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What is next in the Legology product line?
We all need more positivity in our lives, and we need beauty to help us feel more content with who we are while still generating aspiration to be better. I’ll leave it at that!
Do you have a favourite product or kit from the range?
Air-Lite Daily Lift For Legs is my hero. Of all the products it best encapsulates the brand vibe and the story. It’s a proper workhorse too. I’m still slightly amazed by it.
Looking back to when you were first coming up with the initial business concept, what advice would you give to yourself (knowing what you know now) and would you change anything?
To have more confidence in my ability to do business. I wasted a lot of time and money trying to partner with people as a way of not facing down this dragon. That never worked, because your vision is your vision, not theirs. You have to do it yourself.
Business aside, if you had to give me three beauty tips to make me look and feel fabulous, what would they be?
Lots of sleep, laughter and a little sun on your face.
Do you have any people that you personally look up to in business and have you been able to use this within your own business?
I have the greatest respect for anyone who has set up in business, especially in manufacturing, and not just in beauty. Many of the people I admire most in business are my contemporaries – women like Liz Earle, Marcia Kilgore, Millie Kendall and Anna-Marie Solowij, along with friends in the business who have founded PR companies, design and marketing outfits, or spent years at the top of publishing. Some of them are also great mentors to me.
What has been the most surprising thing that you have learnt about running your own business?
The way it has allowed me to work in a different way with people I’ve known for years and who have gone on to work in other related industries. I love that. There is a real
sense of camaraderie and support there which perhaps comes with experience, age and a shared background in media. We worked during the golden years of print and we know how lucky we were.
You are co-founder of the British Beauty Council – can you tell me a bit about it – why you launched it, its ethos, who else is involved and what your plans are (collectively) for the future?
I co-founded the British Beauty Council with Millie Kendall, Anna-Marie Solowij, Jane Boardman and Catherine Handcock because there was no umbrella organisation that represents every aspect of the beauty industry, as there is for fashion, despite it making a very valuable contribution to the national economy and employment. Our first commitment is to define and accurately value the business, so we are taken seriously at government level where we feel beauty should have a proper impartial voice. It's frankly incredible that until now beauty has not had this.
What do you feel has been the defining moment so far for Legology?
I have a defining moment every time I see British Airways fly over me and remember that Legology is on the trolley.
What advice would you give to budding entrepreneurs, particularly to those wanting to launch a beauty product?
Be so in love with every aspect of your product that telling the story to customers and retailers comes as instinctively and joyfully as tears or laughter, no matter how many times you do it. Honestly, you’ve got to love it. It’s a long journey.
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