I lived on £8 a week, had a face like a pizza & fake tan – now my beauty brand makes £56m a year, says Trinny Woodhall
SHE has made millions after reinventing herself as a beauty guru, but even Trinny Woodall has made mistakes when it comes to make-up.
The star, whose firm Trinny London turned over £56million last year, admits she hasn’t always had her finger on the pulse of what looks good.
In fact, Trinny confesses her warpaint was a disaster in her teens and twenties — and she wasn’t happy with what she saw in the mirror.
“My beauty regime made my face look like a pizza with ketchup dolloped on top,” she says.
“I used orange mousse fake tan with a manky sponge. I’d stare at my zits in the bathroom mirror and never truly saw my face.
“People said I looked fine, but I was not fine.
“I saw myself as a scrawny teenager who never had boobs and felt too thin, even though I ate like a horse.
“I was the gorky girl who towered above the boys in my class and always played the men in Shakespeare school plays — no delicate little flowers for me.”
Brutal honesty was always her hallmark when presenting BBC’s What Not To Wear in the early Noughties.
More than 20 years on from the makeover show that made her and bestie Susannah Constantine famous, you’d be forgiven for getting a little nervous if you spotted the 60-year-old at your local Boots or Marks & Spencer changing room.
But, Trinny pledges, her ruthless days are now gone.
She says: “People are surprised by how nice I actually am.”
And she adds: “I know it sounds corny, but you’ve really got to love yourself and stop criticising your body. These days, feeling good is so much more important than looking good.”
Besides, she says, years of acne-riddled skin and self-conscious staring in the mirror mean she’s a softer soul who wants to help women, not horrify them.
But when she stepped into the world of fashion in the Nineties, sharing her observations and advice in a weekly newspaper column called Ready To Wear, Trinny felt like the ultimate fraud.
“Imposter syndrome doesn’t even cut it,” she says, recalling her early days in fashion.
“There I was, a twentysomething with scar-pocked skin and tangerine fake tan, wearing jeans that made my legs look two inches tall.
“My look was very ‘of the moment’. But regrets? I have a few.
“I looked at my reflection and didn’t feel intelligent. But I soon realised that, actually, my opinion did count and I did matter.”
Women listened to Trinny’s advice and her career rocketed into TV with her fellow style guru Susannah.
For four years, the opinionated pair styled up a swathe of fashion-lacking ladies before taking their work abroad and recreating versions of their show in Australia and the US.
Self-love journey
The pair also starred in the mockumentary series Trinny and Susannah — What They Did Next, in 2010.
But it wasn’t until 2017 that Trinny’s self-love journey came full circle with her own make-up range.
Trinny London aims not to “fix” our faces, but give women skincare tools to be their best selves.
Seven years on, it is one of the fastest-growing beauty brands in Europe.
And with her roaring success came deserved self-worth.
Trinny says: “Up until my fifties I was lacking in self-confidence. I don’t believe that every woman should have to go through the angst I did in my twenties.
“When you ask someone about their appearance, it’s never just about what they look like, it’s what they feel like.
“When you get to your fifties, you’re happy with yourself because you know what you want in life. You know what you like. You have this ease, and I’m happy that’s where I’ve found myself.
Cash-guzzling
“Nowadays I don’t wake up in the morning and say ‘I look beastly today’. Instead I think, ‘I look tired . . . what can I do about it?’”
Trinny’s cult brand has a simple mission — to offer effortless, personalised beauty to people of all ages.
Forget the overflowing make-up bag, useless cash-guzzling face creams and out-of-date ointments.
From stacking pots to skin-matching foundation, cleansers and creams, Trinny has made things personal for all of us and, she believes, the simpler the better.
She says: “Do I feel like women wear too much make-up? Yes I do,
“When you peel back the layers of foundation it’s like an archaeologist finding their treasure. Your natural skin is what makes you beautiful so please don’t cover it up.
“But I don’t tell women they should do things. Should, could, would are rubbish words in the dictionary.”
It’s a motto she has tried to stick to with her 20-year-old daughter Lyla — whom she had with ex-husband Johnny Elichaoff — but her motherly pleas can fall on deaf ears.
She says with a sigh: “I hate, hate, hate that Lyla eats so much sugar, but she’s on her own journey.
“I find myself pleading with her, ‘darling, please don’t pick that spot’, but she ignores me.
‘My memory of horror’
“Three days later I’ll say it again. I can’t help it. It’s my memory of the horror I felt when my skin was scarred.”
It’s no secret that Trinny has had a tweakment or two over the years — but unlike many smoke-and-mirror celebrities, she’s refreshingly frank about it.
“I got Botox from a rude Frenchman at 35 and never looked back,” she says.
“I’d done loads of screen tests for TV and hated how much my forehead moved.
“People would say, ‘but your forehead won’t move an inch’ and I said, ‘bring it on’.
“I’ve had filler to hide my dark circles and threading in my jaw, I’ve tried retinoids and I’m currently using an LED gadget that looks like a vibrator. I also drain my lymph nodes in an exercise I like to call ‘bleeding the radiator’.
I got Botox from a rude Frenchman at 35 and never looked back
Trinny Woodall
“Every morning I slap my face around and apply my retinol because, eventually, it will actually make me look better. My vanity is at a level where I’ll take the time to pull faces in the mirror because it’ll make my face hang that little bit less. So why not?”
Trinny’s rise to being a powerhouse businesswoman had a few bumps along the way, and the reason is, rather depressingly, to do with her age.
She says “When I was looking for funding for Trinny London, I emailed 250 companies and the responses were . . . interesting.
“One said I was ‘too old’ and another asked me ‘You’re already 50, will you have the energy to run the business?’
“People think I’ve always been successful but I won’t forget the times I lived on £8 a week, wondering if I had a future.
“There’s much more to be done in the world of female business. When I’m at a stage where I have more time and energy I want to do something that helps fund these women.
“There’s a real art to paying it forward.”