The Best Private Label Cosmetics Manufacturers in the UK
Welcome to the 21st century, where you don’t have to hire chemists and create a whole lab to launch a beauty brand! There are numerous private label skincare and cosmetics companies eager to help bring your products to life in the UK market.
But how to figure out which one to pick and what’s best for your brand? Worry not, because in this article, we’re going to have private label cosmetics compared to help you choose the one for you.
Consider this the Olympics for the best private label cosmetics manufacturers in the UK. Let’s go find out what private label skincare is all about!
Table of Contents
What is Private Label and What to Look for in a Partner
Private label skincare and cosmetics are products made by an outsourced manufacturer, but sold under your own brand. This way, you don’t have to own labs or hire chemists yourself because your partner takes care of it.
Choosing to partner with a white label manufacturer makes it easier for brands to enter the beauty industry with lower financial investment than you’d have to make if you started from scratch by yourself (formulating your own products, hiring the team, renting or buying property, etc.).
Private label manufacturing is an attractive approach for small companies just starting, as well as established brands, but to ensure a fruitful partnership, you have to know what to look for in your private label cosmetics partner. Let’s have a look at what to keep in mind when you decide to go with this approach!
Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ)
First, you need to find out what the minimum order quantity is for your potential partner. This is the lowest possible amount of product you can order from the manufacturer.
If your brand is freshly launched or doesn’t have a significant financial backing yet, you’ll want to go for a partner that has low MOQs. This will protect you if the products don’t sell as quickly as planned, and you won’t end up with hundreds or thousands of unsold units in your hands.
Product Selection
Then you’ll want to look at the products the private label cosmetics manufacturer has or can manufacture. See what their focus is — maybe it’s skincare, hair care, makeup, or all of them? Pick a partner that aligns with your brand's vision the best and has the products to support it.
Customization Options
Finding out what customisation and branding options your potential partner can provide is crucial. First, you want to see if their manufacturing methods can accommodate your needs: do they produce ready-to-sell and already formulated products, or do they work on a bespoke basis where they create custom formulas for you?
Can’t forget about product branding and packaging either! Research if the private label manufacturer offers to create and print packaging for you, or if you would need to outsource the packaging.
Shipping and Fulfillment
Some private label manufacturers are more open to smaller brands and have dropshipping available, whereas some focus on large-scale customers and don’t offer dropshipping options.
If your partner offers integrations with ecommerce platforms and supports dropshipping, you don’t have to worry about going to the post office and manually sending orders out because your partner will do that for you automatically once your customer makes an order.
But if you decide to partner with a manufacturer that doesn’t support dropshipping, you’ll have to take care of storing your products, as well as shipping them out to customers by yourself.
Top Private Label Manufacturing Companies in the UK for Cosmetics
Selfnamed
Website: selfnamed.com
Dropshipping: Available; integrates with Shopify, WooCommerce, and Squarespace
Minimum order quantity: No MOQ
With nearly 20 years of experience in the beauty industry, Selfnamed is one of the most trusted names in private label skincare. They offer a range of 150+ organic face, body, hair care, and makeup products made of ingredients that are ethically and sustainably sourced.
Many small and medium dropshipping beauty businesses choose Selfnamed thanks to the low entry point and no minimum order quantities, which make launching a brand quick and easy. Selfnamed’s friendly to enterprises and wholesalers too, offering custom branding, wholesale pricing, and fast turnaround times for bulk orders.
To start partnering with Selfnamed, you just have to register on their website, connect your ecommerce platform, pick products to sell, and add your branding. They’ll take care of the rest — manufacturing, packaging, and shipping products to your customers in the UK and abroad.
Strengths:
Ultra-low point of entry with no minimum order quantity
The best choice for beauty dropshipping brands
Sustainable, and EcoCert and Cosmos certified products
Herrco Cosmetics
Website: herrco.co.uk
Dropshipping: Not available
Minimum order quantity: 3000 units per SKU
UK-based Herrco Cosmetics is a private label skincare manufacturer with a focus on large-scale production. They offer full-service product development from ingredient sourcing all the way to product distribution.
Herrco takes pride in their innovation center, where dedicated research and development teams create and test its award-winning formulations. If your large-scale brand needs specific and custom products, Herrco might be the choice for you since they offer custom formulas with ingredients, scents, and colours of your choice.
Herrco only works with skincare and doesn’t produce makeup (colour cosmetics), so you have to keep that in mind if your brand needs both.
Strengths:
Best for rapidly growing and big brands
Full-service product development
Custom formulas for products
Star Colour Laboratories
Website: starcolourlaboratories.com
Dropshipping: Not available
Minimum order quantity: Not specified
Star Colour Laboratories is a private label manufacturing business that offers body care, colour cosmetics, skincare products, and even fragrances.
They offer two routes of production with either ready-made formulas or fully bespoke formulations. They emphasize the latter a lot, so if you’re looking for an A-Z partner, Star Colour Laboratories might be the best fit for your brand.
Although Star Colour Laboratories is highly flexible in products and customization options, they don’t offer dropshipping, therefore making it a more appealing choice for bigger brands that can afford fulfillment and shipment of products from their own facilities.
Strengths:
A wide product selection (body, skincare, makeup, fragrances)
Best for medium to large brands and cosmetics wholesalers
Natural Spa Factory
Website: naturalspafactorypl.com
Dropshipping: Not available
Minimum order quantity: 500 units
Natural Spa Factory is a business that’s carved out a niche in eco-friendly private label cosmetics, mostly focusing on supplying products for hotels, spas, wellness centers, and such. Their products range from creams and lotions to hair care and candles.
With Natural Spa Factory, you can also choose to go two ways: pick their white label, already-formulated products, and add your branding, or create a unique product under their guidance.
They also offer help with the branding of your products, as well as packaging, which they claim is sustainable and responsibly sourced.
Strengths:
Focus on sustainable and natural products
Best for brands in the spa and wellness business
Custom branding options
Options Ltd
Website: optionsltd.co.uk
Dropshipping: Available; integrates with platforms like Shopify, Wix, WooCommerce, and others
Minimum order quantity: 12 units
Options Ltd is a private label manufacturer that offers a broad selection of beauty products — skincare, body care, hair care, perfumes, and even pet care products. You can pick from their available product range or create your own custom formulas and products.
Additionally, they can provide digital marketing and branding solutions, making them a good contender for a one-stop shop private label partner. And importantly for smaller brands, they offer dropshipping, with integrations with the most popular ecommerce platforms.
Strengths:
Low minimum order quantity
Good for both big and small brands
Diverse product selection
Hera Beauty
Website: herabeauty.co.uk
Dropshipping: Not available
Minimum order quantity: 1000 units
Hera Beauty is a cosmetics manufacturing company that focuses their expertise on a wide range of natural products and is also ready to create custom formulations for your brand. Since their MOQ is quite high, this manufacturer is better suited for scaling your brand.
Hera Beauty has a product catalog with skincare, body care, hair care, and other types of wellness products, as well as something we haven’t seen yet in this list — a special CBD product range.
Strengths:
Best for growing brands
Focusing on sustainable and natural products
EXQUISITE Luxury
Website: exquisiteluxury.co.uk
Dropshipping: Not available
Minimum order quantity: 5 kg (11 lbs) of product
EXQUISITE Luxury caters to brands looking for an exclusive feel in their products, as they position themselves as a premium private label products manufacturer.
They offer full-range services from creating custom formulas to packaging and labeling. In their private label product selection, EXQUISITE Luxury focuses on face care, hair care, and body care.
This manufacturer could be best suited for brands that are looking for a premium-quality feel without too much upfront investment while entering the high-end market.
Strengths:
Best for luxury brands with a focus on exclusivity
Low MOQ
Final thoughts
Launching your own beauty brand is an exciting journey, but you have to make sure that all the steps you take get your brand closer to success. And choosing a private label manufacturing partner is one of those crucial steps that can make or break your business.
You need to do careful research on all your available options because that’s the only way you’ll be able to clearly see whether your brand and your potential partner are a good fit. Look at their products, MOQs, and, of course, reviews from other business owners.
Hopefully, this article gave you a sense of direction and a feel for what you need to successfully launch or scale your business in the UK with the help of a trusted partner. Good luck!
Frequently Asked Questions
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A private label cosmetics manufacturer is a company that creates custom skincare and makeup products or ready-made products that you can sell under your own brand name.
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When you choose between private label manufacturing companies in the UK, look at several aspects that can make or break your business:
Your partner's minimum order quantity (the lowest amount of product you can order),
Their product selection to see if it aligns with your brand (what products they focus on),
The customization options for product formulas and packaging,
Whether your potential partner supports dropshipping and can fulfill orders for you.
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Minimum order quantity differs among private label skincare companies. For example, a company like Selfnamed has no MOQ, and you can order as many as you like, whereas some require you to order tens, hundreds, or thousands of units.
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If you’re going with the skincare dropshipping model, your starting costs can be very low (from £0), but if you go for another fulfillment method, like fulfilling products in-house, which will require a significant investment (starting around £1000 and more).
We have a handy article about how much it really costs to start a skincare brand and what fulfillment method to choose here – check it out!
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