It’s the (by) Aimee effect. A rainy weeknight in a suburban Dunnes Stores in Dublin and hundreds of women have turned out for a demonstration from make-up guru Aimee Connolly. It’s a diverse crowd, with women aged between 20 to about 70 paying for the event; even women out for their weekly shop park their trolleys and stop to watch.
Dressed in her signature pink, and sporting a Britney-style microphone, Connolly skilfully works the crowd, interspersing helpful tips on make-up as she offers updates on stock levels and new product launches. But rather than a QVC-style hard sell, it feels more like a community. The crowd are as enthusiastic as Connolly; they’ve bought the products; they’ve sent the DM requests for bigger sizes; they’re wearing the make-up.
She has the banter – but also the business nous, as evidenced by the throngs of shoppers crowding the checkout once the demonstration is over.
Irish beauty has become big business in recent years. Forget Guinness or beef – Irish cosmetics exports are set to hit $10.5 billion by 2026, according to market intelligence provider ReportLinker, while last year, UK publisher Cosmetics Business featured an article exploring “Why Irish beauty is set to take over”.
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And Connolly, with her Sculpted by Aimee brand, is leading the charge. Founded in 2016, and known for its dewy glow and multifunctional products, with a price point of “competitive, affordable luxury”, the brand has reported stellar growth in recent years. Revenues rose by 47 per cent last year to €32.6 million, with pretax profits up by a substantial 35 per cent, to €3.9 million, for 2024.
And when I catch up with Connolly, in a low-key cafe close to her company’s HQ in Dundrum, she says they’re forecasting double-digit growth yet again for this year, with revenues set to rise by 25 per cent to about €41 million. According to the latest Irish Times Top1000 publication, this puts it among Ireland’s top 900 companies, on a par with the likes of Sunway Travel and Insomnia.
It’s an impressive feat, in a highly competitive industry. “It’s been a wild ride, it’s been amazing,” Connolly says.
Unlike many other Irish beauty brands, she has done it herself. It’s somewhat unusual in an industry where alliances are a typical route to market. Bare by Vogue Williams, for example, is a fake tan product created with National Beauty Distribution, while Suzanne Jackson’s SoSu was born out of an alliance with cosmetics giant Fran O’Gorman, the owner of beauty distributor Sundrelle Ltd.
But with success comes further scrutiny; recent press reports on the company’s financial performance for 2024 took Connolly unawares (in previous years the company had published abridged accounts).
They were “everywhere”, she says. “Sometimes I find that hard, because it’s kind of private information,” she says. “My mum said, ‘You’re a victim of your own success,’” because it’s further evidence that the company is getting bigger.
Connolly grew up in the Dublin suburb of Churchtown with her mum Claire, a single mother. While she concedes she had privileges, she still “had to go out and work”, and started her career as a make-up artist part-time when she was 16 and a TY student in Colaiste Iosagain. Her love affair with the world of commerce started then. “I was forced into the workforce, and I adored it,” she says.
Her father wasn’t on the scene, and has been largely out of her life since she was born. “I didn’t really know him that well. So, I often say there wasn’t really anything to make peace with, or anything to kind of miss or regret ...” she says. “I’ve only really known life with Mum. I feel really fortunate that we are so close and that we’ve had a great life. And that she’s done a brilliant job, kind of across both parent roles.”
Now, her “small but mighty family”, which includes husband John Greene – who runs a Camille Thai franchise with hurler Joe Canning – are very close. Her mother is the company secretary of Sculpted – and makes frequent appearances on Connolly’s social media channels – while her husband is a director. Similarly, Connolly is a director of her mother’s real estate company, Claire Connolly Estate Agent. Sculpted HQ is just across the road from her mother’s office – handy for a quick coffee and a catch-up.
Connolly was determined from a young age to go out on her own, launching her Sculpted brand when she finished her degree in UCD, with her own clear vision. “I’ve never worked full-time anywhere else, so in terms of the culture I’m not influenced by somewhere else,” she says.
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She famously started the business with €10,000 in savings – and today retains 100 per cent ownership. She was “too busy” at the start to seek assistance from the likes of Enterprise Ireland. “I was so in the thick of it as a founder, I didn’t even put the head up, I wasn’t that savvy, but I could have leveraged those supports (at the time).”
It was a sharp learning curve.
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“I love to be busy, I thrive in chaos. So sometimes I can have all the ideas – but you need to pause as CEO and make sure that you have the idea, execute the idea and close the loop on the idea.”
Growth was slow at first – she kept overheads lean and didn’t take on her first employee for a year-and-a-half. Even then, she continued to work across the business. “I needed to try on the hats to hire for the hats,” she says. “I needed to have some sort of understanding of that’s how it runs, so I could support the person coming in.” Looking back, she sees this slow-burn approach as key to her success.
Her first order was for 6,000 trio palettes, which she packed at her own kitchen table. “I was going a little bit against the grain to say, listen, keep it simple,” she says of that first product, a sculpting kit with a double-ended brush and a how-to guide. “[That’s] still the fundamental principle of Sculpted today, keep it simple and multitask with our products.”
Soon, she was being asked for her second product, and it grew from there. Today, Sculpted by Aimee employs more than 100 people, and sells 150 products around the world from its website.
If keeping things lean was one reason for her success, social media is another. It has been a “game changer”, she says. And just like Hailey Bieber of Rhode, or Kylie Jenner, or Charlotte Tilbury, Connolly has shown herself to be an adept content creator, offering insights to her daily life, all while promoting her brand.
I’m very honest about how I look without make-up and with make-up, and when my skin is bad
— Aimee Connolly
With more than 200,000 Instagram followers on her personal account, and 300,000 on the brand’s, her feed is a carefully curated run-through of her life: “GRWM” videos before receiving an award at the UCD Alumni awards or attending the Glamour Women of the Year awards in London; a week in the life of a CEO; or running – she ran the Dublin Marathon last year, and organises a running club through the brand.
It’s hard to underestimate the importance of social media in cosmetics. “Social media is one of the top three levers in our business at the moment,” she says, pointing to the huge influence it can have on sales.
But it’s not always positive; there has been a growing disquiet about the role of social media in encouraging pre-teens to invest in skincare products.
Connolly is somewhat ambivalent. “Do we have a marketing campaign for 10-year-olds? Absolutely not,” she says, but adds that while some brands may have targeted this market specifically, she has sympathy for the brands that have been caught up in it.
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There are some positives, she says, noting that younger kids now “have a far better awareness of how to look after themselves”, like an awareness of the importance of SPF, for example. “That could be a silver lining.”
Social media also adds pressure. “The one thing only Aimee can do is be Aimee on content,” she says. “And content is one of the biggest currencies of any business right now. So I have to make more content.”
The focus on “Aimee” is part of a broader conversation at Sculpted HQ – should the brand keep the “By Aimee” tagline? If the brand is to grow globally, should it be identified with just one person? For now, they’re taking the view that Connolly is the “educator/expert” at the helm of the business, and it’s working. It’s a proven model: Hailey Bieber is the face of Rhode; Selena Gomez at Rare Beauty; Rihanna at Fenty, etc etc.
“People buy into people,” Connolly says. She’s happy being the face of the brand. But is she sick of wearing the company pink?
“Thankfully not,” she laughs.
Connolly will also use social media occasionally to promote other brands’ products. Why? “Because I’m also an individual, Aimee Connolly, outside of Sculpted.” She chooses carefully who she affiliates herself with. “I say no to the majority of things that come my way.”
Recently she shared her polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) diagnosis on Instagram; it’s a condition linked with irregular periods, acne and fertility issues.
“I don’t share huge amounts of private stuff,” she says, but this was about “shining a light on something that impacts a lot of people”.
“I’m also very honest about how I look without make-up and with make-up, and when my skin is bad. I didn’t want to say this (bad skin) just went away by putting cream on it.”
To go from a business with turnover of zero to €40 million hasn’t been all plain sailing, and there have been doubters along the way.
For someone who started off on the shop floor, retail is an important part of the Sculpted brand. The first shop was in Dundrum, but this closed when they opened on Grafton Street in 2022. Now Sculpted has four flagships, in Dublin, Kildare Village, Belfast and Carnaby Street in London.
“Everyone said I was crazy,” she says about opening on Grafton Street. It was a full circle moment for her. She previously worked as a make-up artist with Urban Decay in the old House of Fraser in Dundrum; now her shop occupies the former outlet of the US chain on Grafton Street.
“Grafton Street has been phenomenal,” she says.
She gets asked to open in Cork “every day”, but for now is happy with the four stores and the distribution model across pharmacies, Boots, Brown Thomas, Dunnes Stores and airport shops, as well as online. “Accessibility is really at the core for us as a brand,” she says. This means being available to a lot of people in convenient places.
Similarly, she was told the brand was too young when she moved into foundation, as it was seen as too much of a loyalty buy. “It was the best thing we ever did from a product portfolio point of view.” Now, the brand’s biggest seller is complexion products, across its foundation and primer ranges.
Such a growth trajectory begs the question: Is now the time to sell?
Last year, Sculpted by Aimee joined brands like Phlur and Medik8 on the Future50 brands by publisher Beauty Matter. Good company, as this year, skin specialist Medik8, with annual revenues of $75 million-$100 million, was the subject of a $1.1 billion takeover of a majority stake by L’Oreal – one of the highest valuations in the history of beauty deal making.
Connolly says she has been approached by potential buyers, but “has never entertained a conversation”. So would she sell now?
“I would definitely wait. We have so much left to do ... both me personally, and professionally as a business,” she says, adding that while some people might start a business with a clear exit strategy, this has never been her.
The goal is to grow globally over the next 10 years, till Sculpted is one of the top 10 independent beauty brands in the world, sitting alongside the likes of Rare Beauty, Charlotte Tilbury and Huda. To achieve this, the brand will have to enter more markets. Ireland and the UK are now the biggest markets for Sculpted, but Connolly has her eyes firmly set on the expensive-to-access – but potentially lucrative – US market. This means complying with FDA standards – not stricter than EU ones, but different – which means plenty of testing to get products ready.
Also, one of her favoured distribution models is pharmacies, but this “just wouldn’t be the right positioning” for the brand in the US, so they are in talks with retailers. A better fit could be with the likes of Ulta Beauty and Sephora. “Where you go (to sell) speaks volumes about who you are as a brand,” she says.
My husband would say I present as someone very organised, but on a personal side I’m completely chaotic
— Aimee Connolly
Sephora, which is due to open in Belfast next year and has stores throughout Europe, the UK, US, Asia and Australia, could give the brand potential to go global.
Making connections stateside is also important – Connolly recently attended the Glamour Woman of the Year awards in London, “a brilliant night”. The magazine has a big influence in the US, and is helmed by Cork woman Sam Barry.
Tariffs are a concern, however. “Where we’re lucky, is that we haven’t opened yet,” she says, noting that it could be harder if you were there already and suddenly had all these tariffs landed on you.
New product innovation will also be a part of future growth. “I would absolutely imagine fragrance will be a part of the story in the next few years,” she says, adding that other categories, such as hair, “fascinate” her. But, “I don’t want to get distracted – there’s lots to be done where we are now.”
Many of the brand’s biggest sellers, including its new Cream Cushion foundation, are made in South Korea. Connolly beat the explosion in K-beauty when she followed her gut and chose to get her products manufactured there a decade ago. Now, it’s an added selling point of her business. “I deliberately sought them out,” she says.
Other aspects of her brand which may have been out of fashion when she first launched – such as a “less is more” approach compared with the on-trend “more is more” look – have now done the “full 360”.
“I was kind of uncool at that time,” she says, but adds with the growth in K-beauty, this take on cosmetics is now very relevant.
“It’s also a testament to staying true to your brand, fit, positioning and identity the whole time, regardless of whether there’s a shift. The minute you start chopping and changing, you’re not known for anything.”
Such expansion plans might necessitate a change in how the business is structured – Connolly still holds 100 per cent – as it seeks to scale up.
Personally, too, change is on the cards. She and her husband rent their home in Ranelagh, but “buying a house is in our plans for next year”, she says. It might surprise people that the couple haven’t bought already, but Connolly admits that her laser-sharp business focus doesn’t translate to her home life.
“My husband would say I present as someone very organised, but on a personal side I’m completely chaotic!”
In short
Favourite Sculpted product: “It’s like trying to pick a favourite child! But I’ll say Cream Cushion, our newest launch ... it’s an amazing product.”
Favourite non-Sculpted product: “When I go to Seoul I get the most amazing hair serum, Mise en scène perfect serum, in Olive Young (a K-beauty megastore). I stock up.”
Listening to: Lily Allen’s new album, West End Girl. “I thought it was wild ... nothing was held back, fair play to her.” On the move, it’s business podcasts, such as Working Hard with Grace Beverley, or The Rest is Politics.
Reading: “I love a good fantasy or horror novel” like the Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J Maas, and Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros. Sculpted’s leadership team has its own book club – a recent read was Good to Great by Jim Collins.
Watching: Netflix’s Nobody Wants This. “It’s an easy tune-out show.”
When she’s not working: She’s a gym bunny and ran the Dublin Marathon last year. She also plays tennis in a local club with her husband, as well as padel. “I particularly love that with a group of friends,” she says.
