SARROSI BALM
SARROSI BALM
The anti-chafe balm that beauty editors couldn't stop talking about. Stylist, The Independent, Women's Fitness, Buzzfeed and an Amazon bestseller.






Exploring the possibilities of type in motion and interaction through modern digital environments:
It was 2021. Lockdown had just lifted. My business partner Rosie, and I went for a walk and started talking about the thing that nobody really talks about. Chafing. The universal, painful, summer-ruining reality that almost every woman deals with and almost nobody admits to. The burning thighs in a dress. The ruined holiday outfit. The hot day that should have been perfect but wasn't because your skin had other ideas. We were two women who'd spent our careers building brands for the biggest companies in the world. And we were standing there thinking, why has nobody made something genuinely brilliant for this? The products that existed were clinical and grim. Medicated tubes in medicinal packaging that you'd shove to the back of a drawer and hope nobody saw. Zero joy. Zero beauty. Zero personality. For a problem that millions of women deal with every single summer.That was the gap. That was the idea. And that walk was the beginning of everything.

What happens when two brand experts stop advising and start doing.
We'd spent years telling clients how to build brands people love. How to find the white space. How to make something that connects. Sarrosi was the moment we stopped talking about it and actually did it. Two women. One big idea. No agency. No safety net. Just the knowledge, the instinct and an absolute refusal to make something boring. The product had to be everything the category wasn't. Natural, vegan, coconut-led, gorgeous to hold and even better to use. The packaging had to earn its place on a bathroom shelf. The brand had to make women feel seen and celebrated rather than embarrassed about something completely normal. We obsessed over every single detail because we knew exactly what good looked like and we weren't willing to settle for anything less. On Amazon our brand hit number #01 within the first 3 months. It was wild! And then TikTok happened. A video of my legs going viral with 1.5 million views was not something we had on the roadmap but that's the thing about a product that genuinely works. People share it. They evangelize. They tag their friends and say "this is the one." The TikTok shop took off. The reviews came flooding in. Women who tried it came back and bought it again and told everyone they knew. That is the best kind of marketing in the world and you cannot fake it.





What Sarrosi really gave us.
We built Sarrosi to six-figure turnover with no outside investment, no safety net and no rulebook. We had TikTok virality, press coverage, five star reviews, a genuine fanbase of women who loved what we'd made and kept coming back for more. Every penny went back in to grow it. When the funding conversations didn't land and the right acquisition offer didn't materialise, we made the hardest call and the smartest one. We wound it down on our terms, with our heads held high and an education you genuinely cannot buy. Sarrosi was our first. And first brands teach you things that nothing else ever could. We learned how to build from scratch. How to find a manufacturer, develop a formula, design packaging, write listings, run a TikTok shop, pitch to press, read the data and act on it fast. We learned what it feels like when a product genuinely connects with the people it was made for and how to protect that feeling at every touchpoint. The gap we spotted on that walk was real. The product we built was genuinely brilliant. The love from our customers was something we will never forget. And everything Sarrosi taught us shows up in every single brief we take on now. That walk changed everything. And we'd do it all again in a heartbeat.
More Brands I Built*
More Brands I Built*
More Brands I Built*


LAUNDREAM
Fragrance-led eco laundry brand. Detergent sheets that keep laundry out of landfill and beat legacy brands to No.1.

LAUNDREAM
Fragrance-led eco laundry brand. Detergent sheets that keep laundry out of landfill and beat legacy brands to No.1.


GLISSADE
Sarrosi's sporting alter ego. Same obsession with quality, completely different energy. Gritty, performance-led, built for the runners, cyclists and tennis players who train like they mean it.

GLISSADE
Sarrosi's sporting alter ego. Same obsession with quality, completely different energy. Gritty, performance-led, built for the runners, cyclists and tennis players who train like they mean it.


MENOTHRIVE
The wellness industry was failing perimenopausal women. So we built something better. All-natural, multifunctional, stereotype-busting. MenoThrive arrived before the conversation did.

MENOTHRIVE
The wellness industry was failing perimenopausal women. So we built something better. All-natural, multifunctional, stereotype-busting. MenoThrive arrived before the conversation did.
SARROSI BALM
The anti-chafe balm that beauty editors couldn't stop talking about. Stylist, The Independent, Women's Fitness, Buzzfeed and an Amazon bestseller.








Understanding emotional response through space, hierarchy, and visual restraint:
In digital design, space isn’t empty—it’s intentional. White space controls pacing, hierarchy builds comfort, and contrast guides attention. These elements evoke mood and build trust through unseen tension. A strong layout doesn’t just function—it speaks.
In well-crafted sites, layout becomes memory. You don’t just recall the content—you remember how it moved, how it felt, how it opened up space or leaned into density. That resonance is rarely about color or font alone—it’s how the structure carried everything with intention.
When every pixel plays its part, and every part respects the whole, we begin to build sites that don’t just function—they resonate. They linger. They become signatures. Not by shouting, but by speaking in rhythm, with quiet clarity and deep precision.
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Creating interaction that feels intuitive, considered, and emotionally aligned:
When motion, structure, and design align, users don’t think—they feel. That’s the sweet spot where layout becomes a bridge. Interfaces should communicate tone as much as task. Even the simplest detail—a button’s curve or a heading’s weight—can influence how someone feels.
Modular components give structure, but it’s the unexpected breaks—the asymmetry, the shift in rhythm, the quiet gesture—that introduce character. That’s where emotion sneaks in. That’s where the layout becomes a story, not just a scaffold. It’s in the relationship between repetition and surprise, clarity and contrast, that visual tension thrives.
We often think of layouts as fixed, but the best ones are elastic. They stretch to fit diverse narratives, but never lose coherence. They allow variation without losing voice. When a layout becomes too stiff, it feels soulless. When it becomes too loose, it loses trust. The sweet spot lies in the in-between. That edge—that living edge—is where the work breathes.
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Balancing order and creativity for expressive user interfaces:
They aren’t rigid templates or chaotic experiments—they’re frameworks that breathe, adapt, and respond. A layout, when designed with intent, doesn’t just hold content—it elevates it. It becomes the unseen rhythm of the page, guiding the user’s eye with balance, restraint, and just enough tension to keep things alive.
A smart layout doesn’t impose itself. It listens. It bends where it needs to. It adjusts for type, for image, for tone. It creates systems that can scale but still feel personal. A great layout doesn’t flatten expression—it preserves soul. It knows when to hold back and when to surprise. That balance is the mark of a thoughtful designer.
Find more insights on Akihiko Blogs.
WHO I WORK WITH...
working with

01
Global Brands
02
Startups & VCs
03
Agencies
Global Brands
Startups & VCs
Agencies