Make-up mogul Brendan McDowell has spoken about his motivation for founding BPerfect Cosmetics, revealing he was “inspired by my dad” on his 30th birthday.

he Annalong-born man started his company in 2013 with just £500. Since then, he has grown the business into a multimillion-pound empire.

Speaking to The Sunday Times, Mr McDowell said his love of business and working hard started early in his life and that student life in Ulster University “wasn’t for me”.

“I really wanted a white horse but my parents wouldn’t buy it for me, so I went to work and saved up the money,” he told the newspaper of his childhood.

“You have to find out what you want in life and work for it.

“I was inspired by my dad, who set up his company when he was 40 and wished he’d done it sooner.”

McDowell’s first deal in life was to run his grandfather’s horse in a local show, one he won, before he spoke of his first adult job – selling credit cards for Ulster Bank.

“We won class and then we won championship, and I remember my grandad being really proud, but he had actually been gearing the horse up for a sale and we sold off the back of it.”

On his first job after his studies, he explained: “It was before the credit crunch and it was a tough gig. It was 100 per cent commission-based and I was one of those annoying people on the street stopping every passer-by. “

The mogul’s father was just 43 when he broke his back in a digger while working at his construction business.

He made a full recovery from his injury but died in 2005 from the MRSA superbug, which he contracted while in hospital.

Earlier this year, the businessman spoke to the Sunday Life about coming out to his father after the accident on the building site.

“I suppose I only came out to my dad as he passed away. It’s actually quite a story which I’ve never opened up about before,” he previously explained.

“He had a big neck brace on in the A&E department. He just put out his hand and said, ‘Brendan, you’re my son and I love you’. That was his reaction.

“Dad was up and walking a few months later, and the doctors told us he’d make a full recovery, but on New Year’s Eve [in 2004]they told us he had the hospital superbug MRSA from the operation.

“It was another six to eight weeks before he passed away.”

BPerfect Cosmetics opened its first flagship shop in Belfast’s Victoria Square in November 2020, followed by one in the Foyleside shopping centre six months later.

The company recently opened their fifth store in Dublin’s Blanchardstown shopping centre, with thousands of people flocking to the branch to see Love Island 2022 winner Ekin-Su Culculoglu.

“The [shopping] centre’s security said we might have to shut the shop to control the crowd at one stage,” McDowell told the Sunday Times.

“Our Belfast opening was huge but we think Dublin has maybe topped it.”

McDowell will be appearing on a reality television show based on the story of BPerfect, which is set to air on BBC3 in January next year.