Ciaté London

Ciaté London is a British nail and colour-cosmetics brand founded in London in 2009 by Charlotte Knight, a former session and salon nail artist [5]. It began as a nail-care label that translated runway nail looks into accessible retail kits, then expanded into makeup. The name is an acronym for the qualities the company built its identity around: colour, innovation, aspiration, trend and extraordinary [7].

The brand is currently dormant. Its parent company, Brand Agency London, filed for administration on 9 January 2025, and the Ciaté London website was taken offline [4]. Stock has remained available through some retailers, but brand operations have effectively ceased.

Charlotte Knight came to the nail industry by an unusual route. According to the company, she moved from London to Dublin at the age of 21 and, with little experience in nails and none in running a business, opened what she described as Dublin's first nail bar. She went on to work backstage as a session nail technician at fashion weeks in London, New York and Paris, where she noticed how little of the nail artistry seen on the runway reached ordinary shoppers. She founded Ciaté in 2009 to close that gap, aiming, in her words, to take "runway looks to retail" through do-it-yourself sets.

The bow tied around each bottle became the brand's recurring design signature. Knight has said the bow was added both as a feminine flourish and to hide the join between cap and bottle.

Ciaté's breakthrough came in 2012 with the Caviar Manicure, a two-step kit pairing a polish with tiny glass beads that set into a textured, three-dimensional finish. The company credits the product with transforming its scale: by its own account, Ciaté went from roughly four staff and around fifty stockists to more than 4,000 stores across 35 countries [6]. Knight has described Caviar as having "carved out a category for texture and 3D" in nail care [8].

In 2014 the brand moved beyond nails into full colour cosmetics, including mascara and lash adhesives, alongside later launches such as the Glitter Flip Lipstick, eyeshadow palettes and highlighters. Its Dewy Stix bronzing balm was named Best Highlighter Creme at the Allure Best of Beauty Awards in 2018 [10].

Knight built two further brands under the same ownership: Lottie London, aimed at a younger, social-media audience, and Skin Proud, a skincare line launched in 2020. Sources disagree on Lottie London's founding date — Beauty Independent gives 2014, while BeautyMatter records 2015 [4][3]. The three labels operated under Knight's leadership but, according to Glossy, were kept as separate identities rather than marketed as a family.

Ciaté positioned itself as a disruptor in colour and pigment, bringing fashion-week looks to a mainstream audience through approachable kits with a playful, fashion-forward aesthetic. The company summed up its outlook in the line "makeup should be creative and beautiful — we don't believe in rules" [10]. Its products were sold in the prestige tier, with distribution that at its peak spanned Sephora, Mecca, Nordstrom, Walmart and UK retailers including ASOS and Lookfantastic.

The Caviar Manicure remained the brand's defining product, joined by other textured nail finishes such as Sugar, Sparkles and Velvet, and by novelty formats including Chalkboard Manicure kits and seasonal sets. In makeup, the Glitter Flip Lipstick — marketed as a transforming matte-to-shimmer stain — drew attention online, and the Wonderwand Mascara and Dewy Stix balm became recognisable launches.

On animal testing and formulation, the brand was certified cruelty-free by PETA, and sources agree it did not test on animals. Its vegan status was only partial: Honest Brand Reviews reports that all new launches were 100% vegan, while Cruelty-Free Kitty notes the brand was not fully vegan across its legacy range [10][12].

Beyond the 2018 Allure award, the brand was named in Total Beauty's editor picks for best mascara in 2017 and in Women's Health's best-lipstick coverage in 2015. Its products were featured in titles including Vogue, Glamour and Refinery29.

Ciaté London is dormant. On 9 January 2025 its parent, Brand Agency London, filed for administration in the Business and Property Courts of England and Wales, citing debts of roughly £10 million ($12–13 million) as of the year ended March 2023 [4][3]. Customer complaints over unfulfilled orders had begun surfacing in November 2024, ahead of the filing [4]. Geoffrey Paul Rowley and Anthony John Wright of FRP Advisory were appointed administrators on 15 January 2025, and the administrators sought a buyer for Ciaté London, Lottie London and Skin Proud [3].

The Ciaté London website was deactivated, and by mid-2026 its former domain had been taken over and repurposed as a gambling-affiliate site unrelated to the brand. Some products have continued to appear at retailers such as Walmart and CVS, but the company itself has not resumed normal operations.