“CRAZY, crazy, crazy,” says acclaimed make-up artist Mitchell Halliday, when he describes how it felt to become the first person to make $1 million (£774,000) on TikTok in just 24 hours.
The makeup guru is a millionaire at just 26-years old, thanks to his booming viral beauty empire Made By Mitchell.
The brand boasts a wide range of bold, super-pigmented products, which have been repeat hits in the beauty world – with celebs like Jeffree Star praising them and the viral liquid to cream product, Blursh, consistently selling out.
Mitchell has a massive 1 million followers on his personal Instagram account, with a further 349,000 on the Made By Mitchell official brand account.
The Brit, originally from Bolton, launched his brand in October 2020 from humble beginnings, and recently sat down with Olivia Attwood, 33, on her podcast So Wrong It’s Right to chat about his rise to superstardom.
Olivia asked candidly: “Is it true that you were the first person to make $1million in one day on TikTok?”
“Yeah, crazy,” said Mitchell, “That was June 2024, so it’s been way over half a year now, but every time I speak about it I’m like ‘what the hell, what the hell?'”
Hailing from a modest background, growing up on a council estate, Mitchell says the brand’s initial launch was “really successful,” but after around six months he noticed things had started to go “really quiet”.
“It was quite scary to be fair because we had all of this stock and it just wasn’t selling.
“So then that carried on for about six to eight months, and we were also all so uninspired, I was working from my dining room table, I didn’t have an office or anything like that because we were in lockdown.”
A year in, he knew his business was in desperate need of a shake up – with the company’s online presence solely through Instagram.
He said he was “kind of against” TikTok at the time – dismissing the viral video platform as somewhere where “kids were dancing and all that kind of stuff
[bc_video account_id=”5067014667001″ application_id=”” aspect_ratio=”16:9″ autoplay=”” caption=”Beautyblender CEO breaks down crucial dos and don’ts of using a makeup sponge – follow her ‘bounce bounce bounce’ rule” embed=”in-page” experience_id=”” height=”100%” language_detection=”” max_height=”360px” max_width=”640px” min_width=”0px” mute=”” padding_top=”56%” picture_in_picture=”” player_id=”default” playlist_id=”” playsinline=”” sizing=”responsive” video_id=”6358196410112″ video_ids=”” width=”640px”]“That is not me.”
But taking a chance on a new hire’s suggestion and creating a TikTok account changed everything for Made By Mitchell.
“Thank God I did because if I didn’t I wouldn’t be here right now.
“We were one of the first makeup brands to onboard with TikTok Shop and at the time no-one had really done anything monumental at the time.
“It was almost, everyone just thought it was a scam, to be honest.”
The makeup guru described TikTok shop as similar to televised home shopping channel QVC, if it were “backed by Amazon”.
Sellers present live on air, while TikTok Shop’s fulfilment centre offers premium customer service, with options for same-day and next-day delivery.
Describing the business as having “nothing to lose,” Mitchell said they soon found themselves “constantly going viral” with products “selling out every other day”.
“To me, that’s when the most amazing things happen, in business you think ‘oh yeah it’s got to be all sunshine and roses all the time’ but when it wasn’t, that’s when the best thing that could have happened to the brand, happened.”
[quote credit=”Mitchell Halliday”]”It’s like what they say when they say ‘when you’ve hit rock bottom, the only way is up'”[/quote]And Mitchell’s trajectory skyrocketed.
“It’s changed my life and it’s changed the entire brand, which is so cool,” he beamed.
Now, Mitchell spends his time attending swanky celeb-packed events like The Brits, travelling across the world for glam photo shoots and featuring in the pages of Vogue.
Made By Mitchell fans react
Mitchell’s fans flocked to the comments to show their support for the young entrepreneur.
“Loved this. Followed Mitchell from the beginning of his TikTok. He’s such a beautiful soul and so inspiring,” one said.
“So humble & down to earth, deserves his success,” a second wrote.
“I absolute love him, he comes across so, so grounded what lovely young fella, deserves everything,” a third commented.
“Loved this! What a genuinely nice guy who is smashing life, very well deserved! Lovely to see the face behind the brand,” said somebody else.