We caught up with Sarah Thomas, co-founder of the York-based beauty brand that’s changing the game with waterless, vegan, natural and organic products.
Many of us will have struggled with finding the right skincare product: there are so many options out there, each offering different benefits and with ingredients labels that are usually beyond comprehension. This was something that Sarah Thomas experienced during pregnancy with her eldest son, which made the search even more of a challenge. ‘I had really bad problems with my skin, and I found it had such a massive impact on my confidence. My skin was angry and inflamed, but when I tried to find solutions for it, I realised there were so many products that I couldn’t use because I was pregnant,’ she recalls. ‘They were really badly labelled too.’
Sarah then borrowed a natural facial serum from her mum, Karen Horsley, who is a specialist scientist with over 30 years’ experience of working in the health service. The serum transformed Sarah’s skin, causing her to wonder why products like this weren’t better known. With that, the seed for their own organic beauty brand was sewn, and in 2018 the mother and daughter duo launched Clockface Beauty in York. Two years on and the brand is still locally-based, with offices in Rufforth and manufacture carried out in Wetherby, and their ethos is all about waterless, natural, vegan and organic products. ‘Up to 80% of your skincare is normally water, but your skin is a barrier to water so having water in your products doesn’t do anything,’ Sarah reasons. A waterless formula means that no product is diluted, no preservatives are needed, and only active ingredients which do something positive for your skin are used. The ingredients that go into their extensive range of serums, cleansing balms, masks, body oils and scrubs are from the natural world too; this means that hard-to-understand, lengthy labels are nowhere to be seen.
Clockface Beauty have just launched a brilliant new virtual skin clinic via their website, which offers customers a personal and bespoke experience from the comfort and safety of their own homes. You can complete an online quiz which explores the condition of your skin and your skin goals, and you’ll then receive a tailor-made skincare routine with recommendations of the best products to use. Alternatively, you can send a video or message to Sarah, who will respond directly. ‘It’s lovely, it feels like such a personal experience when I get to speak to people,’ she smiles. ‘It’s been really positive for both the customer and us as well.’
The brand continues to evolve, with a new range of essential oils and a beautiful collection of rose gold and natural stone bracelets recently launched. ‘Clockface Beauty is all about feeling the best version of you, so we felt that in these times, people wanted to have comfort in the mind as well as in the skin,’ Sarah explains. It seems that this company from York is going big places, with worldwide shipping and an ever-expanding customer base – they’re certainly ones to watch in the beauty industry.
Find out more, and access the virtual skin clinic, at clockfacebeauty.com
