ICONIC London

ICONIC London is a British makeup brand founded in 2015 and based in London, known for glow-focused complexion products such as its liquid highlighter "Illuminator" and the Prep-Set-Glow spray. It began as an Instagram-native label and grew into a multi-channel international brand. Since 2018 it has been majority-owned by the London private equity firm Bluegem Capital Partners [5].

The company positions itself around the idea of glow and confidence, describing its line on the homepage as "Luxury Glow Makeup and Makeup Brushes." It remains active, with a live e-commerce operation, current product launches and stockists across the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and parts of Europe.

ICONIC London was started by Jade Elliott, a former MAC beauty counter assistant and makeup artist. According to the brand and corroborating trade press, she began the business around 2015 from her bedroom in Essex and built it largely through social media [5][6]. In a 2019 interview, Elliott traced the idea to a gap she saw as a customer: "I wanted to create a brand that my friends and I would love. It just didn't exist."

The brand describes its starting point as London city energy channelled into instantly photogenic products. On its Our Story page, the company says ICONIC "isn't just our name, it's an empowering energy," and frames its mission as making "people all over the world feel confident." Trade coverage has characterised it as a trend-led brand aimed mostly at shoppers in their mid-20s [8].

On 10 July 2018, Bluegem II LP, a fund managed by Bluegem Capital Partners, acquired a majority stake in ICONIC London for an undisclosed sum [5]. Bluegem is a London-based private equity firm whose other holdings have included Liberty London and the fragrance house Dr. Vranjes Firenze [8]. Founder Jade Elliott remained with the company full-time after the deal, with a stated plan to expand sales and grow distribution in the United States [5].

ICONIC London centres its identity on glow, photogenic finish and confidence, with brand values it lists as empowerment, fearlessness and self-affirmation. Elliott has described wanting customers to feel about the brand the way "a child feels about Disney," and has framed her product approach as following what her core customer wants rather than the biggest industry trends.

The company is often grouped with the wave of "Instagram-native" or social-first beauty brands of the 2010s, having built an early following on social platforms before expanding into bricks-and-mortar retail. In a 2021 interview, then-CEO Selma Terzic spoke about restraint in a fast-beauty market, saying "we shouldn't overpower people with products," and described the company as having grown from a startup into what she called a "multinational player" [7].

The brand's signature product is the Illuminator, a liquid highlighter repeatedly cited by trade press as its hero item, alongside the Prep-Set-Glow spray [5]. Its broader range spans face, eyes, lips and body makeup as well as makeup brushes, with products including the Underglow Blurring Primer, the Super Smoother Blurring Skin Tint and the Triple Threat Mascara. The line has since extended into skincare-makeup hybrids, including a cleansing balm.

On ethics, the company states that all of its products are cruelty-free, saying it believes "no animal should be harmed in the making of our products." Its position on vegan formulation appears in two forms across its own site. The homepage banner describes the brand as "100% vegan & cruelty free" [1], while the more detailed Our Story page qualifies this, stating that all products are cruelty-free but only the brushes and the hero Illuminator are "totally vegan" [2].

ICONIC London sells directly through regional versions of its own website and through a network of third-party retailers. These have included Harvey Nichols, Fortnum & Mason, Boots, Cult Beauty, Lookfantastic and ASOS in the United Kingdom, and Sephora, Ulta and Morphe in international markets.

The brand is active. Its website operates across multiple regions, advertises recent product launches and cites more than 40,000 customer reviews. It has remained under Bluegem Capital Partners ownership since the 2018 acquisition, with no divestiture or closure on record.