‘Beauty Confident’ Again

This week we talk to beau­ty indus­try vet­er­an Sarah Sian, who launched an e‑comm site all about instill­ing beau­ty confidence. 

Words Miran­da Wilkinson

After see­ing a rise in ageism, bul­ly­ing and
men­tal health issues on social media, at work and in rela­tion­ships, I want­ed to
cre­ate a fun, kind and friend­ly online space to help those affect­ed, so they
can start to feel “beau­ty con­fi­dent” again.

I too had
a brush with ageism, at 43 years old, and after read­ing many social posts and
talk­ing to women over 40 years old, I realised that a lot of women start
feel­ing invis­i­ble at forty-some­thing and I want­ed to help them feel visible
again. 

After I got made redun­dant last Sep­tem­ber from
Deben­hams, I decid­ed to set up the­beautya­gen­teurs, an online des­ti­na­tion that
is pro-age, pro-beau­ty and pro-wom­en­su­p­port­ing­women to help build beauty
con­fi­dence after 40. Once signed up mem­bers can inter­act with fel­low beauty
lovers. Whether it’s reveal­ing their insid­er beau­ty tips and tricks, looking
for advice, mak­ing peer-to-peer prod­uct rec­om­men­da­tions or shar­ing their
favourite photos. 

The site launched at the end of Feb­ru­ary and then we went straight into Lock­down a few weeks lat­er.   It was dur­ing this time that I saw the oppor­tu­ni­ty to help small­er brands, by set­ting up a well-being/­self-care shop that oper­ates as a mar­ket­place for exist­ing and emerg­ing beau­ty brands. Inde­pen­dent brands are care­ful­ly select­ed to be fea­tured on the mar­ket­place plat­form to sell their prod­ucts. Think of it as a Silk­Fred for beau­ty. It fea­tures high­ly-effec­tive skin­care solu­tions focus­ing on tack­ling the signs of age­ing right through to those going through menopause and beyond. 

It’s a
place that recog­nis­es women…the busy mums on-the-go, entre­pre­neurs who run
suc­cess­ful busi­ness­es, nurs­es who work tire­less­ly to look after others,
vision­ar­ies who have fought to keep their ideas alive, sin­gle par­ents who
jug­gle all aspects of life, those who have been affect­ed by the chal­lenges of
menopause and redun­dan­cy or just feel they’ve lost their con­fi­dence as they’ve
aged. 

It also
debunks beau­ty myths like you can’t wear glit­ter eye­shad­ow, car­ry off a bold
lip or go in with a heavy eyeliner…at the­beautya­gen­teurs I want to instil
con­fi­dence. After all, the beau­ty of beau­ty is that there are no rules. Beauty
is fun and the­beautya­gen­teurs is a place to come togeth­er through their love of
beau­ty to inspire, encour­age and form fab­u­lous new friend­ships along the way. 

@thebeautyagenteurs
thebeautyagenteurs.com