A rare beauty

A few Christmases ago, Corinne Thomas was given The Holistic Beauty Book by Star Khechara. This bible for making your own natural beauty products was to spark a big change in her career and the way she looked at the beauty industry forever.

“It wasn’t something that I’d had a lot of thought about, really,” confesses Corinne. “When I read what goes into mainstream beauty products, I was genuinely shocked. I didn’t realise how full of chemicals it was!”

Corinne Thomas founder of Rare Beauty

She began experimenting with creating her own natural beauty products as a hobby and attended courses at the Rhizome Community Herbal Beauty Clinic in Eastville. “It’s all very scientific,” says Corinne. “It’s not just whacking a few butters and oils in a pot and seeing what happens. You have to be really careful.”

On realising how much was involved in getting products cosmetically tested, Corinne also noticed how many small brands were trying to break into the market. Inspired, she decided to start up her own natural beauty platform, Rare Beauty, to help promote independent natural beauty makers and get them noticed. “I realised that it was massively growing. We are just on the edge of a boom in natural beauty,” says Corinne.

A natural skincare bestseller on Rare Beauty is the Cactus Fruit Eye Serum £23.00 by Alexa Sky Botanicals which a vegan product that targets puffiness, dark circles and fine lines.

With a background in partnership building, marketing and sales strategy, Corinne used her experience and knowledge to start her business, which she now runs from her home in Knowle while juggling looking after her two children.

Corinne began by contacting exciting and independent UK beauty brands, explaining how she believed in their products and would like to represent and champion their brand. “I had some really inspirational conversations,” says Corinne. “All the beauty brands I work with are founded by women, many of whom are mothers, who started their own kitchen table top business as a side job.

The Active Dew Face Cream £20.00 by Nakin has anti-aging active ingredients to hydrate and defend normal to sensitive skin.

“Many have backgrounds in herbs and aromatherapy, and their passions have developed, often being inspired to create products to solve their own skin problems after not being able to find the product that they needed on the market.”

Much to Corinne’s excitement and surprise, brands jumped at the chance to join her platform, which fills a gap in the market when it comes to selling products in achievable small batches and runs. Many of the brands Corinne represents are producing on a micro scale of skincare and cannot keep up with the big orders and fast turnovers expected by bigger, more established platforms. Rare Beauty really do support the little guys (or women on this occasion).

The Rose Geranium Natural Soap £5.95 by Soap Folk, is vegan and palm oil free to moisturise and cleanse all skin types.

As with sustainable and slow fashion, the public have started to embrace natural beauty, and as such the corporates have upped their game and are starting to catch on with this change in opinion. “It’s a real growth area,” Corinne says. “In fact, in some areas it’s taking over mainstream beauty and some of the big players are already producing their own micro brands, completely rebranding and saying the ingredients are much cleaner. It’s a good thing.”

This new age in beauty may put an end to fast products and manufacturing that sees customers encouraged to throw away products just to buy the latest lotions and potions. People are getting savvy to the pressure that the mainstream media puts on consumers and aren’t falling for the marketing ploys quite so easily. With this change in mind, people are starting to think about what they are consuming and what the products they buy are made of.

Great for your holidays, it’s the Freyaluna Shampoo Travel Kit £10.00, a vegan shampoo to rescue, strengthen and soften all hair types.

For Corinne, the platform is more than just about selling products: “Whether it’s advice on marketing or a mentoring service, I see Rare Beauty developing as a dual-purpose service; one as a sales platform and also a support network for these amazing independent brands. I don’t want to tell the brands what they want, I want them to tell me what they need.

“They are entrepreneurs themselves. Some want to grow bigger but most of them are not big enough yet and need to get themselves noticed by the retailers and the bigger marketplace. I will be that first port of call for them, and I have been really surprised by how many brands have started to contact me directly.”

While Rare Beauty is beginning to take off, Corinne is still keen to keep it manageably small. She has eight brands on the books currently, each selling fewer than ten products each. Things have been kept to a minimum to help Corinne focus on promoting and championing the brands she already has, making it a unique experience for all the brands involved.

Another bestseller is the Gentle Cleanser & Cloth Orange Blossom £27.00 by Myroo which is also vegan and protects and repairs sensitive or allergy-prone skin types.

“I noticed the bigger online market places can be quite difficult to navigate,” adds Corinne. “When I type in ‘face cleanser’, I’d get 55 results! How do you go through all of that natural beauty information when you don’t know what you are looking for? I realised then that I didn’t want to create anything that got that big!

“The Rare Beauty brands come from all over the UK, with some local makers from Stroud, Cornwall and Dorset. We don’t have any Bristol brands yet, but I am working on it. There are some interesting skincare makers here and it’s really important to me as I live in Bristol to get them on board.

“I think there is strength in numbers, with Rare Beauty being an umbrella for these smaller independent brands, the more we can do together with a joint following the better. We’ve got the opportunity to create a buzz behind us, rather than trying to do it on an individual basis. I think some of the brands that I am working with will get really, really successful. It’s exciting to know I was there from the beginning and helped them get there as part of their journey.”

Find out more at Rare Beauty or meet Corinne at the Rare Beauty Pop up shop at Casper, North Street BS3, Sat 20 – Sun 21st October 10-6pm / 11-3pm

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