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It is fair to say that no-one in the beauty world knows legs better than former Telegraph Beauty Editor and founder of Legology, Kate Shapland who launched her range of high-performance luxury leg care beauty products back in 2013.
Legology
By Emma Harrison
What was the inspiration and vision behind Legology?
Personal experience, fuelled by industry innovation and missed opportunities in the business – I was frustrated by what I saw as a clear gap in the market for something I knew the consumer needed, though perhaps she didn’t know it before Legology came along.
Was it a ‘lightbulb’ moment or was it more of a slow burning process?
A bit of both. I’ve been obsessed with leg beauty and health for most of my adult life, and I really felt it was time the beauty industry addressed leg care and cellulite differently.
Cellulite has come to represent the entire leg care market in much the same way that anti-ageing creams are what skin care is all about. And while most women have it, there are other issues – heaviness/fluid retention, varicose veins, dryness and so on – that trouble legs. There were leg care and cellulite products which looked pretty and did nothing, and products which sort of did something and looked terrible.
I wanted to create great-looking products that had pioneering high performance formulas, and made the wearer feel so good and uplifted that they became an addiction, because frequency always brings the best results in beauty – you’ve got to want to use products again and again, and you’re not going to want to do that if they don’t work, smell bad or feel sticky.
There were little lightbulb moments along the way too: I watched the passengers hobble off a long-haul flight once with swollen feet, ankles and calves, and wondered why no one
had developed a formula that helped with this discomfort. Then I though, oh I can. So, I did.
You mention that Legology was ‘a product waiting to be created’ – how did you identify the gap for leg care in the market?
I’ve seen and tried pretty much every leg product on the market over a 25-year career span and very little, if anything, ever ticked all the boxes it needed to. Apart from having a truly effective formula I felt that the main things that were missing were that feel good element – the requirement for a product to make you feel fantastic just for using and wearing it, charm – the messaging for leg contouring products was all wrong, it needed to more empathetic to and on-side with the consumer. Who was me! I made Legology for women like myself who suffer with heavy legs, fluid retention and cellulite (they are all linked and that’s why the Legology formulas are all developed around the same deep drainage principles) and are looking for products that work brilliantly, aren’t necessarily fashionable, but sit quietly in the bathroom as a body care fixture that you know you can depend on every time you use.
What was the final impetus to leaving the world of beauty journalism behind?
I’ve never stopped writing, and for a long time I wrote my column in The Telegraph Magazine alongside managing the brand. But I did begin to feel stretched, and I realised that I loved brand development enough to focus on it. Years of working in publishing, which demands a certain standard of excellence, a real understanding of aspiration and what turns consumers on, gave me skills which enabled me to be quite visionary with the creative side of beauty.
Emma Harrison speaks to Kate about her passion for leg care, starting a business and how good ideas can often be found at the traffic lights.