Childhood acne inspires Telford woman's beauty business

Chloe Eggerton launched her business from home in 2021, during the pandemic

An entrepreneur said she had been inspired to set up a beauty business after struggling with severe acne as a child.

Chloe Eggerton, from Telford, owns Flossy Tools, with her primary product a microfibre glove that uses water to remove make-up.

Many sales come from TikTok and the 22-year-old currently does everything from home.

She said she still remembered how she was treated by other pupils at school.

Names such as "pizza face" continued as she started secondary school, Ms Eggerton said.

She had turned to make-up in primary school as a way to try to cover up her spots.

"Teachers would often take that the wrong way and would have a really bad attitude towards you because you were wearing make-up at such a young age," she said.

"It was to hide my face, and kids are mean... they wouldn't quite understand why I had spots."

She said she had regularly visited doctors, with her acne also affecting her chest and neck.

Eventually she was prescribed stronger medication and added since changing her contraception, her skin had noticeably improved.

Ms Eggerton said it had been a learning curve coming up with ways to make her content and product interesting

However, throughout her skin troubles, Ms Eggerton said she had realised how removing make-up was "such a chore" and hated the feeling of "grease and grime" on her sensitive skin from oil-based removers and wipes.

"It just gets everywhere when you're trying to remove your make-up as well, and they aren't great for the environment," she said.

As a result she said she wanted an environmentally friendly product that would help remove make-up with only water - and took the leap to create her business Flossy Tools in 2021.

• Teen beauty queen given TikTok block over acne

• Influencer wants more support for people with acne

• From boy bullied for acne to Instagram beauty guru

After a few "basic drawings" on a piece of paper, she said she had contacted manufacturers with her designs for a microfibre glove which features a space for a thumb, which she said aimed to give the user more control.

"I received some samples in the post, gave them a go for a couple of weeks, because I wanted to see how they washed and I didn't want them to fall apart," Ms Eggerton said.

To market them, she has largely relied on TikTok and Instagram and said she depended on positive reviews.

She said one negative comment from the USA reinforced the struggles of starting a small business from scratch.

At the time she said she did not ship internationally, but even so it had an impact.

"This is what I want to do full time, so I'm so passionate about it, and your 30-second pass away comment that you probably forgot about has probably ruined a good week of my business," Ms Eggerton said.

Much of the stock is kept in the living room of the house she shares with her sister in Telford

However, using films posted on social media she said she had been able to communicate directly with prospective customers and show them how the glove worked with a variety of products.

Despite the difficulties of starting a business from her home, she said the experience had given her a "warm feeling".

"It was literally on the back of a piece of paper in my kitchen and is now in so many people's bathrooms.

"It's very, very strange, I will probably never get used to it, I hope I don't ever get used to it."