On the glitzy island of Ibiza in the 1980s, a young Charlotte Tilbury watches her mother, Patsy, carefully apply a sweep of statement red lipstick before a night out clubbing. Black-and-white posters of Marilyn Monroe, Brigitte Bardot and Audrey Hepburn cover the walls, which Charlotte spends hours studying. ‘My mother was my first beauty icon. She’d always say, “Darling, lipstick is instant glamour,”’ says Charlotte, makeup artist to the stars turned beauty mogul. ‘I had all these posters of celebrities and I’d look at their lash formation and cheekbones, their nose contours, lip lines and eyebrow formation. I was obsessed.’
Her father, Lance, was an artist and taught her the importance of light and shade and how to harmonise colours. But it wasn’t until Charlotte was a teenager that she discovered what applying these techniques to makeup could achieve.
‘A beauty editor, who was a friend of the family, gave me tons of makeup when I went to boarding school. I have quite fair lashes, so the mascara really brought attention to my eyes,’ she remembers. ‘I was very artistic, so it felt natural when I started doing other people’s makeup, and I realised how powerful people’s reactions to themselves were. It gave them confidence, and if you look good, you feel good.’
Charlotte now lives in London with her two sons, the elder from a previous marriage to actor Charles Forbes, and the younger with her now husband, the film producer George Waud, who she married in 2014. The family also spend time in Ibiza.
The early transformative effect of makeup stuck with Charlotte. After school, she studied at the Glauca Rossi School Of Make-Up in London and went on to become one of the fashion industry’s most famous makeup artists. She was just 19 when she worked on one of her first magazine covers with Kate Moss.
‘That was a pretty amazing moment,’ says Charlotte, who now counts Kate as a close friend and has since worked with A-listers including Penélope Cruz and Jennifer Aniston. It was while working on these famous faces and others that she became frustrated by the limits of some makeup products.
‘Powders were a disaster,’ she says. ‘Heavy, claggy and sat in pores and lines. Setting sprays were like spraying hairspray on the face, and eyeshadows were a funky mix of colours nobody wanted.’
Working as a consultant to makeup companies on the side, Charlotte became involved in product development, which sparked the idea to launch a beauty line of her own. ‘I’d been a creative consultant to other brands and I’d left a pretty successful legacy of innovations behind me,’ she says. ‘But I kept some of the best ideas and formulas for myself.’
When she voiced her ambition to start her own brand, industry colleagues said that makeup was an overcrowded market and she’d never make it. She went for it anyway and secured her first round of investment in 2012. It launched the following year.
‘There are always naysayers, but they just put more wind in my sails. If anyone tells me I’m crazy or I’ll never do it, I say, “Just watch me,”’ says Charlotte. ‘I’ve always thought big; I don’t really know how to do small things.’
She began developing her own products with cosmetics labs, adding skincare properties to makeup. ‘I didn’t invent powder, but I reinvented the category. We were putting in rose wax, almond oil and working with scientists to finely mill the powders to be micro fine,’ she says of the process that resulted in her bestselling Airbrush Flawless Finish Powder. ‘I remember J.Lo saying, “You’ve made my pores disappear! How have you made me look younger with powder?”’
Charlotte Tilbury AIRBRUSH FLAWLESS FINISH 2 MEDIUM
Charlotte would test out her products at photoshoots and on famous friends, including Kate Moss. The model has since fronted multiple campaigns for her. ‘Kate’s one of my best friends and an icon for the brand. She’s loved the brand and had the products before Charlotte Tilbury Beauty existed.’
Charlotte credits her brand’s early surge of success to word of mouth, as celebs and customers raved about her products. ‘It just took off from day one. I remember being stocked in Selfridges for the first time and them saying it would be great to make a few thousand pounds that day. I said, “No, it’s going to be much more.” They thought I was crazy, but we made 10 times that,’ she says. ‘I knew I had incredible products, I’d spoken to my audience, I did all the press and PR, and the minute people touched the products, the business just flew.’
In 2020, Charlotte sold a majority stake to Spanish company Puig, for reportedly more than €1bn. She remains as chair, president and chief creative officer of the brand.
One of the brand’s selling points is that it caters for a wide range of skin tones and ages. Products are advertised with ‘beautiful before, beautiful after’ examples on a diverse selection of models, including Dame Joan Collins, who became one of the faces of the brand in 2019, at the age of 86. For its founder, it’s all about helping every woman feel her best. ‘Life is about confidence,’ the 51-year-old says. ‘That’s why I’m really passionate about what I do, because if you give someone that, you give them empowerment.’
With her glamorous look – red locks and sultry eye makeup – and her catchphrase, ‘Darling!’, Charlotte herself has become famous. She harnesses this image to lean headfirst into her brand and is active across social media. She often goes viral on Instagram and TikTok for her joyfully eccentric videos, exclaiming, ‘Darlings!’ as she announces a new product with an exaggerated wink, or giving an acapella rendition of Your Song to support pal Elton John’s AIDS Foundation during this year’s Pride month.
As her name is on the packaging, Charlotte is synonymous with the brand and uses that as motivation. ‘I don’t feel that to be a pressure. I’m a real “dare to dream it, dare to believe it, dare to do it” girl. Not everyone wants to build an empire, but I do,’ she says. ‘My premise was to innovate, disrupt, create and change people’s lives. That’s why I jump out of bed – I’m so excited about what I do. As long as I feel like that, with my name above the door, that will continue.’
While her Magic Cream moisturiser and Pillow Talk lipstick are two of her most famous products, Charlotte continues to innovate. She’s worked with neuroscientists to develop fragrances that elicit specific moods (empowerment, happiness, seduction and more) and created products inspired by Instagram’s smooth filters. She’s also embraced AI and smartphone apps – the Charlotte Tilbury app allows users to analyse their skin virtually and access step-by-step tutorials on makeup application.
Charlotte Tilbury MATTE REVOLUTION PILLOW TALK ORIGINAL
This year, Charlotte also became the first female founder and first beauty brand to partner with the Formula 1 Academy, an all-female racing series. ‘I was brought up with F1 drivers. Niki Lauda and Keke Rosberg were both friends of my parents,’ she says. ‘I liked go-karting and my father would say, “Oh my God, what is this crazy, competitive spirit?” when I was driving on the tracks. It was that thing of, “Let’s win, let’s do it.” I love that adrenaline-junkie excitement.’
So, when Susie Wolff, MD of the F1 Academy, called looking for sponsorship, Charlotte and her team – including sister Leah, director of brand creative – went all in. ‘We were like, “Yeah, let’s do this!”’ says Charlotte, whose executive team at Charlotte Tilbury is 80% women and whose retail employees are 95% women.
The result was a supercar embellished with the famous Charlotte Tilbury lip icons and lipsticks of various shades, plus the brand’s slogan, ‘Make Up Your Destiny!’ down one side. Charlotte attended her first race of the F1 Academy 2024 season in Miami, where she was on the track in heels to celebrate the milestone, alongside 18-year-old Lola Lovinfosse, driver of the Charlotte Tilbury car.
‘It just felt so exciting because we’re all about breaking down barriers. Even though 40% of F1 viewership is women, more women have circumnavigated the Earth than driven an F1 car. I want more equality and more empowerment for women. It felt exciting and it needed backing, and I was the woman to do it.’
As well as supporting a new generation of women in sport, Charlotte has partnered with her friend Amal Clooney’s human rights organisation, the Clooney Foundation for Justice (she also did Amal’s wedding makeup, sharing a step-by-step guide on the Charlotte Tilbury website). She supports charities such as Women for Women International, which helps female survivors of war, and is a long-term ambassador for The Prince’s Trust. And in 2018 she received an MBE from the late Queen Elizabeth II for services to the beauty and cosmetics industry.
‘It’s really important for me, as I’ve been so blessed as a female entrepreneur, to be able to support, inspire and fund others,’ says Charlotte. ‘I do it for women, particularly fellow entrepreneurs.’ And when it comes to tips for women looking to start a business, she says, ‘My advice is: never give up, be determined. Believe, believe, believe. And if you don’t believe, fake it ’til you make it! I’m a big believer in creative visualisation.’
Even after a long day at work, Charlotte can’t resist having fun with her A-list friends, such as Amal Clooney, Kate Moss and Sienna Miller. ‘People say, how have you worked that hard and now you’re going out? But I believe you have one life to live and it’s today,’ she says. ‘I love parties, I love seeing my friends.’
But it’s in the quieter moments that she finds her haven. ‘I love being with my kids,’ she says. ‘Watching a film, lying in bed with my kids, or walking around my garden.’
Another source of Charlotte’s seemingly endless energy is her enthusiasm to innovate. She says: ‘People should think limitlessly. How big do you want your dreams to be? Change one person, change a community, change the world. That ripple effect – it’s huge.’ And Charlotte’s ripple has to be one of the biggest of them all.
