Frequently asked questions

Clean Otter is a curated B2B wholesale destination for independent beauty. We represent a small, hand-selected portfolio of skincare, fragrance, suncare, haircare, hand & body and home brands, and we sell them into retailers and distributors across Europe, the United States and South Africa.

We are not a marketplace. We are a buying team — three offices deep — who select every brand we carry, stand behind every order, and treat the retailers who stock them as partners, not accounts.

No — Clean Otter is wholesale only. Ordering, trade pricing and samples are reserved for approved buyers: retailers, distributors and key accounts. You're welcome to browse the brands we represent, and if you'd like to see one on a shelf near you, point your local store at our buyer application.

Wholesale pricing is gated. Trade prices, volume tiers and margin information unlock the moment your buyer account is approved — usually within 48 hours of applying. Recommended retail prices stay visible so you can work out the shelf economics before you commit to anything.

No. Marketplaces list everything and let you sort it out. We do the sorting first. Independent stores don't need another catalogue to scroll through — they need someone who already did the scrolling. Curated, not crowded: we'd rather represent twenty brands properly than list two thousand badly.

Not in the narrow, ingredient-list sense. The name is about how we curate, not a single formulation philosophy. Every product we represent is assessed for formulation quality, ingredient integrity and retail readiness before it enters the portfolio — that's the Clean Otter Standard. Some of our brands are natural- or clean-led; others are clinical skincare or fragrance houses that meet the same bar.

The Clean Otter Standard is the testing process every product goes through before we represent it. We assess formulation quality, ingredient integrity and retail readiness — not just whether a product is good, but whether it will actually perform on a shelf: pricing that leaves a retailer a workable margin, packaging that survives transit, supply that can hold a reorder, and documentation that clears the markets we sell into.

Skincare, fragrance, suncare, hand & body, haircare, home & lifestyle, and wellness. Within those we look for brands that add something the portfolio doesn't already have, rather than a second version of a brand we represent well.

Three offices, three continents: Brussels (Europe), New York (United States) and Cape Town (South Africa). Regional, not remote — the office covering your market reads your application, builds your selection and knows the shelf your order is going onto.

Approved buyers get The Buyer Letter twice a month: new brands, the launch calendar and margin reports, before any of it goes public. Everyone else can follow the Journal and the Launch Calendar on site.

Yes. Alongside our retail buyers we work with regional agents, distribution partners and our affiliate collective. If you represent brands or buyers in a market we cover, get in touch through the contact page and we'll route you to the right office.

Apply in about two minutes. We ask for your company name, country, customer group (retailer, distributor or key account), contact details and shipping address. A valid VAT number is required if you're registered.

Every application is read personally by the office covering your region — no automated screening — and review is usually complete within 48 hours. Once you're approved you'll receive a login invitation by email; there's no password to set up.

Three things. You're assigned to the office covering your region, your catalogue and trade pricing unlock, and you're introduced to your named beauty buyer — a person, not a support queue. From there you can request a curated selection, order samples, and place your opening order.

Yes. A VAT number is required if you're registered, and applications without one are reviewed individually. It helps to send whatever establishes you as a trading business in your market — [a resale or sales tax certificate in the US, company registration and tax number in South Africa, or your business registration and a link to your storefront].

Opening orders start at MOQ 6 across the account, and individual brands carry their own minimums on top of that. Your buyer confirms the exact figures in your quote before you commit — no surprise minimums, ever.

Yes. Reorder minimums reduce once you've placed your opening order MOQ 3 so you can restock what sells without rebuilding a full opening order each time.

First orders are settled up front — at checkout. *Credit terms unlock after six months of trading, subject to a credit review.

*Terms and conditions apply.

It's included with every approved account, at no cost. Answer four questions about your store and your buyer builds you a personalised selection and a wholesale quote within 12–48 hours. You also get the buying resources behind it: shelf guides, trend reports, launch calendars, POS material and training, kept current by the same team, if applicable.

*Termsand conditions apply.

Yes — complimentary and trade-priced sampling for approved buyers, from single vials to full launch boxes and discovery sets. Request them from your dashboard and you'll get an email confirmation straight away. Samples are for trade evaluation and in-store testing, not resale.

Orders are forwarded to the brand or supplier for fulfilment, so timelines vary by brand, stock position and destination. You'll get an estimate at checkout or by email once your order is processed, and tracking when it ships. Because we represent multiple brands across multiple fulfilment locations, a single order may arrive in several shipments with several tracking numbers.

Shipping is calculated at checkout against your order and destination. For orders outside the European Union, customs duties, taxes and import fees are the buyer's responsibility, and customs delays are outside our control.

Tell us straight away — contact your buyer or the contact page [within 7 days of delivery]. You have 30 days from receipt to request a return where an item is defective, damaged on arrival or incorrect, and the item must be unused and unopened with seals, hygiene stickers and tags intact, in its original packaging. Photo evidence and the original packaging may be required.

Requests are reviewed within 1–3 business days, and returns sent without prior authorisation can't be accepted. Approved refunds are issued to the original payment method within 10 business days. Opened or used beauty, skincare, fragrance and personal care products can't be returned for hygiene reasons, and we don't process exchanges — place a new order instead.

Price integrity is one of our terms of trade, not a favour. We publish transparent RRPs, protect retail margins, and hold our stockists to policies that keep undercutting off the table.

Refer to the Brands page for a request form. We won't guarantee every request, but knowing what our retailers are being asked for genuinely shapes what we take on next season.

Through the Apply as a Brand form. We ask for your brand name and website, social handle, country of origin, primary category, current stockists, the regions you want representation in, your wholesale price range and a short description of the brand.

A member of the buying team reads every application — no bots, no forms into a void. The office covering your requested region assesses fit against the brands we already represent, then makes contact personally.

Formulation quality, ingredient integrity and retail readiness — the Clean Otter Standard — plus the commercial basics: a clear position that isn't already filled in our portfolio, an RRP and wholesale price that leave a retailer a workable margin, supply that can hold a reorder, and assets a buyer can actually sell from. We take on a small number of brands each season, so fit matters more than size.

Most applications get a decision within 10 business days, and busy seasons can run longer because a person reads each one. A no is often "not this season" rather than "not ever" — usually it means the portfolio already covers your position in that market. You're welcome to come back when something material changes: a new market, a reformulation, a range extension.

We represent brands rather than list them: our buying team sells your brand into its own retailer network, then supports the sell-through.

Commercially: a wholesale price list with RRPs by region, MOQs and lead times per SKU, and barcodes.

Creatively: high-resolution imagery, product copy, brand story and any training material you already have — plus samples and testers for our buyers and retailers.

Regulatory: whatever the markets you're entering require. In the EU that means CPNP notification and a named Responsible Person; in the US, FDA facility registration and product listing under MoCRA; in South Africa, compliant labelling and ingredient declarations. If you're not there yet, say so on the application — we've walked brands through it before.

Europe from Brussels, the United States from New York, and South Africa from Cape Town. You can start with one region and add others as the brand proves out — most brands do.

Representation, not shelf space in a catalogue. That means sales representation into our retailer network, brand development on positioning and pricing, retail strategy for each market, distributor identification and commercial negotiation where relevant, sales materials and website optimisation, merchandising guidance and retail training, and marketing support around launches — coordinated across the regions you're in.

Yes. We ask two things: hold your RRP, and don't undercut the retailers carrying you. Price integrity is what makes independent stores willing to give a brand shelf space, and it protects your own DTC margin too.

Yes, if the product is ready. We're less interested in how many doors you already have than in whether the formulation, the pricing and the supply chain hold up. What we can't work with yet is a brand that can't fulfil a reorder or hasn't cleared the regulatory requirements for the market it wants to enter.