Best Startup
At Best Startup UK we track over 130,000 UK startups and over 500,000 people who hold key positions in these companies. We use this directory of startups to highlight top employees, founders and board members we think deserve more appreciation than they are currently getting.
This list showcases the top United Kingdom based Founder operating in the Beauty space. If you think a Founder is missing from this list, feel free to contact our editor on editor@beststartup.co.uk.
The individuals on this list have been included because of exceptional performance in one of the following categories:
- Innovation – Operating as a key part in an extremely innovative business or startup.
- Growth – Operating as a key figure in the growth and upscale of a market leading business or startup.
- Management – Showing exceptional management skills.
- Societal impact – Putting their business on the map for their positive societal or environmental impact.
Our Data – We source our data from OSINT (open source intelligence) and public directories such as Companies House UK, Crunchbase, SemRush and many more. The data from these sources should be treated with a degree of caution and verified yourself.
Priyanka Gill
Founder & CEO of POPxo
Priyanka Gill is the Co-Founder and President of MyGlamm. She is also the Founder & CEO of POPxo, India’s largest community of women.
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About MyGlamm, POPxo: POPxo is India’s online community for women that deals everything from fashion, beauty, lifestyle, work, and etc.
Mahmud Kamani
Co-Founder and Joint Chief Executive of Boohoo Group
Mahmud founded boohoo.com with Carol Kane in 2006, leveraging over 30 years of experience in the fashion and clothing industry. Mahmud is an entrepreneur, with expertise encompassing all areas of the supply chain from sourcing, import and wholesale. Mahmud is an inspirational leader, having built a strong team and engendered loyalty from many long-serving employees.
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About Boohoo Group: Boohoo is an online store that offers a range of clothing, accessories, and footwear brands.
Carol Kane
Co-Founder of Boohoo Group
Carol co-founded boohoo.com with Mahmud Kamani in 2006 following their shared recognition in the opportunity for online retail. As part of her role as joint Chief Executive, Carol oversees the Group’s product, marketing and brand strategy across the UK and internationally. She has worked in the fashion industry throughout her career, initially as a designer and then as a fashion buyer. Before setting up boohoo.com, Carol and Mahmud worked together for over 20 years supplying high street retailers.
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About Boohoo Group: Boohoo is an online store that offers a range of clothing, accessories, and footwear brands.
Jean-Christophe Chopin
Founder and CEO of BORN
A creator and innovator by nature, JC is an entrepreneur who has had a strong presence in online financial services, digital insurance and stock brokerage. He has a wealth of international experience with expertise in the US as well as vast European digital and brand management knowledge. JC pioneered E*Trade Europe and Verisign in the early days of the Internet, and later went on to invest in real estate, time pieces and luxury fashion. His passion for skiing and extreme sports also led him to launch the ‘Carre Neige’ ski insurance within the Savoie region. Most recently, he has married his online finance expertise with his experience in design and luxury brands to create BORN, a B2B global market-network that connects design-led brands with retailers.
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About BORN: BORN is the world’s first private B2B platform that connects a global network of design-led lifestyle brands and retail buyers.
Alex Ikonn
Co-Founder of Luxy Hair
Alex Ikonn works as Co-founder for Luxy Hair.
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About Luxy Hair: Luxy Hair is an e-commerce company specializing in clip-in hair extensions.
Marcia Kilgore
Founder of Beauty Pie
Back in the mid – ‘90s, when her experimental one-room beauty studio grew into the revolutionary Bliss Spa (a majority stake was acquired by LVMH in 1999), Marcia Kilgore was pegged by Time Magazine as one of the new generation of young entrepreneurs who were changing the way the world does business and was heralded “the new Estee Lauder”. Kilgore went on to build and sell her second major beauty brand – Soap & Glory – to Boots/Walgreens – cementing her status as a serial-entrepreneurial wonder woman. Next came FitFlop, launched in 2007 and imitated by many. Kilgore’s ergonomic footwear brand, dubbed by industry watchers as “footwear’s Lululemon”, is in 64 markets globally, with Uma Thurman fronting its ‘for Superwomen’ campaign. Kilgore’s new venture, Foam and Substance, is a mother-company for two (so far) zeitgeist-grabbing brands, located in London and staffed by the budding business superstars she’s met along the way. What’s new? Masspirational bath & body brand Soaper Duper, with boasts the best naturally-derived, enviably-priced bath and body products of the 21st century, and gives back to WaterAid and Clean the World – proving that it’s possible to do good business and do good at the same time. As well as Beauty Pie which launched in December of 2016 with ambitions to change the way that women shop for cosmetics. “The Beauty Industry is broke” says Kilgore, “customers get about 10% for their money, and that isn’t good enough anymore.” Set to completely disrupt the industry – Beauty Pie offers members a ‘virtual backstage pass’ to the skincare and makeup suppliers of the world’s leading beauty brands, selling luxury cosmetics at their totally transparent Factory Cost, and giving members a bigger piece of the BEAUTY PIE.
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About Beauty Pie: Beauty Pie mission is to bring our members the world’s best beauty products at totally transparent factory cost prices.
Karen Harwood
Director and Co-Founder of Oodee
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About Oodee: allergen neutral skincare – next generation clean beauty
Victoria Tydeman
Director and Co-Founder of Oodee
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About Oodee: allergen neutral skincare – next generation clean beauty
Jack Tang
Co-Founder & CEO of Urban
A startup entrepreneur and angel investor. Currently Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Urban Massage – a B2C and B2B technology marketplace connecting wellness professionals with buyers in their local neighborhood. Prior to founding Urban Massage, he founded a social network and app-based job board TheStudentJob.com
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About Urban: Urban is an online wellness appointment platform for booking in-person and online treatments.
Imran Amed
Founder & Chief Executive Officer of The Business of Fashion
Bringing a unique understanding of the creative and commercial sides of fashion, Imran Amed has emerged as one of the fashion industry’s leading writers, thinkers and commentators. In 2007, he started writing a blog called The Business of Fashion (BoF) from his sofa just as social media and smartphones were about to explode onto the scene, new markets were rapidly emerging in China, India and Brazil, and the financial crisis threw the industry into a tailspin. Five years on, with its award-winning editorial franchises and a global reputation for intelligent, analytical content, BoF has grown into the pre-eminent daily destination for the global fashion community. Imran has been named to British GQ’s list of the 100 Most Influential Men in Britain, Indian GQ’s list of the 50 Most Influential Global Indians, British Vogue’s list of 25 New Fashion Faces to Watch, and Wired UK’s list of the 100 most influential figures in Britain’s digital economy. Previously, he was a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. He has an MBA from Harvard Business School and a B.Com from McGill University. He holds Canadian and British citizenship.
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About The Business of Fashion: The Business of Fashion is a online platform for the global fashion industry, offering content and tools to industry professionals.
Giles Dean
Co-Founder of 1Rebel
Giles Dean is the Co-Founder of 1Rebel and entrepreneur regularly tweeting about design architecture #style and #fitness
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About 1Rebel: 1Rebel is a new fitness venture.
Tommy Williams
Co-Founder & CEO of All Shades Covered
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About All Shades Covered: A health and beauty marketplace for Afro-Caribbean consumers.
Sanmi Ogunmola
Co-Founder & COO of All Shades Covered
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About All Shades Covered: A health and beauty marketplace for Afro-Caribbean consumers.
Wendy Martin
Co-Founder of Counter Culture Store
Wendy Martin is the co-founder of Counter Culture Store, a sustainable beauty marketplace. Also a co-founder of Startup Socially, an on-demand marketing consultancy, and a NED at myNexus. She was previously a major investor, founding director and CMO at For Good Causes until August 2020. Wendy spent 28 years at Visa, latterly as an Executive Director of business strategy and innovation.
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About Counter Culture Store, For Good Causes, Social Impact Associates: Sustainable Beauty Marketplace
Rider Latham
CEO & Co-Founder of Secret Spa
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About Secret Spa: Luxury beauty treatments…any time and any place.
Emily Ewart-Perks
Chief Ecosystem Officer & Co-Founder of Secret Spa
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About Secret Spa: Luxury beauty treatments…any time and any place.
Iglika B. Ghouse
Founder, CEO of USPAAH – Your Spa At Home
Perfectionist at heart with over 10 years spent working in investment banking both in UK and US, Iglika knows what it takes to drive change. In 2015 she made a bold turn in her career and launched USPAAH – Your Spa At Home. Iglika is responsible for setting the vision for the company, as well as managing operations and the team of Sparistas. When not tackling business challenges, she can be found in the park with her pooch Tiger, or spending quality time with her family and friends.
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About USPAAH – Your Spa At Home: USPAAH delivers Massage, Nail and Beauty treatments to client’s home, hotel or office in as little as an hour.
Sarah Brown
Founder and CEO of Pai Skincare
Out of the blue, my usually calm skin became irritated, hyper-sensitive and acne-prone. Trying to keep it under control was a daily battle and finding products that didn’t contain problem ingredients brought a whole new challenge. I’d reached a dead-end with a bathroom cabinet full of products claiming to be “hypoallergenic” and “organic”, let down by their ingredient lists full of synthetics and known irritants. I just wanted effective skincare I could trust and depend on and creating Pai was my way of taking back control. Pai is everything I wanted as a customer; skincare made with effective, organic ingredients, no nonsense marketing and a brand that understands products are just one piece of the puzzle.”
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About Pai Skincare: Our premium products provide solutions for sensitive skin in all its forms – whether it be dry or oily, youthful or mature.
Jean-Michel Chalayer
Co-Founder & CEO of LeSalon Beauty
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About LeSalon Beauty: LeSalon is delivering a branded, consistent and high-quality at-home beauty service.
Natasha Pilbrow
Co-Founder & COO of LeSalon Beauty
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About LeSalon Beauty: LeSalon is delivering a branded, consistent and high-quality at-home beauty service.
David Lomas
Chief Technical Officer and Co-Founder of Uniphy Ltd
David has over 30 years of experience of Research and Development in Integrated Circuit design. He began his career working for Plessey Semiconductors as an R&D Engineer in the late 80’s. After which he returned to academia to complete his post graduate studies. David holds a BEng(Hons) in Electronics Engineering from Leeds University, an MSc in VLSI Systems Design, and a PhD in “High Resolution X-Ray Photon Imaging ICs” from UMIST. He then continued to work, for several more years, for the Department of Electronic Engineering at UMIST, as a Research Associate focussing on the area of Integrated Sensor Design. David then went on to work for Cadence Design Services as a Principal Design Engineer, after which he moved to Panasonic Design Europe as RF IC Design Group Technical Lead, working primarily in the areas of state of the art RF, High-Speed Datacomms and Telecomms IC design, during which time he gained extensive design experience working in numerous processes including SiGe, Bipolar, SOI and CMOS. After this David joined Wolfson Microelectronics’ as part of their Advanced Technology Group, working on cutting edge audio and power management integrated circuits. He then went on to jointly set up a Swindon Design Centre for Silicon Valley based Micrel Semiconductors, working on extending their range of both RF IC and Advanced Power Management IC products, before going on to jointly found Uniphy Ltd.
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About Uniphy Ltd: Uniphy is an electronic company that enables intuitive free-form Touch Interfaces that are beautiful, robust and economic.
Dave Dearn
Engineering Manager and Co-Founder of Uniphy Ltd
David has over 30 years of experience of electronics and semi-conductor design and technical management, spanning market sectors from automotive to mobile communications. David’s early career started in the detailed analogue and digital design of automotive electronics and integrated circuits at Lucas TRW, where he became IC design manager of the UK group. From there David, joined Dialog semiconductor, as Design Lead, working on the latest mixed signal IC’s for Siemens Mobile Phones projects. Progressing from there, David became site manager for Wolfson Microelectronics’ design centre in Swindon, building the design team to work on state of the art audio and power management integrated circuits, for leading OEMs both in the US and Europe. Later, he built upon this experience by jointly setting up a Swindon design centre for Silicon Valley based Micrel Semiconductors, before leaving to jointly found Uniphy Ltd. David’s extensive experience is based on decades of hands on analogue and digital IC design, and includes significant technical management roles.
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About Uniphy Ltd: Uniphy is an electronic company that enables intuitive free-form Touch Interfaces that are beautiful, robust and economic.
Steph Madgett
CEO & Co-Founder of Slick
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About Slick: Slick is an end to end booking management for salons, reducing the number of no-shows and giving salons a modern connected experience.
Mark Helvadjian
Founder and CEO of Scrubd
Mark Helvadjian is the Founder and CEO of SCRUBD. Prior to that, he was the Founder, CEO, and Chief Shipping Officer at Shipping Easy.
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About Scrubd: Scrubd is an online store that sells a wide range of naturally made grooming products for men.
Anna Brightman
Co-Founder of Optiat
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About Optiat: Optiat is the nature-friendly beauty company.
William Brightman
Co-Founder of Optiat
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About Optiat: Optiat is the nature-friendly beauty company.
Klaudia Trzcielinska
Founder of Fox In A Glove
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About Fox In A Glove: Fox in a Glove is an online bespoke womenswear label – creating beautiful made-to-measure clothes for style foxes.
Lauren Bowker
Chief Creative & Innovation Officer / Co-Founder of T H E U N S E E N
T H E U N S E E N founder Lauren Bowker graduated from the Manchester School of Art with the award-winning pollution sensing compound PdCl2. She went on to study printed textiles at the Royal College of Art London, creating several additional chromic colour-change inks, portrayed through provoking pieces shot by Tim Walker and modelled by Kate Moss, as well as magic materials and extraordinary experiences within automotive, medical, textiles and couture. T H E U N S E E N has exhibited worldwide, from London Fashion week to The Royal Academy of Engineering, The Science Museum, The V&A and The Barbican. Lauren has received numerous significant awards and acknowledgement along the way, including HClub100 creative entrepreneur of the year, the BFC and TSB winner of digital innovation in fashion. She is also a TED fellow and sits on the Board for the European Council for the Internet of Things.
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About T H E U N S E E N: T H E U N S E E N is a branded materials science business that reveals to the world what it cannot see for itself through consumer products.
Fiona McIntosh
Creative Director, Co-Founder of Blow
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About Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A, Blow: Blow is an online platform that provides its users with a range of beauty services.
Boris Zatezic
Founder & CEO of MuLondon
MuLondon brings joy and balance with its award-winning skin care range from London, inspired by traditional herbalism. Organic | 1% For The Planet | B Corp | Vegan | Cruelty Free. ❤️
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About MuLondon: MuLondon brings joy and balance with its award-winning skin care range from London.
Paul Kemp
Founder of Intercytex Group
Paul is a recognised pioneer in the field of Regenerative Medicine and has over 25 years’ experience in the US and UK in the commercialisation of various Regenerative Medicine and Cell Therapy products in both public and private Companies. Over the years, he has built a successful track record in all aspects of the business, from carrying out translational research, in-licensing technologies from Universities and out-licensing products to a variety of HealthCare Companies, designing, obtaining regulatory approval and running clinical trials in the US, Canada, UK and Europe, designing, building and operating GMP facilities, founding biotech companies, and launching, marketing and selling cell based products in the US and UK. When at Organogenesis Inc he was the lead inventor on patents for the first multi-cell therapy approved by the FDA and was involved in all stages of the development of this product from the bench, through the clinical trial process, development of a licensing and marketing partnership and the eventual approval and launch in the US. This product has now treated well over half a million patients and is the largest selling manufactured cell therapy in the world. After Organogenesis Paul returned to the UK and was the sole founder of Intercytex. He served as CEO for the first 5 years and under his leadership the company grew rapidly, attracted significant VC investment from Europe, the US and Asia. During this period Intercytex developed several products that reached the clinic, including the world’s first cell therapy clinical trial to induce new hair formation and carried out with Bessam and Nilofer Farjo. Paul has numerous patents and publications in the field and is often invited to speak at International Conferences and sit on a variety of panels, grant funding bodies and regulatory committees. He is co-editor of the Journal of Regenerative Medicine, a co-Director of the Doctoral Training Centre in Regenerative Medicine at Manchester University and Industrial Director of Regener8.
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About Intercytex Group: Intercytex Group is a biotechnology company developing cell-based therapies for the repair and regeneration of skin and hair.
Grace de Alvaro
Founder of Sports HAI
Grace De Alvaro is a Marathon runner, horsewoman, triathlete and one of life’s natural disruptors. Grace De Alvaro created Sports HAI when she took on sport challenges and found there were no real performing products for high level athletes.
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About Sports HAI: Sports HAI is the first makeup brand made for healthy, active and inspired women and men.
Beverley Paly
Founder of LuxeBraids
Founder at LuxeBraids
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About LuxeBraids: On Demand Natural Hairstyling platform
Adil Abrar
Founder and Chairman of Mastered
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About Mastered: Launching and accelerating the careers of creators since 2015
Francis Sean O
Co-Founder of LOOX
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About LOOX: A real-time app-based marketplace to assist consumers in booking appointments with local beauty, health & fitness professionals on-demand.
Olubolar Botu
Founder of Mimmabux
Founder of Mimmabux.
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About Mimmabux: Mimmabux is a marketing and retail outfit for fragrance, hair and beauty products.
