Beauty Pie

Marcia Kilgore launched Beauty Pie out of London in 2016 with a pretty specific gripe: beauty products were being marked up far beyond what they actually cost to make, and she thought shoppers deserved to see behind that curtain. So she built a company around the idea of selling genuinely high-end skincare and makeup without the usual luxury pricing baked in.

The range has grown well beyond where it started; skincare, makeup, haircare, body care, fragrance, and even beauty tools are all part of the catalogue now. Behind the scenes, Beauty Pie sources from manufacturers and labs scattered across the globe, several of which also produce for the big-name luxury brands people already recognize.

What really sets the company apart, though, is its pricing structure. Rather than selling everything at a standard markup, Beauty Pie runs on membership: pay a monthly or annual fee, and you unlock significantly lower prices on products. Skip the membership, and you can still shop there, just at higher rates. It’s essentially Beauty Pie’s way of showing customers what beauty products would cost if you stripped out a chunk of the typical retail overhead.

There’s also no sprawling network of department store counters or third-party retailers involved; Beauty Pie sells almost entirely through its own site. That direct-to-consumer setup means tighter control over pricing, product launches, and the overall customer relationship.

At its core, the business runs on a fairly straightforward premise: partner with manufacturers who already know how to make quality products, cut out the markup that typically pays for brand prestige, and pass the difference back to the people buying.