Vera & Vine
Privacy policy
This policy explains what personal information Vera & Vine collects, why, and what you can do about it. It's written in plain English on purpose — if anything here is unclear, email hello@veraandvine.com and we'll explain it properly.
Who we are
Vera & Vine is a trading name of A Star Academics Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 16267643), registered office 114 Woodford Crescent, Pinner, Middlesex, HA5 3TY.
For the purposes of UK data protection law, A Star Academics Ltd is the data controller.
Contact: hello@veraandvine.com
Information Commissioner's Office: our registration with the ICO is being completed. We will publish the registration number here once it is issued.
What we collect, and why
If you join the early-access list, we collect your email address, and your name if you give it. We use it to send you updates about the launch and the story behind it. Lawful basis: consent. You gave it by signing up, and you can withdraw it at any time using the unsubscribe link in any email, or by emailing us.
If you book a guided session, we collect your name, email address, and the booking details. Payment is taken by Stripe — we never see or store your card details. Scheduling is handled by Calendly, and sessions run on Google Meet. Lawful basis: performance of a contract (we need this to deliver the session you paid for).
If you fill in our optional research questionnaire, we collect your answers about your hair, routine and experience. This is entirely optional, your session is identical either way, and your answers are stored against a code rather than your name. Lawful basis: consent. We use it to design our research and improve the session. We do not publish it, quote it, or use it in marketing.
If you book a free hair review, we collect your questionnaire answers and the five photographs of your hair that you choose to send. We use them for one purpose: preparing and delivering your consultation. Lawful basis: consent, given when you send them, and you can withdraw it at any time. Your photographs are never published, never used in marketing, never used as before-and-after material, and never shared — and we delete them on request, or automatically twelve months after your last session. If you would rather not send photos at all, you can still book: the review simply works from our conversation instead.
If you email us, we keep the correspondence so we can deal with it and refer back to it. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (running the business and answering you properly).
This website, cookies and tracking
Our hosting provider, Cloudflare, processes standard technical information such as your IP address and browser type in order to serve the site securely, and gives us aggregate traffic statistics that do not identify you.
We do not run any advertising cookies, third-party analytics script or tracking pixels on this site. We do not build a profile of you and we do not follow you across other websites.
Our typefaces are hosted on our own domain, so viewing this site sends no request to any font provider. In fact, this site makes no requests to any third party at all: no fonts, no scripts, no images are fetched from anywhere except veraandvine.com itself.
If we later embed a sign-up form from our email provider, that form may set its own cookies. We will say so here when it does.
Who we share it with
We don't sell your data. We never will. We share it only with the service providers we need to run the business — currently MailerLite (email list, moving to Kit during August 2026), Stripe (payments), Calendly and Google (bookings and video calls), Purelymail (our email), and Cloudflare (hosting). Each processes your data on our instructions.
Some of these providers are based outside the UK. Where that's the case, the transfer is covered by the safeguards UK data protection law requires, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or an adequacy decision.
If we ever engage an independent testing house to run our research study, any data shared would be under a separate, specific consent that we would ask you for at the time — not this policy.
How long we keep it
- Early-access list: until you unsubscribe, or after 24 months of no engagement, whichever comes first.
- Booking and payment records: 6 years, because tax law requires it.
- Research questionnaire answers: until the research they inform is complete, or until you ask us to delete them, whichever comes first.
- Email correspondence: 24 months, unless it relates to an order or a legal obligation.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask us to: give you a copy of your data; correct it; delete it; restrict or object to how we use it; or send it to someone else. You can also withdraw consent at any time — for the mailing list, the unsubscribe link in any email does this instantly.
Email hello@veraandvine.com and we'll respond within one month. We won't ask you for a reason and it won't affect how we treat you.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We'd rather you told us first so we can fix it, but it's your right either way.
Children
This website and our sessions are intended for people aged 18 and over. We don't knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has given us their data, email us and we'll delete it.
Changes
If we change this policy we'll update the date at the top. If the change is significant and affects how we use data you've already given us, we'll tell you directly.
Two things we're still finishing, said plainly. Our ICO registration is in progress and this page will carry the number when it is issued. Our email list is moving from MailerLite to Kit during August 2026, and we'll update the provider named above when it does. Neither changes what we collect, why, or what you can ask us to do about it.