'I can do my make-up in two minutes without a mirror' - Trinny Woodall on her new beauty brand and the skincare buys she can't live without

When we talk about beauty influencers it’s likely that you think of the twenty-somethings, such as Zoella or Tanya Burr, who shot to fame with YouTube make-up tutorials shot in their bedrooms. Over the past couple of years though, 53 year-old Trinny Woodall has also been building up quite the social following, by filming beauty advice videos from her bathroom, and fashion ones from in-store at Zara, for those interested in style advice.

The television presenter made a name for herself, alongside friend and co-star Susannah Constantine, when they presented the BBC’s What Not to Wear back in 2001. But now, with a following of over 315,000 on Instagram and over 40,000 subscribers to her YouTube channel, Woodall has reinvented herself.   

What sets Woodall aside from other beauty influencers isn’t her age though, it’s her extensive knowledge about ingredients and her brutal honesty about products. She will happily apply half her face with Charlotte Tilbury’s make-up range and the other with Rosie for Autograph to highlight the similarities between the brands, while also championing gadgets that work rather than following the latest trends.

All the beauty videos are filmed from her bathroom with her iPhone strategically cellotaped to her window and the beauty products organised into clear drawers. In the video above, Woodall shares her desert island beauty buys, including the micro-needling gadget that she swears by and the American dermatologist's brand that she stresses is worth ordering from the States. 

With such an interest in skincare and beauty, and having tried hundreds of products (which she buys rather than gets sent by the brands), it'll come as no surprise to most that Woodall has decided to create her own line. Trinny London, a make-up range that aims to simplify your beauty bag isn't what you might have expected, but it is certainly an interesting concept. "I was fed up of lugging around this huge bag of make-up, so I wanted to streamline everything," Woodall tells us. "I started thinking about the idea back in 2014, but it's taken a while to get everything just right." 

Everything in the range is cream-based and can be applied with your fingers. Impressively, the small, clear pots of product click together in a stack. "I can do my entire make-up in two-minutes without a mirror, in between Tube stops in London," says Woodall. 

While Trinny London's concept is clever and the formulas certainly work, the real hero of the range is the BFF cream. It's a radiance-enhancing cream that you can layer underneath your make-up or wear alone and it quite literally gives you that glow-from-within. 

Woodall does have one piece of advice that she wants all women, and customers to follow, "Match your foundation to your skin tone, don't go darker. It's so obvious and it always looks so terrible." For those who find the process of shade matching arduous, Woodall has a solution. "With the website, we've got lots of videos where we've interviewed women of all ages and skin tones, and ask them to talk through their skin colouring," explains Woodall. "Most women don't have a clue if they're blue or warm toned, I certainly don't, so this is much easier."

Admittedly, keeping your make-up in Muji-like pots and applying with your fingers won't entice everyone, but if you're fed up of carrying around a huge bag of pots and tubes or travel frequently, it's definitely a brand worth exploring. Woodall also hinted at a mascara and potentially skincare coming in the future. Although she's adamant that it'll only happen when it's absolutely perfect. So stay tuned, Trinny London is certainly a brand worth watching...