Entrepreneurship is known to bring both highs and lows, and the roller coaster nature of founding and growing a business is evident when I speak to Ruth De Leo.
The co-founder and CEO of Dcypher Beauty, the custom shade matching make-up company powered by artificial intelligence (AI), has just dealt with a formula explosion in its factory, which saw 100kg of beauty product materials plastered across the room.
Not only is she pragmatic about the mistake (made by external formulators and not her own team, she adds, all of whom were unharmed), sharing the resulting mess with her 41,000 Instagram followers.
But she has already found a positive to take away from the situation: “Lesson learned, you do not need experts necessarily.”
It is a far cry from two weeks ago, when De Leo was collecting her Rising Star in Beauty award at the Pure Beauty Awards 2026, which she describes as “amazing” and “humbling”.
The award celebrates an individual who is helping change beauty for the better, through their work, ideas and impact on the industry, and De Leo was recognised for her Beauty Concierge pop-up.
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