Trinny Woodall talks about being a control freak, her midlife reinvention, and embracing being single again

Trinny Woodall is one of Britain’s best-known stylists and a perennial fashion guru. Now also the face of her own beauty brand, you might expect she’d feel pressure to look "perfect" all the time. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. "I don’t give a monkeys," Trinny says, laughing. "I do live streams on social media, where 300,000 people see me with no make-up on."

For someone who has spent decades in the public eye, Woodall, 59, is refreshingly down to earth. While she rose to fame alongside Susannah Constantine on the iconic BBC makeover show, What Not To Wear, she has more recently become synonymous with her make-up and skincare brand, Trinny London. Founded in 2017, it has become a multimillion-pound business with a cult following. 

"Skincare was always one of my obsessions," she says, recalling her TV days. "I had acne and became obsessed about what I could do to make it better, trying all sorts of treatments. Whereas Susannah would drink and smoke and go to sleep with her make-up on and wake up with skin like a baby’s bottom. She found it hilarious. Then at 50, she called me up and went, “What has happened to my face? Tell me what to do!”’

When we meet on the GH photoshoot, Woodall is in CEO mode, adding styling details as she switches outfits and often going over to the monitor to check each shot alongside the photographer. "I am such a control freak," she admits, as we find a quiet corner to chat. 

BUILDING A BEAUTY BUSINESS

Woodall puts her metamorphosis from TV presenter and stylist to formidable businesswoman down to hard graft and determination. When their time presenting What Not To Wear came to an end, Trinny and Susannah created a small budget makeover show in Belgium, Trinny & Susannah’s Makeover Mission, which was sold to eight countries worldwide, and meant regularly travelling to far-flung places. 

"Susannah and I went from being paid well and having a BBC One TV show, to getting on a plane constantly. It was three years of exhaustion. But we both had mortgages to pay and it taught me a lot, which then helped me with Trinny London," she says. When travelling, Woodall would transfer her own make-up concoctions into pots, which she could stack together for easy transportation. It was this concept that became the famous ‘make-up stacks’ that launched Trinny London.

Building a business didn’t come without hurdles, however. For starters, Trinny made the agonising decision to sell the house she’d spent years dreaming of and rebuilding from scratch (she is currently renting) to fund her start-up. When she approached investors with her business plan to secure more funding, she hit a wall. "I saw 48 venture capitalists who were all saying to me, “Bad idea, do it for millennials, not for older women,” and “You’re an old lady, you shouldn’t do it,”’ she sighs. 

Undeterred, Woodall made £60,000 (₹61 lakh approx.) by selling items from her own wardrobe, and eventually raised another £7m (₹70.9 crore) from investors. At a recent conference she attended, some of the investors who initially turned her down approached her and told her they regretted their decision. "Hearing that felt good," she smiles. "I don’t think it’s ever too late to achieve anything. I never think about my age, or anyone else’s. A friend of mine said to me, “Do you have a pension?” and I said, “No, because everything is in Trinny London.” And she replied, “Well, you should because you might only have 25 summers left!”’

FACING FEAR

It’s this sense of determination that underpins Woodall’s latest venture, her new book, Fearless. Inspired by her own experiences, it’s packed full of advice on everything from how to find your style, to how to look after your skin and how to boost your confidence. "I wanted it to be a manual that you can pick up to look at colours and face shapes and find what suits you," Woodall explains. "Then a lot of the emotional content is life advice that has given me confidence. It’s quite cathartic when you write a book because you think, “God, I’d better listen to my own advice!”’

Would Woodall describe herself as fearless? "I definitely still feel fear and I still worry about things, but I have got better at taking a step back and I’ve found things that calm me, such as exercise and scrolling through silly Instagram videos. When I look back at my 20s, they were filled with fear. Outwardly, I might have looked happy, but inside, I thought everyone was racing ahead in life and I was left behind. I’d never want to go back to that time."

BEING THE BOSS

When I point out the success Woodall has achieved now with her company, she is quick to share the credit. "The team are amazing. They work really, really hard. I can be a tough boss, but I’m also a very empathetic boss," she says.

As well as being the CEO, Trinny is the face and spokesperson for the brand, and is well-known to a combined 1.6M Instagram followers for her hilarious videos. She’s hopped through London dressed as a kangaroo to announce the brand’s launch in Australia, and even played Maria from The Sound Of Music to reveal a new SPF cream.

"I remember after one video someone saying to me, “You’re so funny!” And I said, “No, I’m not!” I’d never believed I was funny before. People hone down the side of you they want to see. In What Not To Wear, I would be more angular and give advice, and Susannah was cosy mother hen."

Further down the line, however, Woodall would like to step back as the face of the brand and get Trinny London to a place where it is recognised without her. "I want it to grow. When you look at Charlotte Tilbury, you think Charlotte Tilbury the brand, or Bobbi Brown, it’s the brand," she says. "I’d like Trinny London to be the same eventually."

FAMILY TIES

Outside of work, it’s clear Woodall’s priority is very much her daughter, Lyla, as her face instantly lights up whenever she mentions her name. "She’s very caring," Trinny says softly. "We’re very close. I think when you’re a single parent, you generally are."

Trinny’s former husband and Lyla’s father, Johnny Elichaoff, took his own life in 2014, when their daughter was 11. The couple had divorced five years earlier, but remained on good terms. Now 19, Lyla is beginning her first year of university studying marketing and digital communications in Spain, and Trinny says she’ll be ‘on the phone 300 times a day’ to her daughter while she’s away.

Does Lyla let her mum style her? "No, no, no. She’ll ask my advice, but in that very teenager way. So you have to think really carefully how you’re going to respond, because she’s either asking you because she wants to change or she’s asking you because she wants you to affirm it.’

Their strong relationship is one of the things that Woodall says fulfils her most in life now. Earlier this year, her 10-year relationship with businessman Charles Saatchi came to an end, and she says she’s not looking for love at the moment. "I think when you have something that’s very powerful and strong in your life, which is Lyla and work, then there isn’t that much room left," she says. "I ask myself, am I feeling fulfilled or am I feeling empty? And, right now, I’m fulfilled by those two things, so I don’t feel a need to be in a relationship.’

EXCITED ABOUT THE FUTURE

So, is there anything Woodall would have done differently in her life? "Never," she says, shaking her head. "No, that’s one thing I don’t believe in because it can only bring misery." Instead, she is determined to look forward. "There’s so much I want to do," she says. "So, if I can look after my body, my body will look after me."

She owes her physique to strength training and yoga. She also tries to be mindful of her sugar intake, which involves eating an unusual breakfast. "I have a plate of broccoli and an omelette every morning. I’m enjoying the good I do for myself and that’s a really good feeling that I want to cling on to."

As for her beauty regime, she uses exfoliators and retinoids, Co2 lasers to treat pitting from acne, as well as having some injectable ‘tweakments’. "Sometimes people say to me, “Why should I buy your skincare, you’ve had Botox?”’ she says. "But there’s looking after the texture of your skin, and then there’s putting in Botox to prevent a line coming. They are two different things."

Next year, Woodall will turn 60, and the milestone doesn’t seem to faze her. "I don’t think, “I’m going to be 60!” because I don’t see it as a number. I think, “Shall I have a party? Let’s celebrate,”’ she says. Her goals are simple: make sure Lyla is settled at university, plan a holiday with friends and, perhaps, buy a house one day. And what is she most excited about for her next decade? Woodall is quiet for a moment, as though suddenly overwhelmed with ideas. "The unknown possibilities," she smiles.

MY LIFE IN BEAUTY

THE BEST PIECE OF BEAUTY ADVICE I’VE RECEIVED IS: Wear SPF every day.

THE BEAUTY PRODUCT I SWEAR BY IS: Trinny London Plump Up: Peptide + HA Serum. 

MY BIGGEST BEAUTY DISASTER WAS: Orange fake tan!

THE TREATMENT I’D NEVER TRY AGAIN IS: I had oxygen put in my face and it went like a balloon! Never again. 

THE PRODUCT I ALWAYS HAVE IN MY HANDBAG IS: Trinny London Sheer Shimmer in Maiko.

MY DESERT ISLAND BEAUTY ESSENTIAL IS: Sun cream!

This piece originally appeared in the November 2023 print edition of Good Housekeeping United Kingdom.