At 31, Paige Williams is the owner of a brand you may never have heard of – but has a projected turnover of £65m this year. She first got the idea for the make-up company, P.Louise, while working as a cashier at Selfridges.
Williams started the business with zero qualifications, no business plan and just a £20,000 loan from her grandmother. That’s all the investment she’s ever had.
The beauty tycoon, who stands just 4ft 10in tall, is now a millionaire in charge of 132 employees (and counting). She is currently building a home fit for a make-up mogul: an 18,000 square foot mansion with a swimming pool, bowling alley, gym and sauna.
Last month, Williams and her team took part in a TikTok Shop livestream – the Chinese-originated video sharing app is fast-changing the landscape of online retail and is responsible for P.Louise’s stupendous growth. They were filmed for 12 hours straight, feverishly selling eyeshadow palettes and lip oils, which viewers watching in real time could purchase with a tap of a finger on their smartphone screen.
That day Williams sold £1.5m worth of products, generated £870,000 in profit, breaking records for UK brands on TikTok. “That’s a big statement for a girl from a council estate,” says Williams.
‘My nana quit her job because she believed in me’
The P.Louise headquarters in Stockport is a Willy Wonka’s world of make-up – or “Disneyland on a budget”, as Williams puts it. Everything is baby pink and gold.
There’s a restaurant, which offers local children free meals during the summer holidays, a make-up shop complete with a hot air balloon, a train and fluffy clouds suspended overhead.
Williams was raised on a council estate, where her family sometimes couldn’t afford to do a weekly shop, and credits this upbringing with instilling her drive for success.
Her mother was just 15 years old when she had her – “a baby having a baby” – and her parents soon split. “There were three partners that my mum walked out on. I’d have a home, then lose a home, have a home, then lose a home. We went through a lot of houses.”
When her mother decided to train as an ICU nurse, it was up to Williams to look after her brothers. “The message was: ‘Grow up quick, you’ve got your brothers to take care of, the nappies have to be changed’. My childhood got taken away.”
As a teenager, Williams fell in love with make-up. After a stint on the Mac Cosmetics counter at Selfridges – she quit because she couldn’t hit the target of shifting £5,000 of product a day – she spotted a business opportunity.
While Bradford had a multitude of thriving make-up academies, Manchester didn’t have a single one. Her mother scoffed at the idea, telling her nobody would pay £300 to learn how to do make-up.
