Ирландские предприниматели-женщины делятся секретами успеха четырех брендов красоты и здоровья

Irish female founders share industry insights, advice and the inspiring stories behind four beauty and wellness brands you’ll love – if you don’t already. Victoria Brunton writes. I have a habit of seeking out Irish-owned brands - partly because I want to support them, mainly because they are making amazing products. Recently, four in particular have found their way into my routine. After years of enduring London’s hard water, Remi’s Bye Bye Build Up has successfully revived my hair at the root. The Belle Brush’s Treatment Brush glides through masks, serums and wet hair with ease. Gigi’s supplement blend completely erased my period cramps. And, as someone with extremely bushy brows, BROW AID’s S.O.S Advanced Recovery Mask has become a permanent fixture – I apply it at least twice a day. It occurred to me that, beyond the Irish provenance of my routine staples, there was another common denominator: all four businesses were founded by women - Kim O’Sullivan of BROW AID, Claire Fullam of Remi, Jennie Haire of Gigi, and Nancy Costello of The Belle Brush - and each arrived at beauty through very different routes. Kim O’Sullivan has spent 25 years working with brows; Fullam’s experience of losing 90% of her hair to alopecia led her to study trichology; Haire came to Gigi through nutritional therapy and her own experience of debilitating period pain; and Costello developed The Belle Brush after years of working with hair extensions. Something is clearly happening in Irish beauty; homegrown brands are becoming more ambitious, retailers are paying attention and founders who might once have regarded Ireland as the extent of their market are increasingly looking outward. So, why now? "The brands breaking through in Ireland are almost all built by people with real credentials, whether that’s nutritionists, makeup artists, skin therapists, or pharmacists," says Ciara Byrne, founder of Vestra Partners, a venture capital firm dedicated to early-stage beauty, wellness and personal care brands. "[We're in] a time when consumers place more trust in practitioner-led brands over the big legacy houses." These founders didn't decide to launch beauty brands and then go searching for something to sell; each business was born from life experience and specific expertise. "BROW AID wasn’t me thinking, 'I’d love to have a beauty brand – what can I make?’ It was almost the opposite," says O’Sullivan. "When you’ve had thousands of women sitting in your chair, you learn exactly what they struggle with." For Costello, the idea came from watching a client take a hard plastic paddle brush to her extensions. "I can still remember the sound of it ripping through her hair and pulling at the extensions. That was the moment the idea was born." Gigi emerged from a different frustration. As registered nutritional therapists, Haire and her co-founder Lisa found themselves recommending four or five different supplements to women seeking support with hormonal health. "We genuinely struggled to find what we were looking for." And Remi is inseparable from Fullam’s own experience of losing her hair. "I was never drawn to this industry – in fact, I’d probably be repelled by it," she says. "When people say, 'Beauty Founder', I wince." Haire believes the conversation has moved inward. "Women are far more interested in how they actually feel – their energy, their hormones, their cycle, their gut health - than in chasing one look. Wellness and beauty have basically merged." O’Sullivan has watched the opposite movement happen externally. After years in which social media seemed to push women towards "the same brows, the same lips, the same makeup", she sees individuality returning. "Great beauty, for me, is about still looking like yourself – just feeling like the best version of yourself." The value in ‘feeling’ rather than simply ‘looking’ better runs through all four businesses and takes each founder back to their earliest encounters with beauty. O’Haire reflects on her mother doing her "browny-red lipstick in the hall mirror" before going out, while O’Sullivan remembers watching her mother and aunt get ready and thinking, "I just thought they were so glamorous." Costello recalls desperately wanting her best friend’s "real-life princess hair" instead of her own short, frizzy hair. Fullam’s memories are harder. "I remember being acutely aware that I didn’t fit the beauty standard." "I remember deciding I couldn’t rely on this; I had to become more than what I looked like." The power in four women absorbing very different messages about self-image in their formative years and eventually becoming four beauty and wellness founders, actively changing what it can mean, is no small thing – but their success isn’t happening in isolation. Byrne believes Ireland itself may be giving its founders an unexpected advantage. "Ireland has a long tradition of being used as a launch-and-learn market by global brands because it’s the only English-speaking market in the EU; it’s compact, highly digitally engaged and quick to give a verdict. What’s changed is that Irish founders have realised they can use their home market the same way." Smallness becomes useful. Founders can test products, establish margins and supply chains and build loyal customers before taking on much larger markets. Ireland’s independent pharmacy network provides another early route to retail, while Enterprise Ireland supports beauty as an export category. The founders see another advantage: Irish consumers themselves. "We’re a small country, so word of mouth is everything, and you simply can’t get away with over-promising here; your product has to actually deliver, or your community will tell you," says Haire. There is also precedent. O’Sullivan points to Aimee Connolly and Sculpted by Aimee as proof for founders coming behind her that an Irish beauty business can compete internationally. Success breeds success, and that success is being shared. I asked every founder whether women supporting women really matters in business –and what that support actually looks like. "For me, supporting another woman isn’t just posting congratulations when something goes well," says O’Sullivan. "It’s answering the phone when things aren’t going well. It’s recommending her for an opportunity. It’s making an introduction. It’s buying her product. It’s showing up." "And probably most importantly, it’s saying her name in a room when she’s not there." "I’ve probably received some of the best business advice of my life while holding a pair of tweezers!" O’Sullivan adds, citing women like Vogue Williams, Samantha Barry, Peigin Crowley and Pat Kane as valued clients who have advocated for or advised on BROW AID in the chair. When Boots approached Gigi just five months after launch, Haire was unsure how a business so young should navigate such a huge opportunity – Cocoa Brown founder Marissa Carter stepped in. "She jumped on a call with me at the very last minute and talked me through absolutely everything I needed to know," Haire says. "I didn’t know Marissa well at all, yet she had no hesitation about helping me on our journey." Nicola Coughlan has spent years championing The Belle Brush, including bringing the Baby Belle onto Vogue Beauty Secrets. Costello says hair and makeup artists subsequently contact the brand because Coughlan has recommended it on set. Fullam found her network through Going for Growth after initially worrying somebody might discover she "hadn’t a breeze", adding, "you’ll figure out that no one has a breeze – they’re just brave and learning like you." Haire wants Gigi to support women internationally throughout their hormonal health journeys. Costello is taking The Belle Brush into haircare. O’Sullivan wants BROW AID to become "the brand women instinctively trust when it comes to their brows – wherever they are in the world. For Fullam, success isn’t "money, awards, or retailers. It’s the DM, the phone call, the consultation - the random woman stopping me in Dunnes." Haire shares this sentiment: "Revenue tells me the business is healthy; those messages tell me it’s working." What looks like an Irish beauty "moment" has been years in the making: in clinics, salons, treatment chairs, college apartments and conversations between women. What has changed is the scale of the ambition. As O’Sullivan says, "One day you realise you’ve been building the foundations of your business long before you ever gave it a name." The real strength of these Irish beauty founders is that they know the women buying their products, because they were those women first.