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Starting a Beauty Business During Lockdown
Words Amanda Okoye
Starting a business during lockdown has been very tedious for many. For those who decided to take a leap of faith, however, it’s been the most successful time of their lives. It’s as if the world has turned their heads towards the internet and social media during the pandemic, to the advantage of most beauty business owners and the demise of others. The UK saw its lowest plunge in sales in 2019 for hairdressers and personal care salons, reaching around £8.6 billion. Then in 2020, the online demand for beauty increased, giving beauticians more and more opportunities to find a gap in the market for themselves. So, what’s stopping us?
The first vital ingredient to start a beauty business during these uncertain times is to have a vision. Your business plan could be an at-home personal care service or creating your own beauty line. Take pen and paper; create a vision board to plan out your future commerce. Design an inspirational space at home and begin scheming on marketing and branding strategies, funding, social media platforms, content creating, registering your business and even your business name. It might be discouraging to see leading beauty moguls like Kylie Jenner and Rhianna taking over the airwaves, but the more you believe in your vision, the clearer your vision gets.
Let’s look at three beauty businesses that started during lockdown: Everyday Cosmetics - an online beauty store; Lady Jo London - provides eyebrow threading, body waxing, teeth whitening, eyelash and nail services; and lastly, K’Cyrus cosmetics - an all-natural skincare and haircare brand. All these businesses began during lockdown and experienced an outpour of customers and clients due to high demand.
These businesses are all owned by women in their 20’s, who desired to create their own space in the beauty industry and believed in their vision enough to penetrate the social media airwaves, gaining 100’s of customers on the way. Everyday Cosmetics has now gone on to create a partner company, Everyday Home - which provides homeware pieces - in under a year.
The great advice these owners have given is to have a platform and a small group of family friends helping you to push the idea forward. Support is always needed to get a business off the ground.
It’s great to hear the success stories of beauty businesses owned by young people. Individuals that took a leap of faith in what seemed to be the most unfortunate time and created future multi-millionaire and billionaire businesses. Let’s dust off our vision boards and get to work!
