At the age of 65, Tricia Cusden spotted a gap in the market for a new approach to cosmetics for older women.She invested her own savings in a range of specific makeup suitable for more mature eyes, faces and lips. In October 2013, Look Fabulous Forever was launched to 80 friends and family at a party in London.
At the time of the launch, two makeup tutorial videos which Tricia had made with two friends acting as models to demonstrate all the LFF products, were uploaded to YouTube. Slowly these videos gained in popularity and were the starting point for the fast growth of the business. There are now over 100 tutorials on YouTube with over 7m views between them.
In November 2015, she was awarded CEW’s Digital Achiever of the Year Award and in 2016 LFF was shortlisted for Amazon Digital Business of the Year part of the Lloyds National Business Awards. Tricia also won Nectar Small Business Awards Entrepreneur of the Year and SME Emerging Businesswoman 2016 awarded by HSBC’s National Women in Business Awards.
Tricia’s book, Living the Life More Fabulous – a Handbook to Beauty, Style and Empowerment was published by Orion Spring in February 2018 and has been on the Amazon Fashion and Beauty best seller list ever since.
Tricia has two daughters, Anna and Suzy, who both work in the business, and five grandchildren. She lives in London.
I am a 74 year old entrepreneur. After a career as a management training consultant, running my own consultancy from 1996 – 2012, I started an online beauty business for older women at the age of 65 which has been a great success.
I was a very late starter. I married at 22 in 1970 and deferred all career ambitions until I had had my two daughters. I started my first ‘proper’ job at the age of 38. Very little planning went into what I would do apart from completing a 4 year B.A. honours degree whilst my children were small. I hoped that this would make me more attractive for employment when I was finally able to apply for work.
Not many! Maybe I have been lucky but I fell into my dream role at 38 and found that I was good at it, and my age was an advantage as the people I was training thought that I had years of experience! I think most people who are entrepreneurial see challenges as opportunities!
Undoubtedly it has been starting an online makeup brand without any prior beauty business experience at a point in life when most women take official retirement.
I’d say, yes do some sensible planning and research, but not too much. At some point you just have to see if you can make your idea work.
Start seeing all adults as potential parents, nor just the women.
Don’t worry – you have lots of time to do all you want to do. You don’t have to have ‘made it’ by the age of 40.
To continue to grow the business to become the ‘go-to’ brand for older women who want perfect makeup and skincare for their ageing faces.
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