TWO sisters who set up a beauty range in a kitchen are in the running for two awards.

Arabella and Charlotte Harvey founded Raven Botanicals, which is up for both online retail and rural startup of the year in Scotland at the prestigious StartUp Awards.

The siblings set up the business in Arabella’s home near Gifford in 2020, and the products have gone on to pick up a range of accolades.

Now, they are hoping for further success at the awards.

Charlotte said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have reached these finals. Raven Botanicals is our passion project and it has been an amazing experience to see our small business taking flight and establishing itself among some other brilliant Scottish startups.

“We get such fantastic feedback from our community of buyers and receiving this wider recognition is very exciting.

“We work hard to create high-performance formulations that ensure great skin at every age and we’re looking forward to attending the awards in April. We’d love to bring back a win for East Lothian!”

The fledgling beauty brand uses a blend of local, UK-grown and ethically sourced worldwide ingredients to create a range of products for face and body.

Recent successes have included winning Dragons’ Den star Theo Paphitis’ Small Business Sunday award, as well as reaching the finals in the 2022 Great British Entrepreneur Awards.

Earlier this month, the team also received five industry awards in the Beauty Shortlist Awards, which celebrate outstanding products in the natural beauty sector.

The StartUp Awards recognise the booming startup scene across the UK, which has accelerated following the economic recovery after the Covid-19 pandemic.

Since 2021, more than 800,000 new businesses have been founded in the UK, a 4.3 per cent increase from the year before.

Professor Dylan Jones-Evans, creator of the StartUp Awards National Series, said: “Start-up businesses are the lifeblood of any economy, being responsible for new jobs, innovation and in supporting communities in every nation and region across the UK.

“From social enterprises making a difference in their local communities to innovative firms developing leading-edge technologies, all of the finalists this year represent the best of those group of entrepreneurs, who have spotted an opportunity and, through their sheer hard work, talent and perseverance, have created an amazing new business that is creating real impact in its sector.”