‘Knight in shining armour’ revives extinct Beaut.ie and aims to ‘give it socks’

Beaut.ie is "back in the room!!" just days after founder Aisling McDermott closed it down. The cosmetics site has been acquired by the publisher of Entertainment.ie, Entertainment Media Networks, which is part-owned by The Irish Times.

“Look into my eyes, not around the eyes, right into the eyes. And... we’re back in the room,” McDermott wrote on her site yesterday.

“We’ve got a fantastic new partner who is going to make Beaut.ie shinier, snazzier and give it more socks than Marks & Sparks sell at Christmas time.”

McDermott, who set up Beaut.ie as Ireland’s “premier online resource for women who are into cosmetics” in 2006, wrote a “goodbye” post on the site last Saturday, saying she was moving on after “eight years of mascara, foundation, cleanser, clothes and social commentary”.

Disappointed tweets
But the flurry of disappointed tweets from loyal fans did not go unnoticed at Entertainment.ie, where managing director Julian Douglas and his business partners decided the site's closure would be "a real shame". The company bought the site on Wednesday and now plans to marry Beaut.ie's "buzzy" treatment of cosmetics and pop culture to Entertainment.ie's mix of film, television, music and events.

The Irish Times Ltd has a 32 per cent stake in Entertainment Media Networks, while media entrepreneur Dermot Hanrahan is the largest individual shareholder.

Hanrahan said McDermott had “a cheeky, irreverent and highly independent style” and described her as “a kindred spirit”, while Douglas said Beaut.ie was “a jewel” among online publishers that it would now seek to develop commercially.

McDermott also lavished a compliment or two on her new business partners. "A knight in shining armour (think of Fassbender crossed with the Farreller) has galloped into the picture and quite literally given us the kiss of life," she wrote, referring to actors Michael Fassbender and Colin Farrell.

Honesty
"I am absolutely thrilled," McDermott added last night, admitting that she had not expected "the wave of sentiment" when she shut down the site.

She attributed the reaction to her contributors’ reputation for honesty. There is “a huge appetite for truth” in beauty journalism, where writers are often too wary to say if a product is poor, she believes.

“There are brands that we really love, but we can also spot a dud coming a mile off.”