Make-up secrets of the most powerful woman in British beauty
Think of the biggest names in the British beauty industry and chances are people like Charlotte Tilbury, Liz Earle or Jo Malone pop into your head.
it’s unlikely Alison Young will be the first person you think of. And, if you don’t watch shopping channel QVC, then you won’t have heard of her at all.
But Alison, 52, is the doyenne of QVC. And, thanks to her winning presentations, she is one of the most powerful and influential women in beauty today.
i have heard of Alison because, for many years, QVC has been my guilty pleasure. in the early days, i would come home after a night out and, fuelled by too many Chardonnays, make impulse purchases.
Once i bought garden tools stored in a ceramic wellington boot (when i didn’t have a garden.) i also bought a hideously garish ladybird- themed earrings and necklace set from the Joan Rivers collection.
Eventually sobriety would kick in and the items would be returned.
But the items i never regretted buying were the beauty purchases. There was something about the cut of Alison’s jib that i liked. She was no-nonsense — a bit bossy, even — and refreshingly honest about the products she was pushing. She’d recommend things, but she’d also tell you not to waste your money if you had a certain skin or hair type and it wasn’t going to work for you.
Everything i bought on Alison’s recommendation — from Liz Earle’s hot cloth cleanser to bareMinerals make-up and Molton Brown hair products — did exactly what she said they would do.
Several times a week her face is beamed into homes on QVC, so perhaps it’s not surprising she’s regularly accosted for beauty recommendations in supermarkets, cafes and at petrol stations. She’ll have a grandmother asking questions about her teenage granddaughter’s spotty skin one day, and a home Counties housewife worried about her lined neck the next.
Women hang on to her every word in a way they just don’t with a beauty counter assistant.
SOWhAT lies behind her enormous appeal? ‘ i’m Mrs Ordinary. Mrs Average. i’m not threatening, i’m not intimidating. i am from the north, i live on a farm and i’m not stuck in this London bubble,’ she tells me. ‘i’ve also got wrinkles. i have problems with my skin like everyone else. i’ve had acne, i’ve got eczema. i’m not a super-injected, fabulous, unobtainable person.’
What she is is the middle- aged woman’s best beauty friend. She tells it like it is and won’t promise you the earth. ‘Botox in a jar? There’s no such thing, and never will be,’ is just a taster of how she rolls.
She trained as a beauty therapist and worked at spas, in harrods, then Grayshott health Spa, where she became head of therapies.
She was then headhunted by Clarins before becoming a freelance consultant. her reputation in the industry meant QVC approached her pre-launch to see if she could use her contacts to bring brands to the customer.
it’s hard to imagine but, before Alison and QVC, huge names such as Elemis and Decleor were only available in salons, unable to afford the hefty sums it would cost to launch in a department store.
Even harder to imagine is that, 25 years on, Alison can shift more units of a product in a day than most stores can dream of selling in a year. in november last year, QVC sold 125,000 six-piece Elemis skincare collections (roughly £3 million worth of stock) — and 78,000 of those sold in a single day.
So while the middle-class mockers may look down their nose at TV shopping, when it comes to beauty, the biggest names in the business are queuing up to sell their wares through QVC . . . and it’s all because of Alison.
So powerful is she that she has a complete veto over what she will, or won’t, sell on the channel.
‘Oh, i’ve been offered bribes by brands,’ she tells me. ‘But i have it written into my contract that i won’t promote anything i don’t believe in. i am not in this to plug or help a business, i only care about the customer. if i am going to sell a product, i want to know: is it clinically proven? What are the ingredients? is the price fair?’
When we meet, she is wearing a silk shirt and black trousers, but will later change into a brightly coloured dress for her next stint on air. her make-up is ‘TV ready’. She has applied it herself and will have it touched up by the make-up artists on set.
Being in the industry for more than three decades has taught her a trick or two. i would have sworn her thick, dark lashes were false. ‘nope. Benefit mascara,’ she insists. What about her brows? Microbladed? ‘Filled in with a brush. Takes 30 seconds.’
She tries every product she sells and tells me she couldn’t possibly entertain the idea of having Botox or fillers, because how could she then accurately measure the effectiveness of an expensive anti-ageing cream?
ALiSOnis not against cosmetic surgery, but wishes people would be more open about it. ‘i can’t bear hearing a celebrity put their unlined face down to yoga and juicing. Oh really? not the four facelifts then?
‘it just puts normal people under undue pressure because they don’t understand why they don’t look the way a celebrity of their age does.’
As someone who does have Botox (and definitely doesn’t do juice cleanses or yoga) i’m pretty adept
at spotting it and can confirm Alison looks au naturel. There is a healthy smattering of laughter lines around her eyes and we swap notes on the curse of sagging eyelids and double chins.
During our chat she points out a patch of sun damage pigmentation on her cheek. ‘See that? I’m saving that. I haven’t been putting any sunscreen on it for weeks because I’m going to test a new product that claims to reduce pigmentation. We’ll see.’
If you need an example of Alison’s clout on QVC, look no further than Liz Earle. She launched her skincare range through them in 1996. Her Cleanse and Polish is QVC’s most popular cleanser (it has shifted 75,000 gallons of it).
When it comes to Alison’s own wealth, it’s not quite so Mrs Average.
She earns enough to afford a seven-acre farm in Surrey, where she lives with her husband Simon Rodger, a former professional football player ( for Crystal Palace) and keeps four horses.
Unlike other WAGS, Alison has earned her right to a bit of luxury. On the morning we meet, she admits she is exhausted after staying up until 1am answering questions from her fans.
‘If they have gone to the trouble of contacting me, then it will be a burning question about something that has bothered them for years,’ she says. ‘I owe it to them to give a clear and honest answer.’
And it’s not just ordinary people who turn to Alison for help. ‘Presenter Ruth Langsford has me on speed dial,’ she says. ‘She contacted me all the time when she was on Strictly as she needed help to redress the problems caused by the heavy stage make-up.’
When I tell my friends I’m meeting Alison Young, they start bombarding me with their own worries. Being the good friend I am, I don’t ask any of their questions as I’m too busy picking Alison’s brains about solutions to my own problems.
Alison and I are the same age and I tell her that, due to the menopause, my face sometimes feels so hot I could fry an egg on it. I can put make-up on my cheeks and eyes and a hot flush will see it slide off in seconds.
‘ I’m menopausal, too, and experiencing a lot of these problems myself,’ she says. ‘Women, even ones who know and understand beauty, can experience a real confidence drop at this time in life.
‘ Suddenly your old regime doesn’t work any more. You end up with what I call “hybrid skin”. It’s dry but sweaty. It’s red and super sensitive, yet it’s getting slack. How are you meant to treat that? The simplest trick is just to strip your routine right back.’
She asks me about my routine and shakes her head when I say I start the day with a facial scrub.
‘That’s just going to cause more flushing. Think about it: you’re stimulating capillaries,’ she says, in bossy Alison mode. She’s right, of course. It’s common sense that scouring away at a hot, angry face is hardly going to calm it.
‘Think about what you do for an upset stomach,’ she tells me. ‘You keep it simple and you go bland. Dry toast, water, boiled rice. It’s the same for your skin.
‘Just stick with one product — a rose or almond oil will calm your skin down in a couple of days. One product, one ingredient, no synthetics, and then build it back up when things have settled.’
Last year Alison launched her website alisonyoungbeauty.com under the name of The Beauty Knowledge. It’s a fitting name, because she seems to have a Rolodex in her brain which means I can just throw a problem at her and she’ll machine-gun fire back half a dozen products to try.
‘Menopausal skin flare-up?’ Within seconds she shoots back: ‘REN Firming Creme Riche with rose oil will feel cool and calming. L’Occitane Ultra Rich Comforting Cream does what it says. The Elemis SOS Emergency Cream will hydrate and it’s good for sensitive, stressed skin.’
Alison’s website is packed with short video tutorials covering everything from allergic reactions to skincare through illness. ‘Beauty jargon can bamboozle people. I hope I cut through that and make it easier for people.’
WHENI leave, Alison is preparing for a Bobbi Brown presentation. Doesn’t she get nervous knowing she’s reaching millions? Her trick, she says, is to ignore the camera and imagine she is talking directly to the customer.
Not that it always goes smoothly. ‘I’ve been on It’ll Be Alright On The Night more than my fair share of times,’ she says.
Her worst moment came when she slipped in a tanning booth and fractured her wrist. Like the game girl she is, she just carried on while her producer said in her earpiece, ‘Alison your lips are turning blue, I think we’ll go to a break.’
Broken wrist or not, I bet she still sold thousands of bottles of that tan.