Entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore has cashed in on her successful Soap and Glory business by selling the unique budget beauty brand to high street chain Boots.
Just eight years after the small town Canadian originally opened her third store with £300,000, she has decided to pass it on to the cosmetic superstore for a profit estimated between £40-£50m.
Kilgore confirmed that the deal had gone ahead stating, ‘I am proud of the company we have created, where we realised our dream of having an indie brand with indie values – and affordable prices – that caters to the masses‘.
During her time building the brand, the mother of two created products that she could relate to, “I always say to a chemist, if he can‘t explain his new wonder product to me in two sentences then I can‘t sell it.” Having suffered from acne herself as a teenager, her Soap and Glory products were based on a personal need to find products that worked. This intimate work ethic has led to her products being featured on ‘How to Look Good Naked‘ in 2008 and the anti-aging peptide serum, ‘Make Yourself Youthful‘ winning The Times Beauty Awards Gold Star.
In an interview with Entrepreneur she puts her success down to having confidence in her brands, “If you don‘t have 100 percent confidence in your product, it‘s better to miss a deadline than to own 20,000 of something that isn‘t quite right”. This has ensured that Soap and Glory, with its punning names, has kept true to its object of giving every girl, ‘The best bang for her beauty budget‘.
Kilgore can also count success with two other businesses she set up. Bliss, an American spa and cosmetics group saw a sale of an estimated £19.1million in 1999 and her 2007 footwear firm FitFlop is going from strength to strength, with 52 countries now stocking the sandals.
Similar to her achievements with Soap and Glory, Kilgore stayed true to herself when creating FitFlop. Having worked as a personal trainer as a teenager but not having time to exercise, she decided to create a shoe that would not only look good but one that would optimise muscle activity.
It is safe to say that the sale of Soap and Glory won‘t be the last we see of Kilgore as she has told Stylist magazine that she is hoping to sell 2 million sandals by the end of this year. She is keen to expand her footwear firm further, leaving Boots to push Soap and Glory forward.
Boots originally bought a minority stake in Kilgore‘s affordable beauty business back in 2011 and they have continued to assist with the growth of the popular cosmetics brand ever since. Now with full control it is interesting to see what else Boots have planned.
