Luxe Beauty, which has Abbie Benstead-Evans leading up the team with her two employees, has turned five years old this week, but unfortunately, the celebrations will be put on hold until the lockdown is lifted.

In the meantime, she's keeping herself busy by building up other aspects of her business, including her YouTube channel, while her Luxe Blender brand takes off.

While this time off work can put a kink in ability, Abbie isn't letting it hold her back, and she's making sure she stays busy, while keeping on top of her beauty business.

She said: "A huge part of what I'm doing to keep busy at the moment is spending extra time to give back to my clients as much as possible. I'm giving free one to one advice and recommendations, freshening up and redecorating the studio, lots of visual online makeup training for the team and lots of admin and planning.

"Our brand, The Luxe Blender, the makeup blending sponge, is still going from strength to strength and is still available to purchase online.

"The majority of my time though is going into filming free, informative content for our followers, which is regularly uploaded onto YouTube.

"The filming and editing of these videos takes hours, if not days, but it keeps me busy and keeps my head in the game."

She said: "It helps our followers learn and expand on their skills while they may have a bit more time on their hands. It's so important to keep your mind busy.

"I'm trying to check in with my clients as much as I can for a chat, it helps keeps us all sane.

Abbie Luxe Beauty

Abbie is making sure she keeps interacting with her followers (photo: Abbie Benstead-Evans)

"As a business owner, you will end up working a huge amount of hours, lots being unsociable – but it's what I chose! It's unusual having all of this extra time, but it's even weirder not seeing my clients.

"We've made such great relationships with our clients over the years, so many of them feeling like friends to us.

"We really can't wait to get back in the studio again, have a catch up with our clients and make them all feel amazing after so long with wearing no makeup and living in loungewear – trust me, I can relate!"

Abbie has closed her makeup studio for the time-being while lockdown is in effect. She's got big celebrations in the works though as she plans for a belated birthday party to celebrate her business.