Beauty Group London Is Hunting for Maverick Brands and Sensible Founders

Samantha Conti
·3 min read
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This story was updated on May 15, at 12:36 p.m. EST.

LONDON — There’s a new beauty investor in town and it has already made its first purchase: an innovative self-tan brand, Self Glow by James Read.

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Beauty Group London is pivoting from a licensed manufacturing model to a brand ownership one. Formerly known as Fragrance Group London, it built a business by making celebrity fragrances, but now it wants to help build brands, and reap profits.

Chief executive officer Hanna Coonagh, a contract manufacturing and R&D veteran who has worked with Anita Roddick at The Body Shop and with myriad brands including Beauty Pie and Penhaligon’s, said her aim is to partner with founders, grow innovative businesses and create value for the group’s private owners, a Scottish family fund.

“We have the retail, sourcing and manufacturing expertise in place to help founders, and I have 25 years of experience running factories. What I saw was a plug-and-play opportunity,” said Coonagh in an interview alongside Read.

In her 25 years in business Coonagh said she’s met myriad entrepreneurs, heard pitches ranging from the crazy to the banal, and developed successful products with seasoned founders. She feels confident that she can spot potentially winning brands and create a hot portfolio.

“It is very rare that [founders] have something unique, and ground-breaking” to offer, she said. Even if they do have viable ideas, they often don’t have enough cash to keep going. “They also need mentoring, guidance and retail contacts,” she said.

Coonagh added that Beauty Group London is willing to make majority or minority investments, or even form a joint venture with a founder.

James Read has launched a new tanning brand called Self Glow.
James Read has launched a new tanning brand called Self Glow.

Read was a natural choice, she said.

“He’s created a new category of product. His brief started from a skin care perspective, and his products can replace, or fit into, a person’s normal skin care regime. He’s also focused on sustainability, unlike other tanning brands,” Coonagh said.

Read, who launched an eponymous self-tanning brand more than a decade ago, said he wanted to take a different approach this time around. He started from a skin care perspective, and also wanted customers to control the intensity of color.

“The aim was to create a seasonless glow, so that people look at you and say: ‘You look really well,’ rather than ‘You look really tanned,’” said Read, adding the products fade naturally like a real tan would.

Read, who trained as a facialist before launching Self Glow, said the products are for everyone, no matter the age or gender.

The hero product in the line is the Dusk to Dawn Overnight Tan Facial, which promises to plump the skin with ingredients including hyaluronic acid spheres, aloe vera, and a natural, plant-based DHA.

There is the Break of Dawn Rejuvenating Glow Mask, a 20-minute treatment that promises a warm, glowing complexion and contains fermented mushrooms, vitamin E and squalene.

There is also a serum and tinted tan drops that can be mixed with any moisturizer. The packaging, which is recyclable, features color guides so that customers know how many drops or layers to apply.

Prices range from 39 pounds for the Glow Mask to 44 pounds for the Overnight Tan Facial.

Self Glow will launch on May 21 exclusively at Space NK, and will later roll out to stores including Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, and Mecca, in addition to smaller beauty retailers in the U.S.

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