LONDON — Beauty Pie has landed at Liberty with its first permanent counter in the beauty hall and a pop-up in the store’s atrium featuring a giant pink coffee cup turned upside-down, a reflection of the brand’s unconventional approach and subversion of luxury beauty’s price model.
The online club, where members pay an annual fee to access luxury makeup and skin care minus the traditional markups, has opened pop-ups in the past, but its founder, serial entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore, said it was time for Beauty Pie to have a retail space of its own.
“Sometimes people just want to feel a texture, smell a fragrance, see the color on their skin,” Kilgore said in an interview. With more expensive ranges on offer, Kilgore also wants to give people the chance to test before they buy.
The original Youthbomb serum costs 44 pounds for members. “For some people, that’s a lot to spend on something without having touched it, smelled it or rubbed it in,” she said.
The Liberty counter, which opened Friday, is small and stocks a selection of products. It features what Kilgore described as a “wall of sound of pink” and display shelves crammed with products.
“It’s going to have to be like a warehouse, packed high with products. There won’t be any glamorous jewels presented one by one,” said Kilgore, adding that the plan is to do color-matching, and then maybe move on to face peels and makeovers if there’s more room. “Right now there isn’t even anywhere to sit,” she added.
Liberty customers will have access to different Beauty Pie’s different price points. Members can buy at the usual prices, others can purchase as guests with smaller discounts. Customers can also join Beauty Pie on the spot.
The atrium space, with the giant pink cup suspended over a coffee bar, opens on Tuesday. It’s temporary, fully shoppable and meant to telegraph a clear brand message.
“It’s coffee bar area that doesn’t serve coffee — but people will be able to get a shot of ‘cream,’” said Kilgore, who is known for her tongue-in-cheek branding, and no-nonsense approach. “There will be lab vessels and little espresso cups on the bar, and people can come in and test our most iconic products, the ones that show how incredible the quality is for the price.”
Marcia Kilgore, founder of Beauty Pie.
Rick Van Weelden
A professional facialist who quickly amassed a roster of celebrity clients in the 1990s, Kilgore is the founder of Bliss Spa, Soap & Glory, FitFlop and Soaper Duper. She later subverted the luxury cosmetics price model with Beauty Pie, by eliminating the middlemen and eschewing physical retail.
She was also one of the first beauty entrepreneurs to cultivate a community, arranging special events, offering perks and making members feel like beauty insiders.
There are different layers of membership, and the site makes it clear how much customers can save if they pay an annual fee. Beauty Pie also compares the prices and ingredients of its products with those of other brands such as Augustinus Bader, Dr. Barbara Sturm and Dr Sebagh.
Kilgore thrives on disruption, rebellion and “being a bad child. I love letting everybody in on the good stuff — no matter who they are. When I was young, I was not cool, rich or pretty. I felt left out of a lot of things, and I think a lot of women today feel the same,” she said.
While there are plans to open further counters — most likely on the east and west coasts of the U.S. — Kilgore said Beauty Pie will never become a traditional retail business. Her idea is to serve existing customer bases, keep overheads low and stay true to the brand’s original factory-to-customer concept.
The U.K. is Beauty Pie’s largest market, one reason why she chose London for the brand’s counter debut.
“We don’t want to have stores everywhere, and when we do have them, they’ll be tiny. We don’t have the margins for a [traditional] retail footprint. We’re really lucky to be in Liberty, where it’s not going to cost us” as much as a stand-alone store would in a similar, high-traffic neighborhood.
Liberty is located in London’s tourist heart, just off Regent Street and a few steps from Oxford Circus. The ground floor beauty hall and nearby Beauty Studio, which has its own entrance on Carnaby Street, are regularly packed with customers and people getting makeovers and treatments.
Beauty Pie’s bestselling Youthbomb skin care.
Natalie Guselli, head of beauty at Liberty, said the store was eager to welcome Beauty Pie because it brings “a genuinely disruptive perspective to the luxury beauty space. Their model challenges traditional industry conventions in a way that feels fresh, modern and highly relevant to today’s customer. The brand balances credibility with a sense of discovery perfectly, which aligns naturally with how our customers shop beauty at Liberty.”
Those customers are getting more savvy by the day.
Kilgore said the average Beauty Pie customer is now “more educated than a beauty editor was 10 years ago. They know the difference between phytic, mandelic and glycolic acids. As a brand, you have to provide that kind of information for her, and let her know why your product is better,” she said.
She’s also trying to respond to the market’s changing needs with targeted products and treatments.
Kilgore said the brand’s All Systems Grow H-Wave LED Hair & Scalp Treatment, which is shaped like a baseball cap, “flew out the door” shortly after launch. The therapy helps thinning hair and promises to deliver a “thicker, fuller look” when it’s worn for 10 minutes a day.
The launch was a response to the popularity of GLP-1 weight loss drugs, which can cause hair loss due to nutritional deficiencies. Beauty Pie also offers nutritional gummies, supplements, superfood and collagen powders in response to growing demand for wellness products.
Kilgore believes customers are overwhelmed by all products flooding onto the market.
“There are only so many hours in the day that eyeballs can be split, social media feeds are so splintered, and there are so many different platforms,” said Kilgore, adding that “it’s easier than ever to launch a brand, but harder to have one that actually sticks. People underestimate just how much work it is to sustain a beauty brand over time,” Kilgore said.
In response to the crowded market, Beauty Pie has been “getting back to basics and repeating our message, our mantra. Everybody has lipstick, so why should she be interested in ours? Why should she care? It’s always about bringing it back to what, why and how we do things. That’s the inspiring part,” she said.
The new Beauty Pie counter at Liberty. The brand is also planning a pop-up in Liberty’s atrium.
There’s a lot more to it than marketing, working social media and community building. Kilgore is also hyper-focused on product development, “following the chemists,” walking the halls of trade shows, and connecting with ingredients makers and suppliers from around the world.
“That’s where you start to see the trends and little things bubbling. Usually those suppliers are not in a big, fancy booth and sometimes they don’t even have distributors — but that’s where you find the good stuff,” she said.
