the frenzied reaction of shoppers to the Horizon programme. However, there will be no big bonus for coming up with the fastest selling product in Boots's history.
Yesterday the chief executive, Richard Baker, said his scientific adviser was now so popular with women "he probably feels like Tom Jones". As for a reward? "He's just very pleased with the recognition he has received," said Mr Baker.
