Warwick University graduate set to make £10 million by 2028 with hair oils business

Since facing rejection on Dragon’s Den in 2024, things have been looking up for 26-year-old Lucie MacLeod. The Warwick University graduate has now been listed on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and is set to make £10,000,000 in revenue by 2028.

While studying English literature at Warwick, Lucie founded her hair oil company, Hair Syrup, after damaging her own hair as a teenager from years of home bleach and heat damage.

She turned to natural ingredients in her family home’s kitchen after moving back home at 20, just after the country went into the first COVID lockdown. Her first handmade remedies were made of ingredients like egg yolk and mashed avocado, which she began sending to her friends.

After one of her TikTok videos going viral overnight, what Lucie had planned to sell very little of, boomed into a viable commercial venture which would change her life forever.

In 2024, Lucie went on the BBC’s Dragon’s Den with the hope of earning a £190,000 investment, but after a gruelling three hour discussion with the Dragons, she walked away empty-handed having been rejected by all six.

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A post shared by HAIR SYRUP ® (@hairsyrup)

Despite this, Lucie saw the experience as a redirection, rather than a rejection. After the airing of the episode, Hair Syrup grew exponentially, with sales increasing in 66 per cent for a sustained six weeks after, and Lucie now having been listed as one of 2026’s Forbes 30 under 30.

In 2025, Hair Syrup’s natural and cruelty-free hair and scalp oils truly took TikTok by storm and brought in almost £5 million in just one year. Hair Syrup is now available to buy at major retail chains, including Boots, Urban Outfitters, ASOS, Lookfantastic, and through the Hair Syrup website.

Thinking back to her second year at Warwick University, Lucie said: “I basically started it by chance, a little bit by accident. My mum, my brother and his fiancé were all saying, ‘Woah your hair is so amazing and so much better, what have you been doing?'”

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Lucie shared her origin story in Instagram, explaining how a lack of efficient products on the market, and being on a student budget, motivated her to create her own DIY version of the expensive hair oils she had seen online.

While balancing her full-time studies and the rapidly growing Hair Syrup business, Lucie persevered and upon graduating, took running the business up as a full-time job after having experienced a 967 per cent revenue growth from 2022-2023.

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A post shared by HAIR SYRUP ® (@hairsyrup)

According to Lucie, Hair Syrup is just getting started, with new products set to be launched, plans for global expansion and more retail partnerships on the horizon.

On the website, Lucie explains: “I started this brand with nothing – no experience, no money, no real understanding of business and I’ve managed to catapult it into the multi-millions. When you manage to grow a brand from a student kitchen to being stocked by Boots, you really feel like the sky’s the limit.

“From a student’s experiment to a global brand, Hair Syrup proves that passion, creativity, and a bit of TikTok magic can go a long way.”

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Featured image via Instagram @hairsyrup and BBC