Meet Rose, 19, to find out more about owning your own cosmetics company. Part of our Bitesize world of work series.
Rose:
I'm Rose. I'm 19 years old and I'm a cosmetics creator. Going shopping with my friends at the weekend, I found on the high street I couldn't find any cosmetics that were natural ingredients, cruelty-free, at a price point that was accessible to me. So I decided to create my own range of products with the ethical values.
I was running this business throughout my GCSEs and I only started it with £25. After I finished my A-levels, I was 18 and a lot of people go to university, but because I'd built this business, I thought I can't just let it go, it's my absolute passion so I decided to take it on full-time and take a risk and I'm so glad I have - it's such a cool job.
With my business, it's been me for a very long time, but my mum has just taken a sabbatical, which is a career break from work.
Rose's mum:
Working with Rose is interesting, it's fun, sometimes it's challenging. Rose is the boss. I'm just proud to be part of it and see her grow.
Rose:
A lot of skills I learnt in school have played real influential part in my business - definitely Maths in terms of working out how much money I'm making. Also English has been really important. When we write a description about our products, we use really cool adjectives.
With my job, some days I'm mixing up the ingredients and making the actual product, other days I'm out selling at markets, updating our social media, checking our website, and shipping out the orders in the post. We now ship all through the UK and Ireland as well. My dream is for my business to be an internationally recognisable brand - it's on its way for doing that. I've got amazing plans for the future and the sky is the limit.
I decided to create my own range of cosmetics that matched my ethical values.
- Rose found it hard to find affordable, vegan, and cruelty-free cosmetics on the high street
- With just £25, she decided to start making her own lip balms and lip scrubs in her kitchen
- Skills Rose learnt in her GCSEs and A-levels have helped her build her Business – Maths helps her calculate profit and revenue and English helps her write descriptions of her products on her website.
Rose owns her own business creating natural cosmetics.
What to expect if you want to be a business owner
The salary and working hours when you own a business can vary enormously but what's most important is that you work hard and love what you do.
Working for yourself looks different for each person and each business, but in general it means you:
- run your own business and are responsible for its success
- can decide how, when and where you do your work
- charge an agreed, fixed price for your work
- sell goods or services to make a profit
- can hire people at your own expense to help you or to do the work for you.
You can be both employed and self-employed at the same time. You can work for your employer during the day, for example, and run your own business in the evenings and at weekends. It’s important to contact HMRC for advice if you’re not sure if you’re self-employed.
You can get help with setting up or developing your business, through the government’s business support services, for example, for advice about tax or about how to find funding to start your business.
This information is a guide (source: GOV.UK).
For careers advice in all parts of the UK visit: National Careers Service (England), nidirect (Northern Ireland), My World of Work (Scotland) and Careers Wales (Wales).
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