Questions people ask

Sarah Brown and Ed Saper. We started Pai Skincare in 2007 and sold it to Clarins in 2023, then set up Imaginists the same year to work with other founders and the people who invest in them. We stayed on Pai's board. In February 2025 the board asked us to find a buyer; we returned to the business in July, put the deal together and completed Pai's sale to HSNF in November 2025. The handover to the new owners finished in September 2026. Imaginists Limited is registered in England and Wales, company number 14769667.

Strategy, planning and the P&L behind it. Pricing and margin by channel, which channels to be in and when to go international. Getting into retailers and what a listing really costs. Amazon in the UK, Europe and the US including dealing with the regulatory requirements. Your own website and direct-to-consumer business on Shopify. Product development from brief to shelf, including certification. Operations: manufacturing, forecasting, stock, 3PLs and a finance function that exposes margin. AI tools and integrations with existing systems, including ERP. Trademarks and IP. Retail sell-through and beauty adviser training once you have the listing. Turnarounds and interim roles. For investors, due diligence before a deal and hands-on help after it, and potentially non-executive roles on boards. Each one is described on the Services page.

Mostly. We work with founders and operators of beauty health and wellness brands, sometimes outside beauty too, and with PE funds, family offices and boards. If it is interesting and we can add value, get in touch. If we're not the right people, we'll say so and put you in touch with someone in our network who can.

With a 30-minute call with both of us (it's free). Tell us what's going on with the brand, the deal or the board, and we'll tell you what we'd do about it, whether that involves us or not. If there's something to do, we agree a scope. We say no when we're not the right people. Book the call.

A project with a defined scope and an end, such as setting up Amazon, a channel P&L, packaging update or a new product range. A few days a month over a few months, when a brand needs an operator alongside the founder. An interim or fractional role for a fixed period, such as a consultant COO or interim co-CEO. Or a seat on the board. The call is where we work out which fits.

We're in west London and work remotely, with clients in the UK, Europe and the US.

No, the handover of Pai to HSNF completed in September 2026. We remain shareholders and are stepping away to new projects.

Yes. Listings and content, advertising, stock and fulfilment, AWD, FBA, Brand Registry, and the tax and KYC identity checks you meet when expanding to Europe and the US. We set it up and hand it to your team or agency with the playbook, and we can tell you whether what an agency is quoting for is needed and priced right. At Stories & Ink, where Ed was consultant COO for eighteen months, Amazon sales rose 400% in six months and Amazon UK became the number one channel. Ed ran Amazon at Pai, launching on Amazon USA and Amazon Europe in 2026.

Yes. Getting the listing is the easy bit. We help with sell-through strategy (targets by store, weekly sell-out reporting from till data, spend directed to the stores where it pays), negotiating brand co-op, beauty adviser training and incentives, field sales, mystery shopping, point of sale and in-store promotions. We also write skin physiology and ingredient training for retailers' education managers to use in their own programmes. More on the sell-through page.

Yes. Pai expanded from the UK to retailers in the USA, EU, Australia and Asia, starting with its own international websites, then Amazon, independent retailers and large chains including Sephora. That meant local teams, market days, press events, regulatory and tax compliance and 3PLs, and in 2016 Pai won the Queen's Award for Enterprise for international trade. We advise on when to go, and whether to sell direct or through distributors. See International sales and expansion.

Yes, from brief to shelf. We review formulation briefs, or help you write them, connect you with the right formulation house (including The Beauty Bench which is Pai's inhouse R&D team) and manufacturer, and take the product through claims, trials and certification. We have been through COSMOS Organic, Leaping Bunny, the Vegan Society, B Corp and ISO 22716 ourselves and know what each costs in time and money, and whether it is worth doing. See certifications.

Yes. Before a deal we give PE funds, family offices and their advisers an operator's read on the product, the channels, the operations and the numbers behind the deck. We did extensive due diligence for Clarins. We have also run a sale: in 2025 Pai's board asked us to find a buyer, and we prepared the deal documents, talked to potential partners in the UK, Europe, the USA and the Middle East, and completed the sale to HSNF. We sign an NDA before you name the company: ours is here, or send us yours.

Yes. After a deal we give hands-on help for the brand you invested in or own. We have done it ourselves: at Pai in 2025 and 2026 we went back in as interim co-CEOs, turned the business round and sold it. See the sale of Pai to HSNF.

Potentially, depending on the business and opportunity, for beauty and consumer businesses that want someone at the table who has founded one, run one and sold one. We have sat on both sides of the board table.

Yes, for a fixed period and a defined job. Ed was consultant COO at Stories & Ink for eighteen months, and we were interim co-CEOs of Pai through its sale and handover.

Yes. If you'd rather not name the company, the product or the deal before an NDA is in place, sign our mutual NDA on the NDA page, which takes under a minute, or send us yours from the same page. We tell you before we start if we see a conflict with anything else we're involved in.

Yes: our expertise is in understanding the business side and deploying the right AI tools, including coding bespoke ones. We built a product information system that writes retailer forms (in multiple languages), listings and press copy in the brand's voice. We've built forecasting tools and custom reporting plus integrations with existing systems. Built to fit your business, in weeks. HAPPI is the one we built at Pai.

Book a 30-minute call (it's free), or use the form on the same page. We're on LinkedIn too: Sarah, Ed and Imaginists.

Yes, we are taking on new projects from Q4 2026.