The Story
The Beginning
Pinks Boutique Professional, Natural and Certified-Organic products came from an unlikely meeting of minds. Luke Sherriff, a human scientist, and Kirstie Allen, a historian, first met at Oxford University. There seemed little to link his interest in the human body with her specialist subjects of women and South East Asia.
Early Years
But as their careers blossomed – as a professional rugby player and Director of Pinks Training Academy respectively – their interests began to overlap. While Luke turned to organic food for his body, Kirstie began to explore organic cosmetics for her clients and students. Kirstie explains “ I had like most therapists believed whatever the skincare brands and their reps told me about the key marketing messages and actives. Once I actually started to research how beauty products were made and the major base ingredients used the industry just fell apart in front of my eyes. I realised it was all about brand, boxes and the right few marketing sentences. Bizarrely what was in the bottle seemed to matter there least- it needed the cheapest cost base to provide more money for a bigger box and more margin for marketing. This is how successful brands were run and still are. I could no longer be apart of what seemed to me to be a complete travesty, tricking women into spending their hard earned cash on products with RRPs of £40 upwards and internal ingredients worth no more than 50p- £1. At this point in the mid 2000s there was no genuine skincare brands that were based in integrity and organic ingredients that would fulfil all the needs of a spa to deliver results driven treatments for face, body, hands, feet, hair removal so we decided to make one.”
The Journey
Pinks Boutique launched in 2009/10 and we have since spent our time working with spas, salons and therapists all over the UK and increasingly abroad teaching them about how our ingredients are grown, sourced and manufactured to provide non toxic results driven treatments and skincare for their clients. Our training background allowed us to develop world class treatments that are routinely described by even 5* spa greats such as Aman resorts, Scarlet Spa and the new John Lewis spas as they best they have ever experienced. Kirstie explains “ it is undoubtedly harder to grow a brand with committed eco ethics and a very expensive internal fill for the bottles compared to mainstream cosmetics companies. If your product costs more there is less room for fancy marketing but you have a product that when you touch, smell and apply it you immediately know there is something different about it. Your beauty products should be part of your wellbeing and healthy, happy lifestyle they shouldn’t include toxins and petrochemicals to hinder this. We have made a very strong set of promises to the people using our skincare and we have the integrity to stick to them.”
Who is Pinks Boutique for?
Women who want stunning results driven skincare that they can trust is genuinely natural and organic. Those who are not willing to compromise on the quality of ingredients they put on their skin, just like the ingredients they eat. For those who wellbeing is key and a very fancy heavy plastic terrible for the environment pot is less so. For those who want to rehydrate and improve their skins radiance with a product hand blended with love by real people who you can see on this website. Real people that are always happy to speak to you if you would like to chat. For those who want their skin to always be it’s best, enjoy being enlightened and want to live in perfect balance with the world around them.
Why are we different?
Our Promises:
- Third party Soil Association certified Organic Luxury skin and body care- 100% of our bottles are certified.
- Sustainable business practises- our responsible business practices are driven by our ethical values and strong belief in beauty, nature and truth. All our ingredients used come from sustainable sources and are fully biodegradable. We have careful sourcing policies to ensure safe and protected labour. We minimize packaging to prevent excessive waste of plastic and card and manufactured under carefully controlled conditions by hand. Every decision we make has to protect our environment and improve this as well as your skin health and radiance!
- Transparency- Truth is Beauty. Our company ethos within our schools and Pinks Boutique. Our aim is to inform and tell the truth, explaining the ins and outs of the organic cosmetic industry- you and your clients can then make your own informed choices and use a skincare product that gives better value.
- Concentrated formulas with no cheap bulkers and fillers. Use our products sparingly, they go a very long way.
- Family run- Luke on retiring from professional rugby has totally immersed himself in the world of skincare and adds invaluable experience in understanding the skin and body as an organ, nutrition and skin health from the inside and out. His mantra- for your skin to be at it’s personal best your whole being needs to be too.
- Kirstie- she provides the ingredient knowledge and skilled therapist element, the facialist and excellent treatment creator. Named as the Number One Most influential person in the Natural Beauty Industry in 2015 - Who’s Who in Natural Beauty. Our Team Captain.
- Layla and Charlie. Being nearly 6 years old Layla is becoming quite skilled at helping pack your boxes in the warehouse. Charlie is still under 2 so Health and Safety Laws dictate he still isn’t allowed to do this and along with Layla remains as a Pinks Boutique product testing human guinea pig.
- Spa Professional Excellence- we come from a different background to many of our competitor brands. We have been immersed in skin our full careers, this wasn’t just an opportunity we saw to cash in on the beauty industry.
You will notice most people who run skincare brands either were in PR, advertising or were lead to create products for their family or themselves through skincare problems. Our beginning was a little different but it allows us these:
- Skilled therapists who have worked with skin all of their career and who have doused many a soul and themselves in a lot of product. We know what works and what doesn’t. We can advise you on what you should use for your skin and your skin concerns at home.
- For our spa clients, a fantastic team who have previously worked in spas, treated in spas, run spas and set up spas. We know what you are facing and can provide over and above support with this.
- Incredibly strong treatments and training
- An Oxford epidemiologist and geneticist to help us look at skin in the bigger picture way.
- A premiership professional sportsman obsessed by wellbeing, body improvement and achieving your personal best.
We are still a very young brand but growing within the spa sector. We recently opened and were chosen by John Lewis for their first flagship Beauty Spa and sent an order out to Aman Montenegro, the fabulous venue where George Clooney got married. We daily increase our salons around the UK and want to enable as many people to use our products in their home skincare routine too. Thank you so much for reading, K and L xx