Make-up mogul Charlotte Tilbury shares her Australian make-up mission
Charlotte Tilbury is on track to become one of the industry’s greats. She shares why empowering women to look and feel their best is a calling she takes very seriously.
What was the first thing Charlotte Tilbury’s mother Patsy asked her make-up artist daughter after she received her MBE from Queen Elizabeth II for services to the beauty and cosmetics industry? “Did you let the woman talk?” recounts Tilbury, laughing. “I told Her Majesty we’d made a lipstick collection in her honour in addition to a shoot with corgis. Her gorgeous little crystal-blue eyes lit up and she gave me a huge smile. The whole day was so humbling and exciting. I forgot what I was supposed to do. I almost called her darling and gave her a big hug!”
If speed talking was a sport, Tilbury would win a gold medal, the words pouring out of her a mile a minute. Yet the 52-year-old’s relentless energy and infectious enthusiasm has clearly served her well. The eponymous make-up and skincare empire she launched in 2013 is now the biggest and most successful beauty venture to emerge from the UK. In 2020 Spanish cosmetics conglomerate Puig acquired a majority stake, putting the value back then at about $1.2 billion. Tilbury retains a substantial majority and remains as its founder, president, chairwoman and chief creative officer. Last month she came in at No.345 on the 2025 Sunday Times Rich List with a personal fortune estimated at £350 million ($730 million).
Tilbury is dressed for our meeting in one of her signature black plunging V-neckline jersey dresses, gold vintage “goddess” chains piled around her neck, her fingers festooned with a mix of signet and black rings (“Kate Moss gave me this one; this one’s from my husband”). She should be rendered mute by now, having endured six hours straight of back-to-back meetings. But the waist-length cascade of crimson locks are tousled to perfection, her chiselled cheekbones appear airbrushed and this iron butterfly is raring to go. “Look, darling,” she declares. “I don’t need to work anymore, but I’m way too passionate about this brand and I just want to create,” she admits. “I’m across every aspect of this business. Store design, product, advertising, innovation. My team say, ‘OK, Charlotte, we’ve got enough new products [in the pipeline] to keep us going until 2030’.” [Pause for a much-needed breath.] “I’m a trailblazer, a rebel and I’m just going to say it – a visionary. Sometimes I’m too ahead of my time.”
Tilbury’s love of make-up developed at about age 13, like most teenage girls. But what set her apart was an intense fascination with facial structure. “My bedroom wall was plastered with black and white posters of Marilyn Monroe, Greta Garbo, Audrey Hepburn …” she says. “I’d forensically study their eyelash formation. Why their cheekbones looked the way they did. Their facial architecture. Their lips. Their brows. From an early age, I recognised the power a woman’s beauty could command when she walked in a room.”
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Watching her artist father Lance working in his studio also provided an invaluable education. Tilbury was brought up in Chelsea in London, and moved to Ibiza as a child, returning to the UK at 13 to board at Michael Hall, a Rudolf Steiner (Waldorf) school in Sussex. “I grew up around a lot of music and film stars, and my parents had a big understanding of creativity and an appreciation of beauty,” she says. Observing my father work taught me about colour theory and light. They knew this beauty editor Penny Rich, who would load me up with these huge cases full of lipsticks, powders and mascara that I’d take back to school and give everyone makeovers.”
After leaving school and undertaking a three-month course at London’s Glauca Rossi School of Make Up, Tilbury scored a gig assisting legendary make-up artist Mary Greenwell (Princess Diana’s go-to) working the international fashion week and red-carpet circuits. Gaining a reputation among the ’90s supermodel set for her glowing skin techniques and the now famous Tilbury liquid-lined “feline flick” eye, she carved out what she calls a “rare career”.
“Before, you either were a fashion show make-up artist, an editorial make-up artist or a red-carpet make-up artist, but I’ve spanned all three. I’d do a celebrity for a cover of Vogue or Vanity Fair, and then I’d be invited to do awards season or travel with them. Giving women the best versions of themselves became my USP [unique selling point],” Tilbury says of her trajectory.
Consulting gigs for brands including Helena Rubenstein, Armani, Tom Ford and M.A.C followed, but the unswervingly clear-eyed Tilbury was desperate to create products she felt weren’t available. She’d sit in her atelier, plotting how to disrupt and innovate the market, visualising objects that felt more like jewels than products. “I wanted to bring fun back to make-up but also create performance-driven formulas that gave professional results,” she explains.
Shortly after officially launching her range in the UK, Tilbury designed 10 colour-coded “ready-to-wear” make-up looks that channelled an archetype: The Golden Goddess (with Gisele, Elle Macpherson and Jennifer Aniston as her muses), The Rock Chick (inspired by bestie Kate Moss), The Uptown Girl … “Giving our consumers these looks is just one way I’ve held their hand this entire journey,” she explains. “When she’s in a store, she gets a product, an image, a how-to-get-the-look. When she gets home she can watch a YouTube video. If she can’t get to a store, the shop can come to her with our app that’s had two million downloads.” (The AI-driven Easy Beauty For You app equips users with the ability to match their correct make-up shades.)
“Australia is somewhere I associate with golden goddesses and a beachy glow, so I’m really looking forward to visiting and seeing Bondi for the first time,” she adds. In 2021 the brand arrived in Mecca and is the retailer’s most successful debut to date.
“We made history with Charlotte’s biggest-ever virtual masterclass with more than 15,000 attendees,” Mecca’s Jo Horgan tells Wish later. “It’s her game-changing formulas and next-level innovation, which comes from decades of experience as a make-up artist and product developer.” For this upcoming visit Horgan will co-host The Greatest Glow On Earth masterclass with Tilbury at Melbourne Town Hall on June 14. The sold-out event will host an estimated 1500 attendees and will also be livestreamed.
Today Tilbury has more than 2800 people working for her, more than 3500 points of distribution and 31 stand-alone stores globally, including a flagship 400-square-metre Beauty Wonderland in Covent Garden that opened in January. It’s the No.1 prestige make-up brand in the UK (ranking third in the US) as well as a viral sensation, ranking as the No.1 beauty brand for both earned media and organic influencer posts, as well as notching up 26 million searches every year.
But with success like this comes a raft of imitators. Lower-priced mass brands frequently knock off her bestsellers (such as Flawless Filter and Beauty Light Wand) and whereas once you wouldn’t admit to buying dupes, now they’re a badge of honour – particularly for Gen Zs. It’s a phenomenon that presents a growing problem for Tilbury. “The saddest thing for me about duping, is that you’re duping the consumer,” she laments. “If they have a bad reaction or experience with it, it impacts their relationship with make-up.” She cites her Hollywood Flawless Filter as an example. “These dupes are basically just highlighters – which people are rubbing all over their faces – while my formula hydrates your skin and blurs imperfections. I see people on social media comparing the two, saying ‘It’s the same thing!’. No, it’s not! All you’ve done is accentuate your lines and your pores. Sorry! I genuinely just care so much about my consumers.”
It’s a passion she extends to women achieving their dreams. Which is a key reason why in February 2024 the brand became the first female-founded business to sponsor the F1 Academy – an entry-level program for female drivers entering motorsport. “It’s my mission to support and empower these women. Do you know that more women have circumnavigated the earth than driven a Formula One car? To think I can champion the next generation of drivers. It aligns with my motto in life: to disrupt and innovate.”
With more than 500 products currently in the Charlotte Tilbury range encompassing skincare, make-up and fragrance (including six emotion-boosting scents that launched in May 2024), it is Tilbury’s reputation as the queen of complexion that have made her powders and foundations the standout bestsellers. Particularly Unreal Skin Sheer Glow Tint Foundation – a no-make-up make-up and hyaluronic acid-infused “stick” that she heralds as her biggest innovation. “It’s a hydrating foundation that blurs and smoothes with skincare benefits,” she explains. “It’s mirrorless make-up. Darling, I think this is revolutionary.”
With Puig progressively assuming ownership until 2031, Tilbury is rightfully proud that she has “tripled the revenue since they’ve taken over” and thrives under the autonomy she’s granted. “They leave me to do what I do. You only have one life and I’m always thinking about this brand,” she says.
So, does she ever unwind? Her mouth creeps into a wry smile. “Apparently, I’m an active relaxer. I don’t go to yoga. I don’t meditate. And I definitely can’t drink coffee My mother says, ‘You were born with a battery in your back’.”
Nailed it again, Mum.
This story is from the June issue of WISH.
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