‘I couldn’t stop pulling out my eyelashes’

Four years ago, Isobel Perl was living with friends in London and thriving. She was working for a big accountancy firm and had a busy social life.

Then the pandemic hit and she lost her job. Aged 25, she had to move back in with her parents in Watford.

She decided to start a skincare brand, despite knowing nothing about the industry. It was a big success until one wrong business decision, which triggered her trichotillomania – a hair-pulling disorder that meant she could not resist the urge to pull out her eyelashes.

Here, in her own words, Isobel explains how she managed to overcome the disorder and get her business back on track.

When I lost my job, I didn’t even qualify for any redundancy pay. It was a really difficult time for me and it knocked my confidence.

I had thought of the idea for my skincare brand PERL cosmetics a few years before, but I didn’t have the time, the money or the knowledge to start it.

After losing my job, I decided to throw myself into it. For the first year and a half of the business, I was running around like a headless chicken. I didn’t have a business plan. I didn’t know who my target audience was. I didn’t know anything. I set up a website and just chipped away at it day by day.

A lot of people doubted me. I look back now and I’m proud I had the balls to ignore them. I was just so excited by the idea. But at the same time I knew I needed a steady income. I ended up starting a job as a project manager at the Ministry of Defence and I thought my business would just be a side hustle.

Then in January 2021, when I started posting on Tiktok, things just blew up and I quit my new full-time job. In the first few months, I went from zero to 50,000 followers and I generated £10,000 in sales, which was double what I had done in the whole six months prior.

People started following me for the journey, I don’t just share the good stuff. I think it’s refreshing to see someone admit to struggling.

Everything was going well until last spring. I started the business in the pandemic and I had never known what it was like to run a business outside of that. Everyone was on their phones and people had more disposable income but then life went back to normal. It was almost like a perfect storm for e-commerce businesses. But then sales really stagnated.

So I decided to spend the remaining £8,000 of the company’s cash on advertising but I didn’t see a return from that. I had to reinvest my own savings back into the business because I had nothing but I still had people to pay and bills coming out.

It was a really difficult time, and it triggered my trichotillomania, which is an uncontrollable urge to pull out body hair. I’ve had it since I was 14 but thought it had gone away.

For me it’s a feeling that there’s an eyelash that needs to be pulled out and it’s a relief when you do that. I couldn’t stop doing it. But then you feel guilt and shame and it’s a never ending cycle.

I decided maybe it was time to quit my business, I was so frustrated and I felt like it had consumed my whole life. I did this post on TikTok explaining my situation and it got two million views.

Everyone got behind me and supported me, the sales went up and it was the best month I’ve ever had in terms of revenue.