Quoted by Vogue Magazine as the “most influential make-up artist in the world”, Dame Pat McGrath has quietly surpassed Kylie Jenner’s Kylie Cosmetics to become the most successful beauty mogul in the world.
After only two years, Pat McGrath Labs has not only become one of the best-selling brands at Sephora and created the highest cosmetics turnover in its first month of any brand ever at Selfridges (selling a product every forty seconds), the company was valued at $1 billion. Quite rightly these accolades have resulted in founder Pat McGrath becoming the first make-up artist to receive a Damehood from Queen Elizabeth II.
After self-funding the start up in 2015, McGrath received minority investment from New York based Eurazeo Brands. This influx of capital has rocketed Pat McGrath Labs ahead of Kylie Cosmetics to become the most valuable beauty company in the world.
“my intention when I created Labs was that the people that used our products would be empowered to explore a fearless, daring attitude towards make-up”
Pat McGrath is at the forefront of illustrating that female entrepreneurs – especially black female entrepreneurs – are anything but unreliable investments. Whilst it is shocking that in 2019 only 2.7% of all venture capital went to women, it is even more distressing to see that only 0.64% of that went to Black and Latinx women.
The annual rich list released by Forbes for 2020 highlights that of the top 10 richest people in the world 8 out of 10 are American and aside from Alice Walton – heiress to the Walmart fortune – the nine other members of the list are men. Whilst the United States dominates the highest fortune rankings of the nation’s 624 billionaires only 7 are black and only 1 of them is a woman. Furthermore, no black women make it onto the 10 richest women list and none of them are self-made, owing their success to a male counterpart in some variety. In fact, of the 234 female billionaires in 2020 only 67 of them are self-made.
Given the dismal inequality that these figures bring to light, it only seeks to illustrate how inspiring Pat McGrath and what she has achieved is with unbelievable talent on her side.