Priestlands Birch
Greater London
Priestlands Birch turns hand-gathered birch sap and leaves from Exmoor into a range of drinks and…
Buy local · Understead
Find independent health & beauty makers
Find independent businesses making skincare, natural beauty and wellbeing products around you, including small producers selling through markets, stockists and their own shops or websites.
Understead exists to make the people behind locally made products visible, even when they cannot compete with the advertising reach of national beauty brands.
The directory
Health, Beauty & Wellbeing across the UK
Small brands begin somewhere
An independent skincare or wellbeing business may start with one person developing products, packing orders and selling through a handful of markets and local shops.
Search tends to favour established national brands long before a business like that has comparable reach.
Making them visible gives residents another choice and gives small producers another route to the market around them.
Understead is interested in what exists underneath that scale: the people actually building products and businesses in places around the country.
What grows when you buy locally
An independent local shop or product business is more than another place to buy something.
These businesses create work, keep alternatives alive, give smaller producers somewhere to sell and keep more economic activity connected to the places where people actually live.
But the independent business rarely has the advertising budget, search authority or convenience infrastructure of a chain or national platform.
Understead is trying to narrow that gap, not by asking people to shop locally out of guilt, but by making local options easier to see and easier to use.
Find the businesses around you. Buy from them when it works for you. Help keep more of the economy of your place rooted there.
What do they make?
Product groupings appear only where local makers explicitly produce them, and no health claims are ever made for them.
Natural skincare (21) Soaps & bath products (34) Essential-oil products (12) Balms & body care (22) Beard & grooming (2)
Makers selling direct
These makers explicitly sell directly, from a shop, studio or their own online store.
- Catherine Lucktaylor, bejowans business park
- Lily Russell of The Haven Natural Health Studio, Calstock
- Julie Wrathall, Wainhouse Corner
- Sugandha Fragrance, Maidstone
- Ashley Ward - Awen Sounds, Ceredigion
- Studio Critical:, Manchester
- Durham Soap Co, Lanchester
- Collingwood-Norris, Galashiels
Local stockists
These makers explicitly name the local shops that stock their products.
- Priestlands Birch, Greater London
Independent health & wellbeing shops
Genuinely independent health-food and wellbeing shops whose offer strongly overlaps this category, never national chains.
- The Natural Choice | Rhos on Sea, Rhos-on-Sea
- Bathgate Botanicals CIC, Bathgate
What does it cost?
Where makers publish current product prices, Understead shows them, never a meaningless average across completely different skincare or wellbeing products.
Make health or beauty products independently?
If you make qualifying skincare, beauty or wellbeing products locally, Understead is meant to include you.
Show people what you produce, where they can buy it and how to reach you directly.
Being smaller should not mean being impossible to find.
Your own website, socials, contact details and ways to buy stay visible.
Add or claim your business Why Understead is built for independents
Quick answers
How many skincare & wellbeing makers are there in the UK?
168 skincare & wellbeing makers currently list on Understead, and more are added each week. Around 18 are near Kent. Search by postcode to find the makers closest to you and buy from them directly.
Is "natural" or "chemical-free" skincare better for me?
Not automatically. "Chemical-free" isn't a real thing, water is a chemical, and "natural" doesn't mean gentle: some of the commonest causes of skin irritation are natural plant and essential oils. Both natural and synthetic ingredients can be safe or irritating depending on what they are and how much is used. Judge a product by its ingredients and how your skin finds it, not by the words on the front.
Why does my cream contain a preservative, isn't that bad?
It's the opposite, it's keeping you safe. Anything with water in it will grow bacteria, mould and yeast within days without a preservative, which can cause irritation or worse. Preservatives are used in tiny, regulated amounts for exactly this reason. Genuinely preservative-free products are almost always oil-only balms; a water-based cream that claims to be either isn't, or isn't safe for long.
Can handmade skincare treat my eczema, acne or another skin condition?
A lovely product may suit your skin beautifully, but skincare isn't medicine, and no honest maker will claim to cure a condition. If you have eczema, acne or anything troubling, a pharmacist or doctor is the right first port of call. A good maker will happily suggest gentle, simple options and tell you exactly what's in them, but for treatment, see a professional.
Are small-batch and cottage-made products safe and regulated?
They should be. Wherever you are, selling cosmetics comes with rules, ingredient labelling and a safety assessment among them, that a proper maker follows. A serious small maker will have had their products assessed and will list every ingredient. If someone can't tell you what's in a product, or won't show a full ingredient list, that's the thing to be wary of, not their size.
How do I look after handmade skincare?
Use it reasonably fresh, small batches don't sit for years, and keep lids on, fingers clean and the pot out of sun and heat. Mind the "once opened" symbol on the label, and if a product changes smell, colour or texture, retire it. Buying little and often from a local maker means it's fresh anyway.
Find health, beauty and wellbeing products near you
There is more being made and sold around you than you might think.
Enter your town or postcode, choose how far you'd like to look, and see who's making and selling nearby.
Know your place. Take part in it. Support the people who make it what it is.
For producers
Make skincare or wellbeing products?
16 free guides for cosmetics & care: compliance, selling, packaging, growing. No paywall, no sign-up, and listing here is free too.
Your listing here is a local citation that helps your own Google ranking, too.
Updated 4 Nov 2026, counts refresh from live listings.