The businesswoman speaks to Alice Audley about rebranding, life’s challenges and acknowledging success…
Photography: Alexandra Cameron / Hair and makeup: Kate Pope
Dressed in a bra and black lace, with wild tresses of wet blonde hair framing her face, Louise Pentland looks alluring, sultry and like a woman in control. It’s almost a year since the 32-year old, who started blogging in 2009, rebranded herself from PG entertainer SprinkleofGlitter to unfiltered adult Louise Pentland and the shift suits her.
“I’d played it safe for so long and then last year I was like ‘fuck it’. I was so tired of making boring things that were safe and vanilla and for people to say ‘yeah, that’s nice’ to,” Louise recalls.
“I never wanted to be a children’s entertainer, but that’s what I was becoming because all of my content was suitable for them,” she continues.
“I started to feel quite a lot of pressure about it and it got to the point where I felt like I had to stifle what I said because I didn’t want to be inappropriate for the younger people watching.
“And you know what, yes, I like to wear florals and I like to wear pink lipstick, but I also like to say ‘shit’ and ‘fuck’ a lot, and I like to drink shots with my friends on a Friday, and I like to have sex.”
Uncomfortable with the direction her social media presence was going, Louise decided to drastically change her content. She informed her audience about the decision via a video, which she posted to her YouTube channel (where she has more than 2,500,000 subscribers), entitled Finishing with Sprinkle of Glitter.
“I made the video so I could make it clear what direction the channel was going in and the type of things that I would be talking about. I wanted to make it clear that it was going to be aimed at adults.”
The move away from chirpy, childfriendly content was a bit of a gamble, Louise remembers, and didn’t come without its fair share of worries.
“It was really scary,” she says.
“I’d been creating the same sort of thing for five years and then all of a sudden I decided to shatter it. Lots of those 13-16 year olds who were watching were like ‘Alright, see you then, we’ll go and watch someone else that’s more appropriate for us. If you don’t want us, bye!’”
Louise’s figures did drop after the transition, however recently they have started to pick up again.
“I’m seeing the numbers come back now and the age groups have shot up. My main audience is now 18-24, but also there a lot of 24+ – which is really important to me,” she says.
“I don’t want to degrade any of the interaction that the younger audience has given me because they’re so loving and enthusiastic and are often the ones who come to events, but I like the comments from the older people because they’re often something I can relate to – more serious topics.”
Indeed, it wasn’t just being tired of ‘playing it safe’ that led to Louise’s rebrand, it was also as a result of the more serious and adult problems that she was experiencing in her personal life. In particular, her divorce from then husband (and her 6-year-old daughter Darcy’s dad) Matt.
“I was desperately unhappy for a lot of 2015 and 2016,” she says.
“I felt like I was just a broken person and that I couldn’t ever really pick myself up.
“It’s always going to be hard to split up with someone. Divorce is even harder because you’ve been married and you’ve made those vows to each other and you’re not only losing your husband, you’re also losing the promise of what you thought your life would be.”
Going through a difficult time personally, but outwardly producing consistently happy and positive content, took its toll and although Louise threw herself into her work, shielding her audience from her situation was difficult. “At the time I was writing a non-fiction book about happiness and it was one of the hardest times of my life,” she recalls.
“I was so grateful for Sprinkle of Glitter, but – at the same time – it was difficult and there were times when I wanted to be more open about how I was really feeling.”
Louise now shares a more rounded image of her life, the highs and the lows. Over the past year, she has filmed and written about relationships, break-ups, moving house, body confidence and sex. Recently she released a video about her own rather awkward morning-afterpill experience, where after her initial contraception failed she sought out more and, in an embarrassing twist, happened to bump into a posh school mum whilst buying it. The reception to the video was particularly polarising.
“There was a very small but loud proportion of people that were disgusted,” Louise says.
“They were disgusted that I was having sex out of marriage and that I was talking about sex.
“And they were disgusted that I would openly say that I had failed with contraception in some way, even though the whole point of the story was that I had used it and it hadn’t worked – and then I sought more.
“There were people saying that I was Christian and that it wasn’t right and others saying that it was really childish and that I was just showing off. And there were a lot of ‘it’s dirty’, ‘you’re dirty’ and ‘it’s slaggy’.”
Receiving negativity to that extent was new to Louise.
“I have always been really lucky. When people said that viewers could be horrible, I would say ‘not to me, they’re not’. I was like ‘my audience are lovely and there’s no need to worry’.
“My sweet spot [not being subject to hate] was really long, but I think I’m coming out of it now. If I am, that says to me that I’m doing it right because that sweet spot is also slow moving and you’ll get left behind if you stay there. You can’t just make vanilla forever.”
This objective stance on her career is new and Louise admits that although it has taken a while, she has become more business-minded.
“I now see Sprinkle of Glitter as a business I run and I see myself as a businesswoman. I’m quite comfortable saying ‘Hi, I’m Louise Pentland and I’m a businesswoman and I work bloody hard’.
“I think vlogging and blogging is challenging because the product you’re selling is an image and you want that image to look carefree and then as a result of that people think that it’s easy.”
Indeed, the assumption that blogging and vlogging is an easy career is a particular bane in social media stars’ lives.
“There will always be people who want to tear you down,” Louise explains.
“The easy answer is to say that they’re just jealous, but I think that’s too simple. “I think there’s a specific type of jealousy where people would like to have a similar life or they would like to enjoy those same successes or have the same things, but they’re not prepared to work for them, so instead of working up to where I am, they’re just going to drag me down to where they are – and I won’t be dragged down.
“So when people say those types of negative things, I just think: ‘I feel sorry for you’.”
That said, Louise has been nervous about the release of her second book – her first work of fiction. Entitled Wilde Like Me it tells the story of 29-year-old Robin Wilde and her navigation of the world as a single mother.
“It’s been comforting that it has been mine for so long, but I’m now terrified that people are going to read it and either say ‘you didn’t write this yourself, you had help’ or ‘it’s shit, you did write it’,” Louise says.
“I’m also worried that no-one’s going to feel the same love for Robin that I do because I made her; I feel like she’s my best friend.
“I feel like I’ve poured my heart into this and that if somebody doesn’t like it, I’m going to be personally offended. So if you read it and don’t like it, lie to me!” Completing a work of fiction is an achievement in itself and Louise has made a conscious effort to get better at acknowledging her successes.
“I used to be almost apologetic with everything I did. I would say things like ‘Oh, just putting out a little video for you today’. It’s not ‘just’ a video or ‘just a little’ video; I will have poured a lot of work into that.
“I think the way you represent yourself creates a mirror back – so if you walk into a situation with confidence and are like ‘I am good at my job’, then they’ll be like ‘you’re good at your job’.”
Becoming more confident is also something Louise wants to instil in other women. She is a UN Global Ambassador for Gender Equality and counts herself as an active feminist – a movement that – prior to taking off on YouTube – she didn’t see as necessary.
“It is actually really embarrassing, but when I first started on social media I met someone at Google and she was talking about feminism and I said, ‘yeah, but that’s done now, it’s all equal’. She was like ‘are you kidding?’
“I couldn’t comprehend that anyone would think less of women or that women were getting a worse deal. But the more I looked into it, the more I became aware of it and I even started noticing it in myself – like, even now, I say girls instead of women, but I would never say boys.
“So, for instance, if you were to ask ‘who do you hang out with?’, I would say ‘I’ve got loads of friends who are girls and loads of friends who are men’. Why don’t I say women? Why am I equating my female friends with children?’
“I’m trying really hard to change that and use more empowering language.”
Positive change is a huge focus for Louise and she uses her profile to draw attention to difficult issues. In addition to her work with the United Nations, she is also keen to work with charities. One area that she hopes to bring attention to, and help with, is child abuse – a trauma that she experienced herself. Louise has spoken, though not in great detail, about being abused by her stepmother from the ages of eight to 15 (her father left the woman when Louise was 15).
“I’m going to talk about it in a video eventually, but I want to make a video with a point. I don’t just want to make a really sad video because it’s a really sad story, I want there to be a helpful tone to the video. So, if this is happening to you, you should… but I don’t know what people should do because I didn’t know what to do,” Louise says.
“She [Louise’s former stepmother] was very abusive; very physically abusive and very mentally and emotionally abusive. Thankfully not sexually abusive, but emotional and physical is still not ideal.
“My mother died of cancer and she [stepmother] told me that a mummy’s stress causes cancer and that ‘you know what causes stress? Naughty children.’ So, for a long time, I thought I was the reason that my mother had died.
“I’ve been in touch with a few charities and set up meetings to talk to them in the future, but I’m not sure social services are the right agency because they are so overstretched and also they didn’t help.
“I don’t want to talk ill of them but they were involved and they weren’t helpful at all. They didn’t take the steps they should have taken and they missed huge things that they should have taken action on.”
When the time is right, Louise will tell her story, but for now, she doesn’t let the memories of her stepmother rule her life.
“I’m good at putting things in boxes,” she reflects. Instead, Louise is concentrating on the positives of her life and is focused on being a great mother to Darcy, working hard and – unapologetically – acknowledging her successes.