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Celebrated for its scientific innovation and quality craftsmanship, British beauty is big business, contributing around £30bn to the UK economy per year. But it’s not just us Britons buying it either, British beauty is a global enterprise, says Millie Kendall, founder and chief executive of the British Beauty Council, with British beauty exports running around £4.2bn in 2025.
It’s testament to their efficacy and innovation that many British brands, such as Medik8 and Charlotte Tilbury, are now household names across the world, but there are plenty more smaller brands gaining popularity, and with good reason. Ahead, some of the best niche British brands to discover from fragrances to scent your space as well as yourself to cutting-edge haircare and wellness without the woo-woo.
Hotel, Mike
London
A futuristic ode to the natural world is the best way to describe this innovative beauty brand that’s as playful as it is purposeful. The quirky, colourful packaging (inspired by founder Harriet Murphy’s love of Matisse) belies its serious sustainability credentials, with fermentation and cold-pressed, upcycled ingredients as standard. Expect a range of carefully crafted concoctions all designed to nourish, nurture and balance the skin.
Try: Bath & Body Oil, £43
Navy
Yorkshire
Although Navy was originally a professional nail tools brand manufactured in Yorkshire, founder Rebecca Crawforth always had ambitions to build something more multi-faceted. Today, family-run Navy still operates from Crawforth’s Yorkshire farm HQ. As well as its signature handcrafted gold nail tools, the brand now makes everything from room scents and candles to cuticle balms and supplements.
Try: Essential Travel Nail Kit with Tool Wrap Case, £89
Edy London
London
On the face of it, Trinny Woodall and Lily Allen may not have much in common, but look closer and you’ll see the hallmark lashes of Edy London adorning their eyes. Now, anyone who can’t get an appointment with the woman herself can buy her newly launched at-home lashes. Pre-glued, varying in length and style and a cinch to put on, these can stay put for days and won’t come off whether you shower, swim or sob.
Try: Tokyo Pre-glued lash clusters, £45
No 98 Beauty
Warwickshire
Manchester-born Lorna Andrews (better known as Lorna Luxe to her 1.8 million Instagram followers) has put virtually every hair-care product to the test. Clearly finding them lacking, she set about creating her own range, No 98, with the instruction that every product had to have a clear purpose and perform accordingly. No frivolous filler ingredients or unnecessary additives, the result is an excellent line-up of four core hair-care products.
Try: The Gloss Miracle Oil, £30
Dcypher
Cheshire
Bringing together expertise in make-up and tech, Dcypher creates custom-blend base formulas (foundations, a glow booster and a concealer) that feel spot-on for the modern make-up wearer. Born out of co-founder Ruth’s frustration at the lack of customisable foundation, Dcypher uses a specially created AI tool that reads your unique skin tone and its depth and undertone from your phone, and then creates your formula from scratch, in real time.
Try: My Custom Foundation, £39
Droplet
London
Founded by sibling team Sam and Lucie Beecham in Camden, Droplet showcases design-led aromatic offerings that include home scents like incense droplets, wax melts and reed diffusers. Formulated using resins and high-quality botanical essential oils, its fresh approach to fragrance feels fun and modern, while the scents themselves are carefully crafted using raw materials from Grasse, the perfume capital of the world.
Try: Ash and scent set, £75
Foundry
Somerset
With a goal to inject health, youth and vitality into skin, Somerset-born Foundry is a beauty brand that feels as energetic as it does elegant. Created by UK cosmetic formulator and perfumer John Kilroy, what the brand excels at is elevating the ordinary. Don’t let its cutesy folklore-esque appearance fool you; each formula, particularly where skincare is concerned, uses pioneering technology and potent actives to transform the integral health of skin.
Try: The Biome Serum, £120
Rhute
London
A decade of treating scalp conditions, alongside her own personal experience with hair loss, led consultant dermatologist Dr Aamna Adel to create her scalp-first brand, Rhute, last year. The first product, the Density + Repair Scalp Serum, is the perfect showcase of Adel’s intention to create a single product that could address multiple scalp-related issues for a host of different people. With regular use you can expect hair that feels fuller and thicker.
Try: Density + Repair Scalp Serum, £55
NÆRE
Bath
On a mission to streamline beauty supplements, British-born NÆRE is the result of a collaboration between UK scientists and Dr Nigel Mercer, a board-certified consultant cosmetic aesthetic surgeon. Refreshingly the range consists of a single hero product, Nectar 01, that’s designed to be your all-in-one supplement whether you’re looking for better skin, boosted energy or improved gut health.
Try: Nectar 01, £99
Made of More
Lincolnshire
When Jackie Lamyman began going through the perimenopause, the changes caused by hormonal fluctuations caught her completely off-guard. Having founded a CBD brand years before, it was the discovery of CBG, the stem-cell parent of CBD, that led Lamyman to the creation of Made of More from her family-run regenerative farm in Lincolnshire. The range today is a neat edit of reparative, balancing skincare designed to support women in midlife.
Try: Skin Rescue Balm, £35
Grove England (Cotswolds)
Grove’s mission is to find fragrance where there is none, a poetic way to describe founder and interior designer Laura Butler-Madden’s ambition to create scents for flowers that have none naturally. Inspired by the changing seasons that unfold outside Butler-Madden’s Cotswolds home, the brand’s first collection, Anemone, conjured up white florals with warm, grounding woods. Its second and most recent, Snowdrop, is an exploration of soft powdery florals and fresh, verdant notes.
Try: Snowdrop eau de parfum, £120
Sop
Norfolk
A nature-loving creative is how Sop founder, photographer and creative director Fiona Burrage describes herself. However, finding moments of peace and calm hasn’t always been easy, so Burrage decided to create a brand to help her do just that. The result is Sop, a Norfolk-born body-care brand that uses plant-based essential oils to create products with a sense of ritual. The production and fulfilment are all done within a 22-mile radius of her home in Norfolk.
Try: Sop Dene Bath Oil – Bergamot and Black Pepper, £18 (reduced to £5)
Dizziak
London
A hydration-first haircare brand created for all hair types and textures, Dizziak and its founder Loretta de Feo are unapologetic in their pursuit of high-performance haircare that looks good, smells good and delivers real, noticeable results. The range itself is small but mighty, with products like the Hard Serum (a hydrating get-styler) and the Deep Conditioner that are easy to navigate and use, and simple to slot into an existing routine.
Try: The Hard Serum, £28
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