Molton Brown began life in 1973 when a hair salon opened at 58 South Molton Street in Mayfair.   The salon set out to be unique from the start with the first Molton Brown products blended by hand and sold to compliment the salon treatments.  This was a time when Sweet, Slade, Donny Osmond, Wizard and even Gary Glitter were in the charts.  This was a London enamoured of synthetic fabrics, synthetic hair, synthetic formulaic music and a distinctly artificial look.

Molton Brown’s soft, individual and natural style was a polar contrast to the then current vogue. Out went identikit glam tonsorial constructions using hairdryers and tongs and in came finger drying and haircuts designed to flatter the client’s individuality. The salon became a hit and its first retail products were hand-mixed upstairs from nettles and camomile.  Dale Daxon Bowers joined the team in 1978 fresh from Mary Quant cosmetics and established a makeshift lab in the kitchen above Browns boutique.   Dale’s passion and creativity was fuelled by an unshakable belief that nature should be the focus for a whole new range that would build on the salon heritage.

Cult products such as Naran Ji Fine Liquid Hand Wash can be found in top hotels and clubs around the World. Molton Brown Warming Eucalyptus Bath and Shower Therapy and Suma Ginseng Bath and Shower gel are two of the world’s favourite bath time products.  The same also applies to a range of skin care and grooming products developed for men, such as  Molton Brown Recharge Black Pepper Shower Gel that are warm, spicy and very masculine.

The salon evolved into the Molton Brown emporium where Dale’s plant-based make-up, hair, body, skin and grooming products were sold at first to the cognoscenti and were taken up by top-end stores, airlines and prestige hotel chains around the world.   Today, the scale may be bigger with manufacture carried out in a glamorous laboratory set-up in Hertfordshire, but the underlying philosophy has remained the same and Molton Brown has become one of the World’s most successful and distinctive cosmetic companies.