Caius Hale, a former director of the defunct multilevel marketing scheme TS-Life, now fronts Reminiscience, a wellness company with a remarkably similar operational structure. This new venture emerges as its apparent parent company, Urban Retreat, claims its central distribution center burned down on March 13, 2023.
Reminiscience's public-facing website offers little information on its ownership or management. The domain, initially registered privately in November 2018, updated its ownership to Acti Laboratories in May 2022. The UK-based Acti Laboratories later rebranded as Urban Retreat.
Urban Retreat states it is in "full recovery mode" following the March 2023 fire, with plans to relaunch from France by early September 2023. Despite this, Reminiscience's website carries no notice of disruption. Its Facebook page, active since March 2023, also remains silent on the incident. Most Reminiscience products currently show as out of stock.
Urban Retreat describes itself as a family-run business, primarily serving customers in Russia. The company started as a luxury spa product manufacturer before pivoting to direct-to-consumer sales. It launched ActiDerm in the UK in June 2011, offering eleven skincare products, after claiming all its capital had run out by 2011.
Neither the Urban Retreat website nor the Reminiscience website acknowledges the other's existence. This deliberate separation suggests an intent to operate each entity without visible ties to the other.
John Miller serves as a co-founder of Urban Retreat. His son, James Miller, is listed as a co-founder and CEO of the company's French operations.
Investigations confirm Caius Hale's involvement with Reminiscience. Hale previously ran TS-Life alongside the individual now serving as CEO of Acti-Labs, which is Urban Retreat. TS-Life, a nutrition-focused multilevel marketing company, launched in 2018 and ceased operations without warning in early 2022.
Sources familiar with both operations indicate Reminiscience was conceived as a direct relaunch of TS-Life under a new name. Despite claims from current leadership that Reminiscience is a new venture unconnected to the defunct MLM, the same two directors who oversaw TS-Life are now managing Reminiscience.
While the product packaging differs and the company emphasizes sustainability claims, those who have examined both companies describe Reminiscience as essentially the same operation with a cosmetic overhaul.
The US Federal Trade Commission offers guidance on identifying pyramid schemes at consumer.ftc.gov/articles/how-spot-pyramid-scheme.