I am a little bit obsessed with the beauty brand Trinny London, as I am with its founder Trinny Woodall. If you don't remember her, she was part of the TV style duo Trinny and Susannah (Susannah Constantine) in the 90's UK BBC show What Not To Wear. For me, Trinny and Susannah influenced a generation of women by giving them the confidence to be brave with fashion and update their style. It was compulsive viewing. Fast-forward to 2017, and at 53, Trinny Woodall turned her attention to beauty with her digital brand, Trinny London. That leap from fashion to beauty has paid off; after just four years, her brand is worth around $350 million, going from four staff to 200. Editor Trudi Brewer got the chance to chat with Woodall about the business of beauty and targeting a group of women who have been seen and not heard. Read on to learn more.
Editor Trudi Brewer’s faves from the Trinny London collection of skincare and makeup.
Trinny Woodall is riding a career-high; with her beauty empire Trinny London. As the CEO and spokeswoman for the brand, she is a great advocate for any woman in her 50s. Her energy is infectious; she has a great sense of humour, but, most importantly, she is real and happy to share her flaws and feelings. After years of transforming women's looks, her deep understanding of how women feel about beauty is paying off.
What made you decide on Trinny London beauty and not create a fashion brand?
When I did those makeovers on women, the first thing they noticed was their makeup. Because we have a very complex relationship with our bodies, they would look at their face and ignore their body and want to know what the transformation was on their face first. That physiologic journey is one I am taking them on now with Trinny London. It doesn't mean I will never do clothes, Trudi; I just haven't started with clothes. There are many verticals I am going to do (makeup was first), and skincare is the second vertical, so you can put that in the pipe and smoke it.
I understand you had pushback from an investor who said, "you have to target the millennial" how did you convince them otherwise?
Well, they didn't invest; that's how I convinced them. One investor told me to personalise my online Match2Me proposition and sell my brand in stores. I said I want to get women who are not traditionally comfortable with buying online to start shopping online, with personalisation to make them feel at home. So if you don't get what women need in that category, you will never invest, and they didn't. So, it was a matter of getting in front of somebody to convince them that your not looking for the lowest hanging fruit online; they're Generation C or millennials because they live there. What I found with all those women I made over, they would talk about the paradox of choice at the beauty counter. Not knowing if they could identify with the person serving them, who was wearing too much makeup or was too young. Or there were 20 red lipsticks there, and which one did they suit? Those needs are not necessarily met in the store. So I thought, how can I take all the in-store issues and solve them for women online? So, that is what Unilever Ventures, who invested in me, understood. They are consumer-facing, and they understood I needed a point of difference. So, we have a mix of women, but our sweet spot is 35-45 plus women because they feel addressed. These women for so many years have been targeted by the 20-year-old women wearing that anti-ageing cream (what we say in our company is the mac death of a brand); essentially, they weren't used to seeing people their age.
Business comes with setbacks, so what do you say and do when this happens?
You have to think, what am I being challenged on? Over the years, I have had to look at myself and ask, is there anything in what I am doing that I need to change? We could look at COVID coming as a setback. In the first week, we were so nervous, and then in the second week, we had a flurry of activity. But we were the only company with personalisation online to the level we had, so with our online Match2Me, and the 14 makeup artists who usually work in our few stores, we retrained them to do online appointments; then, on day 10, we sold 3,000. That was a pivotal moment. So, sometimes you take a setback and make it become something that redefines your business. Or you lose a valuable employee, and you realise everyone is replaceable, which is the hardest thing because you get very attached to people in business. But the most important thing is the company, not the individual. So we are doing a lot of on company culture. We have a mission statement that we talk about as a brand. We are joyful, we're fun, we are quality first, and we're about community. So we are taking all those elements and doing an internal review of us, as a company of 200 people, to find out what it's like working at Trinny London. So I don't ever call them setbacks; I call them opportunities. However, you will always have those moments of doubt or thinking, what will I do next? Because we're in an early stage, compared to all our competitors, it's 4 years, and we are still a baby; if there are those moments of doubt, I always try and think of them as something powerful.
Trinny London Plump Up Serum, $138
The latest Trinny London skincare launch is a peptide fuelled serum designed to put the bounce back into your skin.
This serum is packed with three game-changing peptides (amino acids or proteins) that Woodall says are very underrated. These include hexapeptide-9 and 4-peptide complex, which plumps fine lines and strengthens the skin’s elasticity, while oligopeptide-1, encourages the skin to make more firming collagen. Hyaluronic acid, a hero hydrator, attracts water from the atmosphere to your thirsty skin. While plankton extract and lecithin protect and nourish the skin. Made for all skin types and ages, this serum can also be added to your foundation to create a firming tinted moisturiser.
So, who is the Trinny London woman?
She is somebody who has started the journey; she has woken up and thought I need to make more effort. More than fanatical women like me because I had very bad skin, so I was always on a mission. Many women who wake up at 40-45, who are perimenopausal, don’t know where to start because they have never listened to education, and today there is much confusion out there with AHA’s, BHA’s, PHAs’ retinol, retinoids, and vitamin C, so that is the woman we want to help the most.
What are your skincare mantras?
Get into a routine; that you follow morning and night. Don’t over-buy something and not use it. It’s a waste of money. When you have very bad skin, you learn habits better. Since 25, I have always taken my makeup off at night and cleansed my skin. Knowing which ingredients you should not overuse. Especially using strong acids when you might have sensitive skin and it breaks down the skin’s microbiome, and then you’re on a hellish journey trying to correct your skin over months. Ingredients are much stronger than when I started using skincare, so you must educate yourself by looking at the Inkey List or labels to learn the ingredient percentage in a product and understand if it’s doing anything or if this is just marketing.
I find it blasphemous when you see companies’ marketing products as the be-all and end-all when there is only 0.0.000 per cent of an active ingredient in there, and it’s not doing anything, even if the product texture feels wonderful and it smells divine; you’re intoxicated by the dream. I want to deliver unbelievably efficacious products that demystify skincare. Our online skincare Match2Me personalisation addresses 3600 different types of skin. That’s a mixture of age and skin issues like sagging, wrinkling, pigmentation, and acne, and while we only have 11 skincare products, we can address your routine and discover the amount of product you need and when you use it. Our skincare range can be refined to give you the perfect balance for your skin and help build up slowly to strengthen and improve it. We do that incredibly well; 30 per cent of our customers are now skincare customers within five months, so it’s resonating.
You're the best advertisement for a woman in their 50s. Can you share your secrets to looking youthful?
It’s your vanity matrix. People may see the vanity as something negative, but if you are a little bit vain, you want to make more effort - and it’s all about making effort. It doesn’t take much, and if you think you don’t have time, you do; you just choose to do something else. It’s a vanity matrix, and yet it’s not vain to want to care about yourself. When I look at what I do with my weird massages, my micro-needling, and my financial skincare routine; I also do Botox; I do all this so I wake up in the morning and look at my face and feel that I am full of energy, which gives me an energetic day. Or I create that. I want to show women that opportunity to feel that every single day. But you have to do a certain amount yourself.
What makes Miracle Blur so fabulous? What's in it?
Compared to all our other products, it’s the texture more than anything else. It’s a mixture of oils, silica and different powders, so you can push it into your skin and blur imperfections. There are no active ingredients that will reduce pores or give you fewer lines, it’s not that kind of product, and I think some people buy it thinking it is. It isn’t. It gives an immediate blurring effect. It’s like you’ve put on your plus two glasses and then taken them off; that is what it should be doing for you. Once you understand you love it. I always apply it after my makeup; I tap it on, don’t rub it; when you use it properly, there is nothing else like it on the market - I call it polyfiller.
Trinny London Miracle Blur, $55
Much more than a skin primer, I would call Miracle Blur a skin filler. It has a mousse-like consistency, as lightweight as a balm. It’s colourless and stays in place for hours. It will fill out smooth fine lines, blur acne scars, and look like open pores. The secret to a seamless application is to tap and press it into the areas you want to blur over the top of your makeup.
You look like you have boundless energy and positivity; how do you maintain that?
I would like to say I have been through lots of shit in my life, so I grab those moments and make the most of them. However, I am 58, and there are those times when I feel exhausted. But what I do gives me energy and motivates me. I am having CEO coaching at the moment because I want to be a good CEO. I am four years into being a CEO and want to understand the next stage. We’re growing our business to a big next stage, and I want to feel like I am a founder that can be that CEO or train myself to be that, and I don’t know the answer yet. You get to the stage where you can’t sit in the weeds, and you have to think strategically and bigger, so I have to learn how to do that, which is challenging. It’s like seeing a bloody therapist; I have a weekly session. One very interesting thing, my coach said, you will skim through those messages women send you, but you need to read them and absorb them. So on those days when you lack faith in yourself or feel flat, I can be reminded that we are more than a makeup brand. We get lots of lovely messages from our Trinny Tribe, so I take screenshots of some of those lovely messages, and on those days when I feel flat, I read them and am reminded of my purpose.
What has been the most memorable feedback on your brand from a fan?
There are many, but there is one woman that stands out. She had cancer, and one of her children died, and as a result, she became agoraphobic. She started to follow me and became part of the Trinny Tribe, and now goes out, wears colour and puts on makeup. So, when you can shift one woman from a place where all the things we all as women fear most, that’s an unbelievable impact.
Trinny London Lip2Cheek, $55
As one of the best sellers in the Trinny makeup collection, this little pot is a great multitasker lip and cheek in-one. You can use it with your fingers (and I do in the car ), and it promises to bring life to the face. There are 11 shades. The latest is called Milly (pictured here), which adds a pop of pink to the skin in seconds. Like all the makeup pots in the Trinny London collection, you can build a stack of multi-purpose colours to have on hand every day.
What's the best piece of beauty advice you've had that you follow religiously?
Always take your makeup off at night. Don’t do a wet wipe, do a proper cleansing. You owe it to yourself. Wear an SPF every day because it is the most challenging thing for your skin to encounter the sun.
Finally, what newness are you working on right now?
We always do gifting, and this Christmas will be great for those Trinny London customers to buy these gifts for themselves.
You can now shop Trinny London in NZ dollars, with all duties and taxes included.
And discover her French beauty brand that has just launched in NZ.