PODCAST: Season 3, Episode 4: Trinny Woodall of Trinny London

Work Rest Slay is a monthly podcast hosted by IMAGE Contributing Editor Melanie Morris, who speaks to some of the most compelling Irish and international people in business, spilling the truth on the real secret sauce for a successful career.

Our next episode in the series launches on Wednesday, April 24, 2024, and features Trinny Woodall, founder and CEO of one of Europe’s fastest-growing beauty brands Trinny London.

Work Rest Slay: In this episode…

In this episode of Work Rest Slay, Trinny shares her impressive and long-spanning career journey that landed her at the helm of a majorly successful brand in the world of beauty. She also shares some exciting news for Irish customers – Trinny London have just launched their very own beauty counter in Dublin’s Brown Thomas – the first of many upcoming stores in Ireland.

“Trinny Woodall has had a few professional incarnations, initially in the worlds of banking and finance, before journalism and broadcast,” opens Melanie. “Along with her pal, Susannah Constantine, a love of fashion, and an ability to engage with real women, Trinny spent the early part of the 2000s teaching us what not to wear on the BBC – one of the most successful TV series of its time, and one that spawned plenty of other business opportunities for both women.

“But in 2017, Trinny took things a step, or really, a giant leap further, she launched a beauty brand, something that anyone even on the peripherals of the industry will tell you is costly, and definitely not easy. What’s more, she was 53 years old. Fast forward to today, and Trinny London is achieving huge success. The business has generated 55 million pounds in revenue to March 2023, and has 1.2 million customers around the world. The brand is available globally, online, and through retail in the UK, Australia, the US and, as of recently, Ireland via the Brown Thomas group.”

Finding balance

As someone who’s had a constantly evolving career and seen exponential growth in her own beauty business, Trinny stresses how important it is for women to prioritise their wellness – no matter how many balls they have in the air, as well as create opportunities to forge new connections.

“[It’s important to] look after your body to let your body look after you. So, I do know that if I don’t look after it, I will feel exhausted. The first four years of the business I probably said no to most things – I didn’t go out that much, life was inside my home and at the office because I knew when you start as an entrepreneur, you need to do 20 hours a day, six days a week…

“So I pace myself. And probably this year, I made a decision to say ‘yes’ to everything instead of ‘no’ to everything because that was just where I’m at in my life. If we keep doing the same thing, we never meet new people, and I just love meeting new people… you don’t know where something’s going to come from next. So that can be good, but it can also be challenging. If we think we know everything, nothing new will happen.”

For ‘the grown-up women’

Trinny London is uniquely placed in the fact that it is both a cosmetics and skincare brand, and it’s created for “grown-up” women who feel as if they’ve been left behind in the beauty industry. “[When I started the brand] I really felt at the time there’s this woman there who is 35 plus, who is looking at images in store of 18-year-old women who have been airbrushed and thinking: ‘Am I being spoken to?’…she’s looking out for herself.”

We’re there for the grown-up women, says Trinny. She’s drawn to the term ‘grown-up’ because “it’s far more inclusive for many different actual ages”. This could be a 23-year-old or a 60-year-old but both of whom are investing in beauty products because they have decided, “I want to look after me”.

For more on Trinny’s career journey, listen to the newest episode of Work Rest Slay below:

About Trinny

When Founder and CEO Trinny Woodall created her disruptive namesake brand, Trinny London, in 2017, it quickly became one of Europe’s fastest-growing direct-to-consumer start-ups.

Trinny London was born with a clear mission – to give women the tools they need to feel their best through personalised, stackable, multitasking makeup and highly active skincare. Trinny’s unrivalled entrepreneurship has seen the business grow rapidly, with over 7 million products sold in 180 countries since its launch. As the business has scaled, Trinny has built an incredibly loyal community through both her personal and Trinny London audiences, while also nurturing a dedicated global online community, known as the Trinny Tribe.

Both Trinny and Trinny London have won a number of well-recognised awards, including the NatWest everywoman Brand of the Future Award, The CEW Achiever Award and The CEW Digital Innovation Award – a first in CEW UK Achiever Award history. Trinny’s love of business and entrepreneurship can be seen through her support of other start-up founders in the form of mentoring, regularly speaking at industry events, and launching the Elevator Pitch series on her Instagram – a space where female entrepreneurs are invited to pitch their business ideas to a wider audience.

Watch the full episode

This season of Work Rest Slay is in partnership with Range Rover. Every Range Rover leads by example with modernist design, connected, refined interiors and electrified performance driving unrivalled luxury – inspired by exemplary design since 1970. As part of a sustainability-rich vision of modern luxury by design, every Range Rover is available as an electric hybrid. A fully electric Range Rover will arrive in 2025 and a fully electric Range Rover Sport in 2026.