The Brow Queen: In Conversation with Brow Aid Founder Kim O'Sullivan 🤍

Kim's journey from a passionate brow artist to a thriving beauty entrepreneur is a story of dedication, innovation, and transforming the Irish beauty landscape.

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Mar 25, 2025

Hello Tech Powered Luxury listener, and now reader!

🎙️ This week on Tech Powered Luxury, we sit down with the Queen of Brows herself, Kim O’Sullivan. With over 14 years at Giorgio Armani, training under industry legends like Pat McGrath, and now expanding her brand globally, Kim has built an empire rooted in expertise, passion, and an obsession with perfect brows.

🌟 Are you new here? Welcome to our amazing community - keep reading to discover everything about Tech Powered Luxury, our Community Rewards and how this newsletter came to life.

💎 I’m Laoise O’Connell and I’m very excited to welcome you to this week’s edition!

👀 TL;DR

Kim fell into the beauty industry at 19 while working at Brown Thomas, where she was hired by Giorgio Armani Cosmetics - marking the start of a 14-year career with the luxury brand.✨
Training with beauty legends like Pat McGrath and Linda Cantello shaped her philosophy on beauty and service, setting the foundation for her own business. 🤍
Leaving Armani was a bold move driven by her desire for flexibility as a single mother, she took the plunge into entrepreneurship, starting out by renting a chair and building a loyal client base. 💫
Now, she owns Dublin Makeup Academy, has launched Brow Aid in over 70 retailers across Ireland, and is expanding internationally. 🌍
With a goal to be the number one go-to brow brand, she’s focused on slow, steady growth, aiming for global reach through big retailers like Sephora and Ulta. 🚀
Watch & Listen

💡 Our exclusive question to Kim:

Who’s your most unexpected mentor, and what did they teach you?

“My most unexpected mentor came from the most unlikely place: my loyal, long-standing brow clients. One of the most beautiful and unexpected aspects of starting a new business while working daily in an established one has been discovering the incredible support network I already had right in front of me!
Over the years, I had built genuine relationships with many of these remarkable individuals, but it wasn’t until conversations shifted toward my business journey that I realised the depth of their professional experiences. Unbeknownst to me, some were powerhouses in their respective fields, brimming with knowledge and connections.
What started as casual chats turned into invaluable mentorships. They generously offered advice, made introductions to key industry figures, and shared insights that were instrumental in helping me scale and grow. Their belief in my vision fueled my confidence and expanded my opportunities in ways I never anticipated.
I suppose it’s a reminder that sometimes, the most transformative relationships are already right in front of us - we just have to be open to discovering them in new ways and having that conversation.”

💅 From Passion to Entrepreneurship: Kim’s Beauty Journey

Kim O’Sullivan didn’t set out to be a beauty mogul. At 19, she was studying travel, tourism, and languages while working part-time at Brown Thomas, originally interviewing for a till operator position. But fate had other plans. Giorgio Armani Cosmetics was hiring at the same time, and Kim landed a role on the counter.

Surrounded by fully trained makeup artists, she was the only one without formal training, but her team recognised her potential, nurtured her talent, and sent her to London for monthly training with the industry's best. 🇬🇧

Her years at Armani were truly transformative. Beyond the monthly training in London, she had the opportunity to work alongside beauty legends like Linda Cantello and Pat McGrath (then Creative Director at Giorgio Armani and the mastermind behind Luminous Silk Foundation, now Cosmetics Creative Director at the newly launched La Beauté Louis Vuitton). She witnessed firsthand the launch of now-iconic beauty products, shaping her deep understanding of the industry. 💄

🤸🏽‍♀️ Taking the Leap: The Birth of Dublin Makeup Academy & Brow Aid

After 14 years at Armani, Kim faced a turning point. As a single mother, the long hours and financial constraints weren’t sustainable and crisis became a catalyst for change. ✨

She made the bold decision to leave her secure job, handing in her notice on a Friday with no set plan. Within weeks, she had rented a chair in a salon, leaning on the strong relationships she had built over the years.

In 2013, brow-focused salons were rare, but Kim had already developed a brow obsession. She took a threading course in Manchester, refining her technique, and naturally incorporated brow shaping into her makeup appointments. Soon, demand for her brow expertise outpaced makeup bookings. ⭐️

Fast-forward to today: from a single chair to Dublin Makeup Academy, pop-up brow bars in Brown Thomas, and the launch of Brow Aid, Kim has transformed her dedication to people and her talent for building relationships into a thriving business.

"What I’ve naturally fallen into now is ultimately caring for people, listening to them, and giving them the five-star service that I acquired from Brown Thomas."

🌱 Manifesting Success: Vision Boards for Industry Recognition

Kim is a firm believer in manifestation and the power of intention. Every morning, she opens her vision book, journaling her gratitude and future goals. Before launching BrowAid, she wrote down the names of makeup artists she dreamed would use her brand. Today, industry icons like Katie Jane Hughes and Hung Vanngo not only use her products but have been seen reaching for them time and time again.

Brow Aid started because Kim saw a gap in the market for a complete brow wardrobe, as she calls it. While luxury brands offered brow products, options were limited in shades and styles. Her mission? Create a one-stop shop for everything brows. What began with three hero products has expanded into 12 SKUs, now stocked across Ireland.

"Money has never been a driver, and it’s just a dream to see people have these products in their makeup bags. When people message me and say, ‘I couldn’t be without my Hero Tinted Brow Mascara,’ or like you, Ashley, when you said, ‘I use my SOS Recovery Mask every night,’ that is magic to me."

🚀 Scaling the Brand: What’s Next?

Expanding Brow Aid into the UK and international markets, with an ultimate goal of landing in Sephora and Ulta.
Continuing education and tutorials. Kim is a teacher at heart, ensuring customers not only buy products but learn how to use them.
Growing the Brow Aid experience: every customer in Dublin Makeup Academy receives a bespoke brow wardrobe tailored to their face shape and style.

Kim’s approach to beauty is personal and her goal isn’t just to sell products but to empower people through expert brow care.

🫶🏽 Our Partner This Season: Azure Communications

This season’s sponsor of the Tech Powered Luxury podcast is Azure Communications, and we’re thrilled to continue our partnership with them. For quite some time now, Azure has been our go-to provider for all things print and marketing. Whether it’s branded materials for our content, from print and direct mail to event invitations, they’ve been behind the scenes making it all happen.

If you’re looking for top-tier branded collateral, print services, or marketing support, we highly recommend checking them out.

You can visit them at www.azurecomm.ie or follow them on Instagram at @AzureCommunications.

🤨 Brow Evolution: From Overplucked to Customisation

It’s fascinating to see how brow trends have evolved over the years. Brows have always been a defining feature of beauty, constantly shifting with the times. From the ultra-thin, penciled-in brows of the ‘20s and ‘90s to the bold, natural arches that dominate today, the beauty industry has continuously reinvented how we frame the face. 👩🏻

After a decade of full, thick brows dominating the scene, razor-thin brows have made a surprising comeback. This resurgence has sparked a mix of excitement and hesitation. While some are welcoming the return of thin brows, others (likely those who remember overplucking in the '90s or whose mothers have warned them about the trend) are exercising caution. But there’s a silver lining to this brow debate. ✨

The early 2000s were marked by an obsession with overplucking, but by the 2010s, full, untamed brows signaled another major shift. With the rise of social media and beauty influencers, brow experimentation reached new heights with laminated brows, feathered strokes, bleached eyebrows, and microblading all emerging.

Unlike a lip or eye look that can be easily washed off at the end of the day, brow trends don’t have the same reset button. Once shaped, brows can dramatically alter your entire look, which is why makeup artists often start with brows to frame the face.

Thankfully, in today’s brow landscape, there’s more customisation than ever. While the thin arch is making a return, there’s now an option to tailor it to your own features. Modern brow trends are all about experimentation, whether it's feathered strokes, laminated brows, or even bleached eyebrows. With this new focus on brow care, many are treating their brows with the same attention they give to their skincare routines. It’s all about finding what works best for the individual. 💆🏼‍♀️

The modern approach is all about enhancing your natural beauty rather than adhering to a one-size-fits-all trend. It’s interesting to see this evolution and to watch where the trend goes from here. 👀

🎁 Community Rewards

This week, Kim and her team are thrilled to give one lucky winner the ultimate brow glow-up! ✨ You’ll get to choose a complimentary brow treatment with one of their expert artists at The Dublin Makeup Academy!

💖 How to enter? Simply comment below for your chance to win!

P.S. Phibrows are excluded from this offer.

Good luck! 🍀💫

💫 Who are we and what led us here today?

🎙️ Launched as a podcast on November 1st 2022 by Ashley McDonnell, Tech Powered Luxury has since nurtured a vibrant community of experts passionate about the evolving synergy between technology and luxury. We have reached over 20 million people through the podcast, social platforms and media, and have hit +500K downloads.

🪄 This season, our weekly newsletter will be curated by Laoise O’Connell, a luxury marketeer with experience in client relations and communications at fashion houses and global brands Chanel and Givenchy in Paris. Laoise has been a proud contributor to Tech Powered Luxury since Season 1 and we are excited to have her guide our content for the newsletter this season and look forward to the insights she will bring. 💎

A guest post by

Laoise O'Connell