FACE Stockholm

FACE Stockholm is a Swedish-American beauty brand and one of the few independents in colour cosmetics still owned by the family that started it. Founded in 1982 in Stockholm by Gun Nowak and her daughter Martina Arfwidson, it is, more than forty years later, still owned and operated by the same mother-and-daughter pair, trading under the line beauty, wit and grace since 1982. The philosophy is Scandinavian in the best sense: colour treated as play rather than correction. The brand describes makeup as a playful theatre and a canvas where you can be anyone, and the range backs that up with an enormous shade library across lips, eyes, nails and complexion, alongside skincare and professional brushes. Products are manufactured to high standards using naturally derived ingredients, and the brand is PETA Approved, displaying the certification directly. It does not conduct or endorse cosmetic testing on animals. Formulations are hypoallergenic. Notably, FACE Stockholm is transparent that parabens are currently used in some formulations, publishing that fact openly while committing to monitor the research, an honesty most brands avoid. Manufacturing is disclosed by category: pencils in Germany and Italy, foundations, shadows, lip products and nail polish in the United States, skincare in the United States and Sweden. The brand also operates its own retail stores, where the full shade range can be tested in person. Priced in the mid-range tier, it offers heritage and enormous colour choice at accessible cost, and remains a rare survivor among family-owned cosmetics houses.