Why Manufacturing Matters in Beauty

Beauty is a dynamic industry where speed, quality, and compliance intersect. For a brand, the difference between a successful launch and a missed opportunity often comes down to the strength of its contact cosmetics manufacturing partner.

Think manufacturing in beauty is simply about filling bottles? Think again. It’s about ensuring:

• Precision and consistency across thousands or even millions of units.
• Speed to market, so brands can respond to consumer demand and seasonal shifts.
• Regulatory compliance in multiple global markets.
• Resilience in supply chains, reducing exposure to raw material shortages or volatility.

These are challenges our beauty brands face every day, and they are challenges we are built to solve as one of the UK’s leading beauty manufacturers

Beauty Manufacturing at THG LABS

Our strength lies in the scale of our beauty manufacturing facilities combined with the expertise of our people. Across our site, we have 11 different mixing vessels and 20 different production lines. Each is designed to run with efficiency and flexibility, handling both pilot runs for new concepts and high-volume manufacture for global rollouts.

What sets THG LABS apart is our full-service approach and how manufacturing integrates with every other part of our business:

• Innovation and R&D teams create formulations that are designed with manufacturability in mind.
• Regulatory experts work alongside our cosmetic scientists to ensure products meet stringent requirements before they ever reach a line.
• Packaging specialists model sustainability and functionality, so brands can make commercially viable choices without compromise.
• Project management ensures every customer has a clear point of contact from concept to completion.

This integrated model means we anticipate challenges before they arise, saving our partners time, cost, and complexity – whether developing private label skincare lines or or bespoke haircare formulations.

Sustainability and Packaging: Manufacturing as Climate Innovation

Manufacturing innovation is also climate innovation. At THG LABS, we continually invest in processes that reduce environmental impact while maintaining the highest standards of product performance.

• Cold-process manufacturing enables us to create energy-efficient products without compromising stability or efficacy.
• Waste reduction initiatives are embedded into our operational excellence.
• Responsible sourcing ensures our ingredients and packaging materials align with both customer needs and environmental expectations.
• Innovation partnerships with pioneering biotech businesses such as Clean Food Group (CFG) and upcycled ingredient experts Carbonwave, we are helping to unlock alternatives to other less sustainable raw materials  and bring them to commercial reality.

Our commitment is reinforced by alignment with leading ESG frameworks, including EcoVadis, SEDEX, and ISO standards, ensuring that every product manufactured with us supports broader sustainability goals.

 Customer-Centricity and Speed-to-Market

Beauty trends can emerge overnight, and seasonal launches demand agility. Our end-to-end model is designed to reduce friction and deliver speed without compromising quality.

• Lab-to-line agility means our teams can move seamlessly from bench-scale batches into full commercial production.
• Flexible production capacity ensures we can support from ambitious challenger brands to global leaders.
• Integrated planning across R&D, Regulatory, Design, Packaging, and Manufacturing helps us anticipate challenges and shorten lead times.

For our customers, this means fewer delays, smoother launches, and confidence that products will arrive on shelf when consumers expect them.

Community and Industry Role

For us, National Manufacturing Day is also about celebrating the contribution manufacturing makes to communities and industries. We’re proud to be a UK cosmetics manufacturer supporting local jobs and skills development, while also helping to advance the wider British beauty sector.

We’re active members of organisations including CEW, CCUK, CTPA, and SCS, working alongside peers to raise standards, shape regulation, and drive progress for the industry as a whole. This collaboration ensures our cosmetics manufacturing expertise benefits our customers as well as the beauty sector more broadly.

National Manufacturing Day shines a light on the essential role manufacturing plays in powering progress and we are passionate about our contribution to that.

Our commitment to manufacturing excellence goes hand in hand with our investment in innovation, sustainability, and customer success. Together, these strengths make us the partner of choice for brands looking to create suncare, dermocosmetics, haircare and bodycare that stand out for their performance, their integrity, and their impact.

If you’re looking for a private label beauty manufacturing partner who combines scale, science, and service, we’d love to talk.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emma Payne
Sales Director, THG LABS (Acheson)

Emma Payne, with over 25 years of expertise in the beauty industry, has a distinguished track record. As Sales Director at THG LABS, she propels sales and advances brand development for the global beauty brands we serve through strategic product development and our culture of collaboration, quality and innovation.

Starting her career at Boots as a Product Manager, Emma joined THG LABS (Acheson) in 1998. Since then, she has skilfully overseen cross-functional teams in both product and sales, nurturing partnerships with brands, retailers and suppliers across diverse personal care categories. 

With her incredible knowledge of the industry and the intricacies of beauty manufacturing, Emma’s leadership is defined by a commitment to teamwork and the execution of impactful strategies that consistently yield results. Her warm, professional approach ensures our client relationships flourish with sustained success and growth for the world-leading beauty brands we partner.