Alison Young has been a fixture of iconic shopping channel QVC for almost 30 years.
But the beauty expert hadn’t always planned a career in presenting or even beauty.
A passion for luxury brands, connecting with consumers, and her own skin issues led to the chance to work for QVC.
She’s now established a consultancy empire, as well as becoming a trusted figure to millions of buyers.
We chatted to the expert about her advice to people wanting to break into the competitive beauty industry – and on how a spray tan demo led to a broken wrist on live TV.
How did you get started?
Although I had the grades to go to university, it didn’t appeal. Apart from medicine and law, most courses were abstract, nothing vocational.
I couldn’t relate a degree to what I might want to do so I looked at practical things.
Beauty appealed, as I’d suffered from eczema, psoriasis and acne as a child and I wanted solutions, so I did an HND at college in Chichester and then sent out millions of letters.
I got offered a job at the Camberley House of Fraser salon. From there I moved to Guildford House of Fraser, then to Harrods.
I was head-hunted to become head therapist at Grayshott Hall and Clarins asked me to work for them.
I became head of their training, travelling all over the world.
So what happened next?
I set up my own consultancy. I did training courses for Lancôme, set up a spa, and worked for the Estée Lauder group and for other brands, including Elemis.
Then I was approached by QVC, which wanted me to do beauty shows, but I wasn’t impressed with the products they stocked.
This was 28 years ago – pre-internet, pre-social media – and I thought it was an amazing opportunity to communicate to consumers that there were great products out there that you couldn’t get on the high street or outside of London, and those were the brands I wanted to talk about.
They agreed and, nearly three decades later, I’m still doing 30 to 40 shows a month and continuing to work as a consultant with brands large and small, advising them on what their customers really want.
Any advice for someone starting out?
Put your head down and do a good job at every stage. A lot of people I meet who are studying beauty in college say they want a great job and to earn a lot of money but they’re not prepared to do the first jobs.
I had one therapist say she wanted to be a celebrity facialist. She was working two days a week from home, which is absolutely fine, but if you’re doing that, it’s unlikely you’re going to meet the people you need to meet.
Beauty is a small industry once you get into it. My boss at Grayshott Hall went on to found Espa and asked me to develop the training manuals for her treatments but you can’t get from college to a role like that without putting the work in on the steps in between.
What was your highest point?
I feel like if you have a self-employed mentality, you always feel you can never do enough.
You never get to the point where you think you’ve arrived at the place you want to be.
But a high point was definitely getting my hands on a bound copy of my book, The Beauty Insider.
I get asked the same questions and see the same mistakes that people make with skincare and beauty, so it seemed to make sense to put it all down in a book.
When you see more than 300 pages of your knowledge and advice in black and white, that’s quite something.
I suppose it made me realise how much knowledge I’ve built up over my career.
What was your lowest point?
When you’re self-employed, there are always low points because when you’re setting things up in the early years, you throw everything at it but you don’t have anything coming in and you still have a mortgage to pay.
I set up my consultancy service after I’d been made redundant by Clarins, following a change in the management team.
I hadn’t planned to be self-employed but at every interview they’d tell me they’d love to work with me but they just didn’t have a role at the time. That was when I started asking if I could freelance as a consultant.
I looked very smart, with my posh handbag and best outfit, chatting to managing directors, but I’d get the train back home and then have to decide whether I got the bus or bought a pint of milk because money was that tight.
What do you think is the secret of your success on QVC?
I think it’s the fact I have integrity. I’m not in this to plug or help a business, I only care about the customer.
When I did facials or aromatherapy body treatments, I wouldn’t just go through the motions, I’d look at what the client needed and if that meant using different brands, then I’d do that.
On television, it’s the same. I’m never going to pretend you can get Botox in a jar, there’s no such thing. I have it written into my contract that I won’t promote anything I don’t believe in.
It also helps that I’m relatable. I’m Mrs Ordinary, Mrs Average. I’m not intimidating.
I’m from the North, I live on a farm and I’m not stuck in the London bubble. I’ve got wrinkles and problems with my skin like everyone else.
I know what it’s like to have acne and eczema and psoriasis, and I’m honest about it – I’m not some super-injected, fabulous, unobtainable person.
Mistakes, you’ve made a few?
You make mistakes all the time but you learn from them. One of my most public was on a QVC show during a fake tan demo. I was spritzing it and then walked across the shiny studio floor not realising the tan had made it lethal.
I went flying, the back of the stage collapsed and I landed on my wrist.
I instantly knew I’d broken it but I finished the show – and I didn’t go to hospital until after I’d done my next show.
It was the European launch of famous US brand Perricone MD and there was no way I was missing that!
The Beauty Insider (Penguin) is out now.
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