Sandra Brown-Pinnock

The founder of Primal Beauty is a rarity in the Afro Hair & Beauty business in more ways than one: Sandra Pinnock-Brown stands out as one of the few women in a male-dominated industry; and she is a serial entrepreneur with proven success in the care home sector.
With over 20 years’ experience in mental health care, Sandra started her first business with her husband in 2008. This was a care home which looked after psychiatric patients being rehabilitated from a secure hospital environment back into the community. To raise money for this venture, the husband-and-wife team sold their cars and mortgaged their house so that they could buy an eight-bedroom property to accommodate their business plans.
The risk paid off as the business established itself very quickly. By 2011, the team had 11 homes with over 70 staff members looking after over 200 patients. In addition to providing care in their community.
Fate played its part in Sandra’s entrance into the Afro Hair & Beauty business. When visiting her brother in New York, she was introduced to a businessman from Cambodia who was looking for investors for his fledgling hair business. Sandra seized the opportunity to invest and became a partner in a business she had not yet seen.
When asked whether it was a brave or foolish decision, Sandra can only laugh.
“It’s not as risky as it sounds, he was a friend of my brother, so I felt comfortable in investing in the business. It gave me the opportunity to visit Cambodia to see the factory and how the hair was processed”
This partnership led to the launch of Sandra’s own hair manufacturing business in 2011, which is going strong to this day.
As rewarding as they were, the stress of running these businesses for over 15 years took its toll, and Sandra’s hair bore the brunt of it and started to fall out. When trying to remedy the situation, she was misadvised and sold ineffective products by high street retailers. What was most frustrating was lack of product knowledge demonstrated by the store staff. They could not advise her on what would best suit her skin or hair type. It was this poor service that motivated her to launch her own Natural Hair & Skin Care product range.
Sandra started by doing her own research into developing hair and skincare products. What she found during her research was that most of the products claiming to be “good” for her hair and skin had additives and chemicals that were harmful to her health, hair and skin. Having also experienced and witnessed the damaging effects of common beauty products used by many us on a daily basis, Sandra decided to draw inspiration from the traditional ingredients used by her mother in Jamaica (W.I.) and her friends from West Africa.
Primal Beauty keeps its ingredients simple, naturally for you, just as mother nature intended. All of the ingredients used are ethically sourced, 100% raw and organic and straight from West Africa and the Caribbean. The product range includes: Raw Coconut Oil, Pure Shea Butter, Pure Shea Butter with Cocoa Butter and Organic Black Soap and much more. The products are free from parabens, sulphates, silicones, petrolatum and mineral oil. As well as being are cruelty free and vegan.
Sandra’s mission is: “To create high quality products 100% natural ingredients that really work and are genuinely good hair and skin.”
In 2016, Primal Beauty won the award for the Best Natural Hair Care Product 2016 and was shorted listed for Pure Beauty Natural 2018.
Sandra’s passion is personal wellbeing, as a motivational speaker her passion is to inspire others. Her objective is not to offer immediate solutions but to act as a catalyst for change for those who are motivated to do so. Her satisfaction comes from supporting others to achieve their highest level of performance.