'The number of female millionaires is insulting - I'm going to change that': P Louise's Paige Williams on building an empire

With over 4.7 million followers across TikTok and Instagram, it's impossible to turn a blind eye to the impact P. Louise is having on the beauty industry, with their kitsch, pink packaging and in-person 'Empire' experience reinventing how consumers see makeup brands - and rewriting the blueprint.

Founded originally as a makeup academy in 2014 by Paige Williams, before expanding into cosmetics in 2018, few could've forecasted that a brand whose identity was born from social media would see Williams herself debuting on the Sunday Times Rich List among the likes of Dua Lipa and Sir Andy Murray.

Now, she's gearing up to launch P. Louise's first two-storey fully-immersive bricks-and-mortar store at Trafford Palazzo, Manchester, which will house a P. Louise supermarket, and dedicated makeup education zones, expanding the ways in which their ever-growing community can get up-close-and-personal with the faces behind the brand.

But things weren't always like this for the 32-year-old founder, who hails from humble beginnings in the north west of England, having been raised on a council estate, and getting a £20,000 loan from her grandmother to even start the business.

Paige Williams

Unsurprisingly, building a company that has grown to such a scale hasn't been a walk in the park, and Williams tells us that things definitely haven't slowed down for her as time has gone on. She can often be found in the brand's Stockport-based 'Empire' from early in the morning - and that it's "very rare" she'll leave before midnight.

"I'm not going to lie, I'm not an early bird - creatives are very late night type of people", she tells Indy100, noting that she gets her "boring stuff" (that's business, to you and I), done in the day, with the product development and packaging designs coming while the rest of us are asleep.

"I don't think people realise that it's just me and one other person that do product development", she adds. "When people see us bring out a new product they might think 'oh it's just a lip oil', but actually, it's me who has to think about how formulas are affected by certain scents, and how strong the notes are... I don't think people realise the speed of what we move and the decisions that we make.

"Because I work such long hours, I'm often a day ahead of other people in one shift."

The results speak for themselves; P. Louise is on track to smash £139 million in sales by the end of 2025, and fellow CEOs have no doubt been left scratching their heads at how someone with no previous business experience has defied the odds.

However, Williams says the key to being a good businesswoman (or the "MrBeast of beauty", as she puts it) is actually something far more simple than being entangled in data and having the right contacts.

Paige Williams

"I always call it common sense over business", she affirms. "If we go into a trade meeting, or want to talk marketing or strategy, a lot of that to me is common sense, because it's all about a feeling and how we make people feel."

She adds: "I don't enjoy having three-hour conversations that I think could be dealt with in 10 minutes...we just need to be more creative.

"I don't give myself enough credit as a businesswoman, because I'll admit I do love to sit among a lot of men and still own the room - I like the challenge. They all want strategies and scheduling, and I'm like: 'Read the room people, we're a community brand, give them what they want.'"

As a long-time P. Louise follower, one thing that's most prevalent in everything they do is that key word - community - and while most beauty brands take up to three years to develop and launch a single product, they move at a completely different pace - bringing ideas from concept to shelf in just 90 days, based on what their followers are asking for.

However, having such dedication to customers does have its challenges, and as an outsider, it's become apparent on social media that the brand answers to criticism perhaps a little too much, with Williams admitting she's still trying to find the balance between pleasing people, and focusing on what the business really needs.

"I always take the feedback that I need from a comment and run with it", she says. "I'd say I'm probably one of the most transparent people in the industry, because I jump straight on camera and own my faults.

"But I also think that does open me up to be criticized even more, and people want a lot more answers from me at an even quicker rate.

"I'm still a girl living life for the first time, I'm 100 per cent self-funded, I've not got anyone in suits telling me what I'm doing right and wrong. I've got no one here who's done it before us."

She adds: "I'm going to make mistakes, because I'm the first person to ever walk this path on a platform that expects you to give them answers on everything that goes wrong - sometimes it's logistics - that isn't my specialty but I'll still show up and I'll give the explanation."

Despite the hurdles, it hasn't hindered their success. One year ago, P. Louise set a world record after generating £1.5 million ($2 million) during a 12-hour livestream, prompting businesses everywhere to take notes that social media-powered brands are no longer to be sniffed at.

They note that their average spend during a livestream is £80 - far above what someone would typically spend in a single retail transaction.

When asked if it's harder to be taken seriously in the industry, Williams simply responds: "I actually think it gives me a major strength, because I don't think nobody else really can figure out how to do it right now.

"I can take the risk because I haven't got 30 people who have shares in the company that can tell me no. I've come from nothing, I started with nothing - and I'm not scared of going back there.

"If this ultimately fails, I only have myself to look at in the mirror."

Paige Williams

She continues: "I've got retailers booting down my doors offering to do bigger launches than what they did for Fenty Beauty and Kylie Jenner. It's pretty mind blowing when I'm just a girl who lived on a council estate, who's winged her way in life and done something out of passion."

The CEO recalls at the start of P. Louise coming off a pitching call with Sephora and sobbing, because she felt drained rather than empowered by the experience - and set her sights on changing it.

Noting the shift, she smiles: "I no longer get offered a shelf. I get offered a store within a store, and I don't have to pitch anymore."

But the icing on the cake came earlier in 2025, when the news broke that she'd landed sixth place on the Sunday Times rich list, having accumulated £100 million in wealth through the business.

"It's pretty amazing when you go into your granddad's and he's got it [The Sunday Times] framed on his wall, because that was not written in the stars for my family - I just changed generational wealth for us forever...that's not what my family was supposed to be about", she tells us, joking that despite her fortune, she still loves a weekend trip to B&M.

She's even been able to count retiring her mum as her biggest achievement to-date - and wants to see more women be given the opportunity to follow in her footsteps.

"There's only 80 women ever in the UK to earn over 50 million and that to me is really insulting for women", she notes.

"I want to see those numbers quadruple in the next couple of years, I want to empower more women to do it, and this paves the way for confident women to know that it's a possibility and that you don't need the backing of money to do it."

Paige Williams

But it hasn't come without sacrifice, and having worked tirelessly on P. Louise, Paige admits that she's missed out on a lot of other opportunities.

"I've never been on a girl's holiday till this year. I'm now 32 and I think because I lost pretty much my livelihood from devoting it to the dream", she reflects.

"In the end, the only people that I had was on social media so I shared everything with them, and ultimately, that is what built the brand - I didn't care about looking aesthetically pleasing on an Instagram feed, and I didn't care about telling people when I've made a really bad decision, or I'd lost a load of money."

A major part of the P. Louise brand-building experience has been the introduction of The Empire; a warehouse space where customers can shop, eat, and meet the team, in a location that can only be described as very, very pink.

What started as Paige's office (and where she still travels every day) quickly became what she describes as a "Disneyland for makeup lovers": "People get told in other stores, 'don't touch, don't mess with the samples. Behave'", she says.

"I'm promoting touch, feel, smell. We're teaching people how to read and write, because some of my community don't go to school. I've got kids entertainers that are teaching you how to be brave and confident. And this, to me, is more community building. This is not ever about sales."

Two things have remained consistent with the Empire - there's a line outside the door most days, and now when people think of P. Louise, they think of the signature 'voice' her employees have adopted that's akin to the way the founder speaks.

"I mean, it's the best marketing strategy we've ever done, because that's the reason we took over the whole internet. Whether people like it or not, it's worked", she laughs.

"To be honest, I always told the team, 'try and do your voiceovers like me', and naturally, they all picked it up.

"If I'm talking about a product, then I'm going to drag my words - it's like the Jet 2 advert!"

While she's busy planning the first bricks-and-mortar store opening in Manchester, there's another big change happening in the P. Louise world, with Paige making the decision that she's eyeing up a move to Dubai.

"I'm 32 and want to eventually have a family, and I want them to be brought up in a safe environment", she says, reflecting on the 2020 armed robbery on her home, which involved her nine-year-old brother, and three men holding them at knifepoint for money.

"I just don't want that for my baby", she adds. "I think it's a 10 year goal - that'll take me to 42 and then I plan on being retired."

However, she's not done just yet.

"I want to create loads more brands", she concludes. "P. Louise is incredible in what we've been able to achieve, but I don't think we're always taken seriously, because our packaging can sway judgement.

"I want to be a serial entrepreneur and respected in more than just crazy, pink packaging - I want to be known as the one that can dip her toe into anything and make it happen.

"You can do it yourself, but it comes with a lot of resilience and graft."

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