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14 British beauty brands we love
It's never been easier to buy local with these brilliant British beauty buys
From the coastline of Dorset to the rolling fields of Suffolk, many high performing beauty brands are now manufacturing and sourcing home-grown ingredients for their products right here in the UK.
Not only does buying from these local beauty brands mean you'll have a lower carbon footprint, but you'll be helping to support smaller British producers (like Lush for example, who work with a small-scale farm in Devon to harvest and mill oats for its Dream Cream Hand & Body Lotion.) We also love that JOGB's natural aromatherapy-based candles contains Worcestershire rapeseed wax while Skin & Tonic blends lavender from Surrey and chamomile from Lincolnshire together in its bestselling Calm Balm.
Here's our round up of 10 great British beauty buys we love!
Neals Yard Remedies
Neal’s Yard Remedies began in a tiny store in Covent Garden in the 1980s and is now a pioneer of sustainability that ships its iconic blue bottles to more than 23 countries around the world.
The brand HQ has expanded to an eco factory, offices, shop and Soil Association-accredited garden, teeming with flowers and herbs, in Gillingham, Dorset. Calendula is the main crop grown here (one tonne of calendula tincture is made each year), but spring greens, such as wild nettles and cleavers, have self-seeded themselves in nooks and crannies across the herb fields.
Our homegrown hero
Calendula Cleanser. With a satisfyingly creamy texture and a fresh, herbal scent, this gently removes make-up, dirt and oil.
Each product in Bamford’s decadent bath and body range is made using ingredients that are homegrown on the famous Daylesford organic farm in The Cotswolds, where founder Carole Bamford has 115 different species of geranium growing in her greenhouse.
Our homegrown hero
Geranium Hand Balm. Bamford has just reformulated its best-selling hand cream to create a a lighter, more nourishing hand balm, which comes in a fully-recyclable aluminium tube. The formula remains largely the same, and is in infused with aloe vera, honey and golden jojoba to revive tired, hardworking hands.
The RHUG Estate in North Wales is home to a 6,700-acre sustainable farm which produces organic meat, and in 2020
owner Lord Newborough and his team launched skincare brand Wild Beauty, which draws on organic and wild-foraged ingredients from the estate. Think balms and butters made using home-grown botanical extracts, honey and beeswax. Everything in the collection is hand-made and hand-bottled in the UK.
Our homegrown hero
Deep Cleansing Balm. This indulgent cleanser is made with antioxidant-rich wild blackthorn and blackberries from the RHUG estate to brighten and protect, while safflower and rose otto essential oils hydrate and soothe.
Olivanna Detox Oceanic Marine Mask
Olivanna is a luxury skincare brand which launched in the middle of lockdown in 2020. Founder Janine Summers formulates her soothing products with British-grown botanical ingredients, like English rose and bramley apple, many of which are grown on her own farm just outside Guildford. All products are dermatologically tested and packaged in handcrafted glass bottles. The brand sees itself as a multi-generation skincare destination, with its My Olivanna range specifically geared towards teens.
Our homegrown hero
Detox Oceanic Marine Mask. With seaweed extract rich in algae polyphenols that is hand cut from remote shores in the north of Scotland, British-sourced anti-inflammatory violet willow to calm the complexion and Cornish kaolin clay to gently exfoliate, this is a deeply nourishing do-it-all mask.
Noble Isle Whisky & Water Hand Wash
Created over ten years ago and inspired by Britain's unique culture and history, Noble Isle's delicious fragrances fuse traditional and modern influences to make scents imbued with more than a hint of nostalgia. With a background in fashion and product development, founder Katy Simpson cites one of her biggest inspirations as the convivial atmosphere around the Prince and Princess of Wales' iconic wedding in 2011. From there she's created a quintessentially British brand that uses only locally sourced ingredients. with all products manufactured in the UK. Scotland's Moray Forest and Cornish hedgerow are just a few of Simpson's bucolic references.
Our homegrown hero
Inspired by the warming scent of Scottish whisky distilleries, Noble Isle use natural barley extract from the Balvenie Distillery in Dufftown, Scotland. Enjoy the familiar scent of amber and citrus every time you wash your hands.
Hand and Body Wash & Lotion Duo
Deep in the Hampshire countryside lies Heckfield Place, an elegant country house hotel with 400 acres of landscaped grounds and a small (but perfectly formed) spa… which naturally needed an in-house skincare line."Our restaurants already used produce from the estate,’" says Katherine Pye, general manager at Wildsmith. "So it was only logical we took the same approach when it came to our skincare."While not every ingredient is grown on site, Heckfield’s biodynamic farm now furnishes Wildsmith’s formulas with walnut, cucumber, cherry and birch.
Our homegrown hero
Hand Wash and Hand Lotion. With chamomile and linden, and housed in handcrafted ceramic bottles made by one of the oldest potteries in Stoke-on-Trent.
Born out of a mother's want to find a balm to help soothe her baby's delicate skin that was also good for the planet, Hedgewild is the epitome of a British brand. The 100% natural skincare balms are made with ingredients that have been grown locally by British farmers and put care and nourishment at the heart of things; dry, sore skin especially serves to benefit.
Our homegrown hero
An excellent all-rounder balm designed to help treat anything from eczema to sunburn, this balm is a must-have for just about anyone. Top tip: use on pulse points and let the calming smell of lavender alleviate any stresses.
Lush BB Seaweed Face Mask
You’ll find Lush beside the seaside in Poole, where many of the brand’s cult buys are ‘cooked’ with locally sourced, fresh ingredients in a kitchen-style factory.
Toothed wrack seaweed is harvested along the Poole coastline, while Dorset Sea Salt Co collects salt for the brand’s Sakura and Big Blue bath bombs over on Chesil Beach, using environmentally friendly production methods.
Our homegrown hero
BB Seaweed Face Mask. With finely ground almonds, this is great for gently exfoliating sensitive skin.
Skin and Tonic Sleep Recovery Night Oil
"When life handed me lemons I made Skin & Tonic," says Sarah Hancock, who left a high-stress career in TV and started tinkering with natural aromatherapy-based skincare at her kitchen table in East London.Skin & Tonic’s popularity led Sarah to scale up production to a Yorkshire factory, where her ethos is respected: the brand is certified organic and Fairtrade, and aims to be carbon neutral by the end of this year.
Our homegrown hero
Sleep Recovery Night Oil. Calm mind and complexion with this neroli-packed serum.
Odylique Gentle Herb Shampoo
‘I just knew there was a better way to treat sensitive skin,’ says founder Margaret Weeds, who started suffering from eczema and skin allergies in the 1980s. Her solution? Home-made botanical lotions and balms.
Back then, Margaret’s Nottingham garden provided the herbs and flowers she needed to make her anti-inflammatory blends. Fast forward 30 years and the brand operates from an eco-workshop in Suffolk.
Our homegrown hero
Gentle Herb Shampoo. Cleans and adds shine to parched hair, without irritating the scalp.
Haeckels Exfoliating Seaweed Block
Based in Margate, Haeckels uses seaweed (that's handpicked on the beach just steps away from its shop overlooking the sea) as the base for all of its products. Why? Seaweed is naturally hydrating, rich in vitamins, minerals and amino acids; anti-bacterial and anti-inflammatory.
The brand is committed to sustainability, a good example of which is its Rubbish for Product scheme which rewards customers who bring a bag of beach rubbish to the shop with a free product. If you return said product empty, you'll then receive a discount on purchasing a re-fill.
Our homegrown hero
Exfoliating Seaweed Block. The uplifting scent of patchouli and tea tree will take over your bathroom. Made with crushed coriander seeds and peppercorns to gently buff away grime and slough off dead skin cells, it leaves skin soft and supple. More sustainable than its bottled body cleansing counterparts, this will last you, too. Simply cut off a small chunk for use and lather into wet skin.
Bee Good Plump and Firm Moisturiser
Committed to bee conservation, founders Caroline and Simon Cavill made it their mission to shine a light on these buzzy little insects by creating a bee-centric skincare range using honey, propolis and beeswax. The brand also uses extracts from bee-friendly flowers, such as Lincolnshire-grown borage and echium, and essential oils sourced from strawberry, blackcurrant and raspberry plants.
Our homegrown hero
Plump & Firm Moisturiser (abeautifullife.co.uk). An easy everyday cream that sits happily over serum and under sunscreen.
Bramley Pillow Spray
When founder Chloë Luxton’s husband bought an ivy-coated pub with rooms just outside Salisbury, she couldn’t find quite the right toiletries for guests to use, so she decided to make her own.
Every Bramley formula contains organic apple seed oil and extracts sourced from old English varieties, such as Somerset-grown Stoke Red and Kingston Black. These are then fragranced with essential oil blends inspired by British hedgerows, from botanicals such as yarrow, geranium and chamomile.
Our homegrown hero
Sleep Spray. Spritz on to bed sheets for shoulder-dropping serenity.
Founder and former beauty editor Jo Glanville-Blackburn has always had a nose for botanical scents. Sticking to her own green principles meant launching a range that used "real notes direct from nature or nothing at all."From the biodegradable packaging made in Surrey to rapeseed wax from Worcestershire and essential oils hand-blended in Somerset, JOGB is 100% British.
Our homegrown hero
JOGB GOJO candle. With a pure aromatherapy oil complex for an intense and longer-lasting energising aroma (£65).
UpCircle Eye Cream with Hyaluronic Acid and Coffee
UpCircle Eye Cream with Hyaluronic Acid and Coffee
Siblings Anna and Will Brightman hit upon the idea of giving used coffee grounds a new lease of life when they idly wondered what happened to the stuff they saw piling up in their local coffee bars.
The coffee grounds, sourced from all over London, are the brand’s hero ingredient. UpCircle also uses surplus chai spices from a syrup manufacturer in Bath in exfoliating charcoal and clay soaps.
Our homegrown hero
Eye Cream with Maple and Coffee. A must-have for perking up tired-looking eyes.
Parterre Root of All Goodness
Parterre Root of All Goodness
Planting, harvesting and distilling ingredients for Parterre’s perfumes all takes place in Dorset. Keyneston Mill (the brand’s 50-acre home) has a cafe, botanic garden, perfume museum, and a workshop offering a calendar of events such as candle-making and aromatherapy.
The gardens and fields produce a huge range of fine fragrance ingredients, from Persian carrot seed to orris (iris root). While the Parterre gardening team have also proved that it’s possible to successfully cultivate vetiver, which is traditionally grown in Haiti,
on British soil.
Our homegrown hero
Root Of All Goodness. We adore this spicy citrus blend that beautifully showcases the Dorset-grown vetiver.
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