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In her 60s, Tricia Cusden felt ignored by beauty brands and retailers, and struggled to find makeup products that worked for her skin. So her idea was simple: she wanted to create make-up products that were specifically formulated to enhance the beauty of older faces, and celebrate age rather than trying to reverse it.
More than a decade later, Look Fabulous Forever is a successful make-up brand that Tricia runs alongside her daughters; and it’s received thousands of glowing reviews from customers worldwide. You can browse the full range of products using the button below.
After partnering with Look Fabulous Forever to give our members more insights into beauty tips, tricks, and products for mature skin, we sat down with Tricia to learn more about her entrepreneurial journey.
As well as being an advocate for mature women in the world of beauty, Tricia’s tenacious spirit and drive to turn her passions into a career in her 60s, are also hugely inspiring. But where did it all begin? And what advice does Tricia have for others who may want to follow in her footsteps?
“Suddenly I wasn't needed as much, so I wasn’t sure what my purpose was”
Tricia, from South West London, was 65 years old when she started searching for a fresh sense of purpose. She’d previously worked as a management training consultant – but gave this up to help care for her baby granddaughter who had a rare chromosomal condition.
She says, “I was plunged into a very difficult situation, which I hadn’t anticipated. It was extremely emotional the whole time. We thought the baby was going to die, so I was trying to support [my daughter] Suzy and [Suzy’s husband] Ben. I also spent some of the time in the hospital with baby India when Suzy needed to be at home, as she had my other granddaughter to care for as well, who was two and a half at the time.”
Thankfully, India survived and was released from the hospital with a comprehensive care package, which included overnight care. And, eventually, things improved enough that Suzy and Ben were able to hire a special needs nanny to help them instead.
This meant that Tricia went from being in a full-time, hands-on role, supporting her family, to wondering how she would fill her time. Tricia explains, “Suddenly I wasn’t needed as much, so I wasn’t sure what my purpose was. What was I going to do with the rest of my life? I was 65 and healthy and, I kept thinking, statistically, there’s a good chance I’ll live until I’m 95.”
So, Tricia went back to the drawing board with one key question in mind: “What do I love?” And, the answer was simple: she loved business…
“I’ve always loved business. I love the idea of taking an idea, making money out of it, and building a team.”
“I want to say that it's fine to be older. You can still be beautiful. You can still engage with the beauty industry”
Today, at 76, Tricia is an avid reader, lover of the arts, and founder of Look Fabulous Forever – an award-winning make-up brand for mature women.
Look Fabulous Forever launched in 2013 after Tricia decided to combine her love of business with her frustration at being unable to find beauty products that worked well for her skin.
Tricia says, “I hated the way that the beauty industry treated me as an older woman. By this, I mean that all they were interested in selling me if I went to a beauty counter was really expensive anti-ageing creams. Make-up is also all too often pitched at people with young, unlined faces, and seen as difficult to apply to older skin. And, I thought to myself, why is that the only game in town for a 65-year-old woman? It’s nonsense.
“I wanted to send a different message to older women. I want to say that it’s fine to be older. You can still be beautiful. You can still engage with the beauty industry. You can still desire to look your best through the application of make-up.”
Taking a leap of faith…
Putting these ideas together, Tricia’s next thought was to train as a make-up artist herself – so she could offer makeovers and expert advice on make-up application for mature skin. But Tricia also realised that, by selling her time, which she only had a limited amount of, she was also limiting her money-making ability.
So, in early 2013, Tricia decided that she wanted to create formulated make-up for mature skin that hydrated and enhanced the face. The aim was to use this idea to scale her business, build a team around it, and reach more people. She started by simply Googling cosmetic manufacturers, leading her to Creative Cosmetics in Ipswich.
Thinking back to that time, Tricia says, “I thought I could go to Ipswich and stay with my brother who lives down the road, and I could talk to them, which I did. I can remember driving there and thinking that this would be a very critical conversation because I had only had £40,000 to invest in the business: the product, the design, the website, everything…
“But, Alan Major, the guy at Creative Cosmetics I spoke to, was older himself, and he just sat there and said, ‘I love the idea, it’s brilliant – I think we can make you these products. Give me all the brands you’re already using, and we’ll look at the formulations, see what’s in them, and create something. You can test it and see if you like it.’”
So, Tricia chose roughly 12 make-up products: five for the face, four for the eyes, and three for the lips. And while Creative Cosmetics usually asked for a minimum of between five and 10,000 orders per product, Alan agreed to sell Tricia 200 of each product to start with.
Tricia says, “Alan was just fantastic and I just felt so elated because I thought, wow, this could work. The rest of the year, he developed products and I tested them. I did my makeup artist course, got a designer involved in packaging, and came up with a logo. I also spent one evening throwing business names down on a piece of paper and came up with ‘Look Fabulous Forever’.
“I went with ‘Look’ because, of course, make-up is very visual; ‘Fabulous’ because you don’t expect older women to look fabulous – that’s not two words you usually put together and apply to older women – and ‘Forever’ to get across the idea of longevity and in perpetuity.”
“Online orders started coming in from all over the world and it was so exciting”
Once Tricia had a business name and some products, the hard work wasn’t over, as the next and, perhaps most important step, was marketing them, of which video played a significant role.
Having used video training as a tool in her management consultancy business, these skills enabled her to come up with virtual make-up tutorials, which she uploaded to the Look Fabulous Forever website – and then onto YouTube.
“My video editor suggested adding these videos to YouTube and I honestly thought no one would find them.”
Yet, remarkably, two months after being uploaded to YouTube, her videos were getting 1,000 views per day – and, coupled with Tricia’s in-person sales pitches, tutorials, and make-up parties, started generating orders.
She says, “Online orders started coming in from all over the world and it was so exciting. I’d go out sometimes on rainy evenings to do makeover parties. Then, I’d get home and find I’d sold four or five times as much online while I was gone – so it became obvious very quickly that the way to go was to make it an online business and concentrate on that.”
“I've had so many people say to me in person and by email, ‘You saved my life’”
Since then, Tricia’s business has gone through ups and downs, but she explains that the COVID-19 pandemic helped cement the brand’s relationship with its customers.
“I started thinking, right, people at home are going to need entertainment, support, and kindness”, Tricia explains. “They might be very isolated and live alone like I do. So I started a closed Facebook group called Tricia’s Super Troopers and I also decided that I would post a new video five days a week, at 4pm.
“The videos would be called ‘Tea Time at the Ritz with Tricia’. We would imagine ourselves sitting at the Ritz for a beautiful tea time, perhaps even with our hats and gloves on. It would be a sort of glamorous occasion. We’d all have our makeup on and enjoy a tea time together. So I made 60 videos in 12 weeks talking about anything and everything under the sun.
“It was the most brilliant success for our business, and not only did our sales not decline – they actually stabilised and, to a certain extent, went up. I mean the engagement was phenomenal and I’ve had so many people say to me in person and by email, ’ You saved my life.’”
While the sense of community around Look Fabulous Forever is undoubtedly a huge part of its success, Tricia also believes strongly in the power of make-up, and the impact that it can have on how people carry themselves.
She explains, “Make-up is an amazing way to enhance the way you look. The right make-up used in the right way can make an enormous difference to how you feel. And, if you feel better, you’re going to walk better, and people are going to respond to you differently and more positively.
“In fact, the other day, I was at a Super Troopers lunch and this lady leaned across the table. She said she was 70 years old and felt completely lost after her husband died. She’d given up on herself and thought nobody cared about her anymore.
“But after watching one of my YouTube videos, she’d ordered some make-up and started using it the way I’d suggested. She said, ‘you’ve literally given me back my life and I feel like a completely different person.’”
“If I was on a desert island and could only choose one product, I would choose lipstick!”
For Tricia and her business, the sky seems to be the limit and she has no plans to slow down – in fact, Look Fabulous Forever recently bought Creative Cosmetics and is setting up a European distribution. And with so much talk about make-up, we were keen to know what her favourite Look Fabulous Forever products were.
“I only use Look Fabulous Forever products,” says Tricia, “and I’ve got one skincare product, which we introduced about six months ago – it’s a beautiful SPF 50 serum. I tried it for six months before we got stocks of it and I love everything about it; the feel on the skin and the way my makeup goes on over and over the top of it.
“Then, in terms of actual makeup. It’s very difficult to choose one. But I reckon the one thing that makes a difference to mature faces is bright lipstick. A lot of women are very conservative when it comes to lipstick but I think that bright shades light up a mature face. So if I were on a desert island and could only choose one product, I would choose lipstick!”
A final thought…
And, finally, to anyone who may be thinking about starting a new venture later in life, Tricia says, “I would say do it every time, take the risk, make the call, whatever action you have to do to actually get it going. Just be sure to limit the risk to whatever you can afford to lose, in case you don’t have time to recoup any significant personal losses.
“I also passionately believe that, when you start putting energy out into the world around an idea that people like, that energy redoubles and rebounds, and people start to get excited about it.”
To get make-up tips and tricks, and browse Look Fabulous Forever’s full range of products, you can visit the website using the button below.
Can you relate to Tricia’s story? Or perhaps it’s inspired you to start your own venture or experiment with make-up? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.