KIBUN気分 · n. mood, feeling
The UK home for Japanese SKINCARE
We bring Japanese brands to the UK together, in cohorts. We act as your UK Responsible Person and importer, ship your stock with other brands to share the cost, and sell it on the Kibun store.
What's included
Everything in a Kibun UK launch.
UK Responsible Person, ingredient review, claims review, safety report (CPSR)*, product information file (PIF), SCPN notification, English UK labels, import as importer of record, shared freight from Japan, UK warehouse storage and delivery, listing on the Kibun store, promotion through Kibun's TikTok and UK creators, monthly sales reporting, post-market monitoring.
*Signed by a qualified safety assessor we work with.Directions for use
How a launch works, from your formula to a UK customer.
- 1.Join a cohort. Send us your formulas, test data and current labels.
- 2.We check every ingredient and claim against UK rules.
- 3.A qualified assessor signs the safety report. We build the product file.
- 4.We approve your English label and notify each product on SCPN.
- 5.You deliver stock to our forwarder in Tokyo or Osaka. It ships to the UK with the rest of the cohort.
- 6.Your products go live on the Kibun store. We handle orders, customers and UK creators.
Simple, published terms
The same terms for every brand in a cohort. The bigger the cohort, the lower the price per product.
| Products in the cohort | One-off, per product |
|---|---|
| Under 20 | £700 |
| 20–49 | £600 |
| 50–99 | £550 |
| 100+ | £500 |
The one-off fee covers the full compliance set-up: ingredient and claims review, safety report, product file, SCPN notification and English label.
- Your share of every saleOf the retail price before VAT
- 40%
- Annual upkeepPer product, per year. Keeps the Responsible Person role and file current. Waived for any product that sells 100+ units in the year
- £250
- Shared freightSplit by volume, charged at cost. Paid before shipping, settled after
- At cost
- Amazon UK (optional)£1,500 set-up, £600 a month, 5% commission, 12% of ad spend
- Optional
Stock is sold on a sale-or-return basis. Prices exclude VAT.
Warnings
Why selling in the UK needs its own set-up.
An EU Responsible Person does not cover Great Britain. Since Brexit, products sold here need a UK Responsible Person, a UK notification and a UK address on the label.
Your products may already be on sale here. Resellers import stock with Japanese-only labels and no UK Responsible Person. You have no control over how it is stored, labelled or described, and problems with those listings can damage your brand's name in the UK.
Shipping alone is expensive. A small shipment from Japan costs almost as much as a large one. Shipping together with other brands splits that cost.
UK and EU rules are drifting apart. Ingredient lists cleared for Europe still need checking against UK restrictions.
Questions
What brands usually ask us first.
Who owns the stock?
You do, until it sells. We import and store it on a sale-or-return basis and pay you 40% of the retail price (before VAT) for every unit sold. What happens to unsold stock is agreed in the contract before anything ships.
Why cohorts?
Brands that launch together share one shipment and one round of compliance work, so each brand pays less. A cohort also gives UK shoppers several new brands at once, which makes the launch easier to promote.
How does shared freight work?
We organise one shipment from Japan for the whole cohort. You deliver your stock to our forwarder in Tokyo or Osaka. The cost is split by volume and charged at cost: you pay an estimate before shipping, then we settle the difference with a top-up or a credit.
We already sell in the EU. Is that enough?
No, but it helps. Your EU safety report and product file are a strong starting point. The UK still needs its own Responsible Person, notification and labels.
Which products do you take on?
Skincare first: cleansers, lotions, serums, creams and masks. Sunscreens, quasi-drugs (医薬部外品) and products with medical-style claims need extra review, so we look at them case by case.
Do we have to sell on Amazon?
No. The Kibun store is the core of every launch. Amazon UK management is an optional extra for brands that want it.
From the founder
Why Kibun exists.
I started Kibun after finding Japanese sheet masks with more than 1,600 ratings on Amazon UK, sold by resellers, with no UK label and no Responsible Person.
British shoppers clearly want these brands. What's missing is a proper way in, and a UK home where they can find them. That's what Kibun is.
Immaad Mir, founder
Contact
Write to us in English or Japanese.
Kibun
United Kingdom
[email protected]
partners.kibun.uk