Charlotte Tilbury: The Make-up Mogul Who's Built an Empire On 'Pots of Feelings'

Charlotte Tilbury is about to get her Irish passport, courtesy of an Irish grandmother.

“I’m so excited!” she says. “Dublin is such fun, Irish people are such craic. And Irish eyes are so beautiful!”

She’s talking to me as her make up and skincare range launches its Holiday 2024 collection, which includes a €215 heart-shaped advent calendar (there was a waiting list of 30,000 for last year’s edition) and a 16-page press release: That joyful Tilbury feeling! Beautiful confidence! A Magic Gifting Universe of limitless possibilities! Guaranteed gifting happiness!

On Zoom, Tilbury speaks so quickly her words fall over themselves and sentences run into each other.

Everything is amazing, magical, empowering, visionary, revolutionary, incredible! Her Magic Cream “Plumps! Smooths! Blurs! Lifts!” George Clooney and Adam Driver are “obsessed with it!”, nicking it from their wives because it’s “Instant! Skin! Revival!”

I’m not going to lie – until a few days before speaking with her, I’d never heard of Charlotte Tilbury, the woman or the brand, because my idea of skin care is homemade scrub made from coffee grounds and ten quid vegan moisturiser.

I don’t say this out loud for fear of being nail-gunned by exclamation marks.

“I always say if you want to have a beautiful painting you need to have a beautiful canvas,” she says.

She’s talking about her Magic Cream, her original product “born out of necessity” when she was working as a make up artist.

Not just any old make up artist — Tilbury did faces for the Oscars, Emmys, Golden Globes, Vanity Fair party, New York Met Ball, Fashion Weeks in Paris, London, Milan.

She did the wedding make up for Amal Clooney and Kate Moss (“my gorgeous friend and beauty muse”) who is godmother to Tilbury’s two sons, and has worked with the original supermodels — Moss, Christy Turlington, Claudia Schiffer, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford.

“Fashion shows, celebrities, supermodels, exhausted, dehydrated, skin barriers wrecked, make up on and off, using the wrong products, babywipes,” she says.

“So I had to come up with Magic Cream to cocoon the skin, calm the skin, cushion the skin.” She “invented it with my scientists” because she “had a concept and a vision of what I wanted, and the launchpad was backstage. It was a feat, a breakthrough, like giving birth.”

Lesser brands have tried and failed to copy her. Her company sued Aldi in 2019 for copyright when the supermarket launched a product almost identical in appearance to one of hers, for a fraction of the price.

“The quality and efficacy of a Charlotte Tilbury product cannot really be replicated,” she says vehemently.

“They can try, I’d love them to come up with their own ideas, but the reality is that they are just poor, sad, dreadful brands trying to imitate me, and their products would never get a Charlotte Tilbury signature from me.

“I am the first, the original and the best. The integrity, the consistency, the precision, the quality — that’s something I’m incredibly proud of, and it’s not something I see a lot of in some of the people out there.”

The thing is, Charlotte Tilbury the woman has every reason to be hyperbolic about Charlotte Tilbury the brand, which she started 11 years ago, after 22 years of being an A-list make up artist.

It’s sold in 76 countries, and employs 2,500 people globally. In 2020, she sold a majority stake to Spanish cosmetics and perfume company Puig for £1.3bn, while retaining creative control.

She offers several specific looks she calls a Make Up Wardrobe — the Bombshell, the Sophisticate, the Rebel, the Vintage Vamp etc — which make up artists employed by her are trained to recreate via an internal training programme called Start of A Dream.

It’s a kind of franchised aesthetic, so that whether you’re in Dublin or Dubai, there’s a selection of set looks to choose from.

She says her demographic is everyone from 18 to 80, “from celebrities to mums on the school run” and describes her products as “affordable luxury.”

My 14-year-old niece is highly excited by her products, which she’s seen on TikTok.

I pop into a Tilbury shop in London to have a look around; it’s shiny pink and gold, buzzy and hyper, crammed with beautifully packaged items and a lot of women, with moving imagery of Charlotte herself, flowing red hair and glowy skin, overseeing the shop floor: “Darlings!”

Tilbury is a marketing genius, who has placed herself front and centre of her brand, inviting us into her world so that she can share her skills with us. We are all her darlings.

She built her brand via YouTube tutorials, social media how-tos, and the help of her fabulous friends; celebrity as marketing tool.

She’s named lipsticks after Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Aniston, Salma Hayek, Cindy Crawford, Kim Kardashian, and has done the faces of Kylie Minogue, Kate Bosworth, Sofia Vergara, Jennifer Lopez, Helena Bonham Carter, Liv Tyler, Poppy Delavigne, Catherine Zeta Jones, JK Rowling, Susan Sarandon, the Hadid sisters, everyone.

“When I launched my brand 11 years ago, five conglomerates owned the world. I reinvented categories, I revolutionised categories,” she says. “I’m very famous for complexions.”

She admires Estee Lauder, Elizabeth Arden, Helena Rubenstein, Coco Chanel, “pioneers, visionaries, amazing revolutionaries who really saw the power of what [make up] did for women”.

“I have huge admiration forever for those women, and to pick up where they left off, to continue that innovation, disruption, vision, rather than being another copying brand, but instead coming up with these incredible luxurious products that create amazing magic and makes a difference to people’s lives.”

Tilbury, born in 1971, grew up in Ibiza.

“This dreamy beautiful island where everything was so safe, we never locked our doors, every day was fun,” she says.

“My father was an artist — I was brought up in a bohemian environment, my mother taught me about the Celestine Prophecy and creative visualisation as a child.”

Sent to a Rudolph Steiner boarding school in Sussex aged 13 — an education system that nurtures creativity — she discovered mascara and how it made her look different, and in turn how people reacted differently to her.

“Going back to school, instead of tuck, I used to take tons of make up and started doing people’s faces,” she says.

“I got the concept for my brand when I was a teenager at boarding school. And I got to be the best brand in the world!

“My father taught me a lot about colour theory. How to make everything look dreamy and harmonising. Light plays a huge role in how your make up looks — they call me ‘the light thief’, how I’m bottling that light. Eleven years ago, nobody understood glow.

“I am constantly looking at how we bottle light, especially now with Instagram filters and HD TV — that’s why I’m at the forefront of the industry. I know what the customer wants before she knows what she wants — she can’t even imagine or dream of that product. And my incredible scientists indulge me in these dreams and visions, working tirelessly. It’s very exciting coming up with this amazing magic.

“I’m so passionate about it because I see the difference it makes to people’s lives. I have left my mark on the world in the most fabulous way. People feel empowered, they sit differently, feel less tired.

“I always say it’s pots of feelings that I’m selling. Jars of confidence, jars of fun, magical potions that have a huge effect, that are your superpowers. How you feel affects the people around you, so it has a massive ripple effect. Everyone’s a star.

“And yes I work with celebrities, but everyone deserves to shine bright like a star, to magnify that positivity, that confidence, that empowerment that these products can bring you.” She says she has always known that she’d have an impact.

“I remember walking to school and a force almost bigger than me came over me, and I knew I would make my mark in the world,” she says. “I really believe in creative visualisation. Dare to dream it, dare to believe it, dare to do it.

“Most people give up on their dreams because of insecurity. But if you work and you’re dedicated, anyone can make their dreams come true in life. Life is all about confidence. I always knew, and people would laugh and say I was crazy, and I’d think, please underestimate me, that’s not a problem — I have a vision and I will never give up on my dreams.”

She still does make up. “Just not as much as before, because I’m running an empire. I still do all my how-to videos for social media. I can’t do 40 fashion shows a season anymore, but I still do celebrities, still create looks — I still keep my hand in!” I wonder what she cares about beyond empire and family. She’s married for the second time and has two sons, Flynn, 14, from her first marriage and Valentine, 10, from her second.

“I care about giving back,” she says. “We’re here for a short time on this planet. Live life every day to the full. I love seeing people happy and empowered.”

She supports a charity called Women For Women, plus the King’s Trust and the George and Amal Clooney Foundation for Justice: “Within that virtuous circle of life, we inspire and give back, and help in every way we can.”

She pauses for a millisecond, before reverting back to speaking about her products.

“When you’re very successful at what you do, how else do you give back? The biggest thing is feeling — that’s why I’m so passionate about this brand, the feeling of happiness, joy and confidence you can give people through these amazing pots of magic. That’s the most powerful thing.”

The PRs — who guard their mistress fiercely, the international office vetting and revetting lists of questions requested pre-interview that I never get to ask because of the word-in-edgeways situation — are hovering. It’s time to wrap up.

I ask her if she ever switches off. (You can’t quite imagine someone so hyper-focused ever flopped on the sofa eating crisps. Even in her most private spaces, she remains on-brand: she has famously said in past interviews how neither of her husbands had ever seen her without make up, even in bed — she takes it off, then reapplies ‘bedroom eye’. I don’t know if that’s terrifying or fabulous or both.)

“Sometimes at the weekend I just lie in bed and watch romcoms or documentaries,” she says.

Her enthusiasm for what she does is almost overpowering; she has harnessed talent, energy and self- belief to extraordinary levels.

“I have huge gratitude,” she says. “It’s a wonderful feeling.”