You don’t have to be a business guru to start a beauty business. You don’t even have to be flush with cash to get your start up off the ground. What you do need is a vision and the passion to make your idea come to life.
 
When I started my first business Wrap Star, a hair accessory company back in 2000, I was working as a beauty editor for a teen magazine and was inspired by all the new innovative products I was being introduced to every day. This sparked an untapped ingenuity in me that I felt compelled to follow. Between my knowledge of the industry and my support network of creatives that I tapped on regularly for advice, I was able to navigate my way into creating a successful brand that sold in hundreds of retail locations around the country.
 
Currently, I just launched my second beauty start up; Beautyologie.com, an independently run e-commerce and content site dedicated to fair trade and ethically sourced beauty. While I have learned plenty over the course of my career, which also includes running a beauty PR business for 15 years, I know full well that there is no secret formula to starting your own business. To help aspiring beauty entrepreneurs take the plunge, here are some tips I have used along my journey so far.
 
1. Believe in Your Idea
 
What was the main reason that made you come up with your business idea in the first place? Write it down on a piece of paper and put it somewhere that you can see every day. If you ever feel like you’re veering off track or losing confidence, look back at this. It will keep you grounded and on track.
 
Once I decided to stop running Wrap Star after 6 years, I told myself that I wouldn’t create another company unless I truly believed I had the best idea and that there was nothing else like it. I immersed myself instead into the PR side if the beauty industry. But when the idea for Beautyologie came into my head, I truly felt I was ready to get back in the game. Now armed with all this knowledge and experience, I want to use my time on this planet to do to something meaningful and I believe in my vision.
 
After returning from a trip to India and witnessing how western consumerism affects the poor in South Asia, I began researching fair trade and how it can empower these communities. I realized that the basic principles of fair-trade businesses are all trending in the beauty industry such as sustainability, gender equity, and transparency with supply chains & ingredient formulations, yet no one was really talking about fair trade in beauty. Or even just talking about the people who are sourcing the ingredients that go into your beauty products. Are they being treated fairly? Are they making a fair wage? My idea soon came to life; to create a marketplace for beauty consumers who care about where their money is going when they buy a skin cream or body oil, and to know that they’re enhancing the lives of the women around the globe who helped create it.
 
While it’s easy to get thrown off course while creating this business, I keep reminding myself of why I wanted to create it in the first place, and it keeps me centered.
 
2. Know Your Market
 
Do you know the type of customer that would be interested in your product or business idea enough to spend money on it? Before diving in headfirst, it’s essential to define your target market to gauge whether there is a true need and desire for your creation in the first place. This can be done by choosing specific demographics to target and looking at attributes such as age, income level, location, gender and occupation. You can also consider the psychographics of your market. This means the personalities, attitudes, hobbies and values of your target shopper. Checking out the competition is also essential to homing in on your market.
 
When it came time for me to decide whether beauty consumers were looking for a fair-trade beauty marketplace, I took into consideration the increasing rise in conscious consumerism in the beauty industry. The global market for natural cosmetics is valued to be $54.5 billion by 2027. Not to mention, the overall trend encompassing the beauty industry is completely centered around organic, natural, non-toxic, vegan, sustainable, cruelty-free and ethically sourced ingredients. It’s not just nice to have these things be part of your beauty routine anymore, for many many consumers, it’s essential.
 
3. Identify a Need Not Being Met
 
This is easier said than done considering the world really doesn’t need another beauty product. But if you can pinpoint an open space in the beauty industry that isn’t already saturated with a million versions of the same thing, then you’re already on your way.
 
In my own research, I came across several beauty brands formulating with fair trade ingredients as well as brands that follow a social entrepreneurial business model working directly with producers in developing countries to receive their product ingredients in return for fair employment. What I didn’t find was a place to shop all these likeminded brands in one place. How cool would it be if that existed?!
 
4. Ask for Help
 
Starting any kind of business can be incredibly lonely and leave you questioning so many details. While you may be a pro at figuring out the marketing and PR for your business (like me!), you may have no idea about SEO or designing an e-commerce site for your beauty products (also me!). Set yourself up for success by plunging into a community of people who are available to tap on for advice. Find a networking group online or seek the advice of a mentor to help you piece your puzzle together. While it may feel uncomfortable to ask for help, you’ll be amazed at where it can take you.
 
I recently joined a couple female founder networks for this very purpose. As a naturally shy and quiet person, getting online with a bunch of strangers and sharing all about what I don’t know is not necessarily my idea of a good time, but it has been really helpful. I’ve gotten connected to other women who were able to guide me in the right direction within minutes. Had I not done that, who knows where I might be right now.
 
5. Have Patience
 
This is probably the hardest tip to follow. Entrepreneurs by nature can be an intense bunch of Type A personalities always thinking about ways to scale, improve and solve problems. When you’re impatient and anxious, you are lacking control, and we all know that’s not a sign of a successful person.
 
Beauty is a crowded marketplace. Every five seconds it seems like another brand is popping up or another start up just got funded a million dollars or won some amazing grant. That alone is enough to make any aspiring beauty entrepreneur spin out and lose faith. Practicing patience is something I personally work at every day. It helps me to avoid mistakes, sharpens my drive, gives me perspective and makes me work smarter. Even more importantly, when I practice patience, it helps me visualize my goal, and nothing feels better than that!
 

About the Expert
In 1998, Robin Tolkan-Doyle landed a coveted position as a beauty editor for an inspirational teen magazine where she tested and wrote about every beauty product ever created. Years of freelance writing and editing for several publications and websites followed along with the creation of her own beauty accessory brand—Wrap Star—which graced the pages of national magazines and the shelves of well-known shops on Fifth Avenue and Robertson Blvd.
 
Ultimately, the public relations and marketing world of beauty and fashion accessories is where Robin currently resides, running the boutique agency Charmed PR since 2006.
 
Among many career highlights, Robin takes great pride in creating a cult-following for the foot care product Baby Foot; generating enough brand awareness for The Better Skin Co. to land a national Ulta Beauty account, and assisting the award-winning documentary Toxic Beauty to make waves in the media, so much so that Johnson & Johnson removed their talc-formulated products from U.S. shelves in May 2020.
 
Beauty has always been at the forefront of Robin’s professional life, but more recently, her focus has shifted from the products she’s promoting to the intention behind them. With Beautyologie, Robin is proud to present and uplift brands with products that truly make a difference, not just on the surface of your skin, but in the world we live in, according to the company.