North Beauty

Skincare for Nordic Skin, Made on Saaremaa.

North Beauty is a small family-run Estonian natural cosmetics brand based on the island of Saaremaa, where the family business started in their own tourist farm — Peetri turismitalu — surrounded by ancient forests and the thatched roofs that mark the island's traditional architecture. The brand is run by two women, one with a background in professional makeup (trained at the International Makeup Center) and one with a decade of making home spa products by hand. The Estonian name of the brand, PÕHJAMAA ILU, translates as "Northern country beauty" — and the products are formulated with the specific demands of Nordic skin in mind, the kind of skin that spends six months a year in cold, dry, low-UV conditions and benefits from a different set of ingredients than the high-summer formulations that dominate the wider beauty market. The range covers skincare, haircare, and body care for the whole family.

Every product is 100% natural and 100% vegan; free of parabens, sulphates, silicones, and petroleum wax; coloured with natural minerals (mica) rather than artificial dyes; produced in small batches by hand for freshness; and packaged in materials chosen to be biodegradable and recyclable. Specific products run from the everyday — shampoo and conditioner with argan oil, body care across the family — to the slightly more luxurious end, including 24K gold-infused serums, which is a small surprise in a brand otherwise positioned at the accessible-natural tier. The wider operation sits within Organic Estonia, the country's organic-producers' association, which is a useful piece of authentication for shoppers wary of greenwashing. The whole proposition is the more substantive version of the Scandinavian-skincare pitch: made in the actual North, by an actual family, on an actual island, rather than designed somewhere warmer with a Scandinavian-sounding name.

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