Our founder, MK was interviewed last week on a series called ‘Gap Finders' (about people who see a gap in the market for a new way of doing something and decide that they can fill that gap). But in the meantime - here’s what she had to say…
Q: When you started Beauty Pie, you already had a pass to world-class cosmetic factories, because you’d already set up and then sold four multimillion dollar companies, and you’d already given facials to Madonna, Uma Thurman and Oprah Winfrey, so why did you want to start Beauty Pie?
MK: I love the beauty industry. And over the few decades that I’d been in it, it had changed a lot. I felt like it had started to work backwards, so rather than thinking: ‘Oh I know this product at this level works really well to create this result on someone’s skin’, it started to be more of: ‘We’ll sell it for this, which means if we back out of it this much, we can make it for only this.’ It was about profit, and trying to make a product for as little as possible, and sell it for as much as you could get, rather than creating a product that was an exceptional, efficacious product that you could use and sell to somebody for a fair price.
Q: What was your ‘lightbulb moment’?
MK: I was at a lab, one of my favourite labs in Italy, and I would always go to this lab, and you would leave always with a big bag of products, and I remember walking through one of these large premium retailers on the way back, and having all of these products in my handbag that were £2 or £3 each, or £8 or £10 each to make, that were actually being sold on the shelves of this premium retailer for 8, 10, 15x that price, and thinking: ‘I bet every friend I have would just love to come with me to the lab and be able to shop at lower prices and get these really high-quality products.
All of these products in my handbag that were £2 or £3 each to make, that were actually being sold for 8, 10, 15x that price
And I remember having the thought: ‘Wouldn’t every woman I know love to come with me’, and all the hair on my body stood up on end - which is usually when I know I’ve got a great idea, and I just thought: ‘Woah, you know, to be able to get these really incredible, high-quality products, at equally incredible, great prices could be a new way to rebalance that power in the beauty industry’.
Q: So if I use something I love, but it’s pricey, how would I go about finding that same thing on the Beauty Pie website?
MK: So this is one of the myths that we try and bust - that it’s not about us taking the exact same formulas that other people have, but instead it’s about working with the same high-end labs, from all over the world, who give us the same knowledge of ingredients and technical expertise as they pour into products for everyone else, and combining it with our own expert knowledge, and insights into what our customers want.
Makeup and skincare work a little differently. In the makeup industry, most of the labs do sell very similar products to different brands, so you might find the exact same eyeshadow crayon for instance or the exact same foundation being sold to many many luxury brands, some of them will be selling it for £60, some for £44, some for £38, it really depends on how much they’re spending on their marketing.
Some luxury brands will be selling the exact same foundation for £60, some for £44, some for £38 it really depends on how much they’re spending on their marketing.
However with skincare, you’re not always getting the exact same product. Because I have such a background in skincare, I very often will formulate from the ground up: I know what works, I know which percentages need to be in products, so rather than putting something in at a very low percentage on a label, we’ll look at the ingredient and how much it has been proven to work at which level.
Q: Why would those factories, who are making roughly the same stuff for a lot of different luxury brands, sell it to you then, for you to sell it at a fraction of the price? Aren’t they cutting their own throats?
MK: No, they don’t mind! They’re the manufacturer, right? And manufacturers will manufacture an item and then sell it onto a brand. If the price is exactly the same that they’re selling it to me, but my markup isn’t so high to my customers, it doesn’t matter at all to them.
Q: You’ve had these back-to-back successes - it’s an extraordinary track record for one person. Every five years you seem to invent a multi-million pound company. Do you think Beauty Pie will be your last?
MK: Well, I have one more good idea.
Q: Are you going to share it?
MK: No! Of course not - I’d have to kill you.
You can listen to the full interview on BBC Sounds.
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