This Works

A former Vogue UK beauty editor launched a sleep-focused skincare brand in 2003, built around a specific commercial observation. Beauty products targeting sleep had been almost entirely absent from the prestige shelf, despite sleep being in the category most customers complained about. Kathy Phillips was Vogue UK's beauty director through the 1990s and early 2000s, giving her unusual visibility into the consumer concerns readers wrote in about. A recurring theme was stress and insomnia, which no prestige skincare brand was directly addressing. In 2003, she founded This Works in London with a flagship product, Deep Sleep Pillow Spray, a lavender and vetiver mist sprayed on pillows before bed. The spray was positioned as a sleep aid with cosmetic registration rather than a pharmaceutical sleep product.