Three Melbourne women found a desperate need for a product in lockdown, and thanks to TikTok found they weren’t the only ones.

With beauty salons closed during Melbourne’s longest lockdown last year, three women struggled to find a solution for their “brittle” eyelashes.

Jessica Arthur, Lauren Rugolo and Emma Spiliopoulos, all in their mid 20s, were huge fans of eyelash extensions but as the lockdown stretched on for over 100 days, they had fallen out and the women were desperate for a solution.

But Jessica, who was in the process of opening a gym before everything ground to a halt, said it was “extremely difficult” to find an eyelash serum, particularly for her sensitive skin.

The woman, who have known each since they were 18 and travelled Europe together, had always wanted to start a business together and “be their own boss”.

So their “bare” eyelashes sent them on a journey of finding the perfect serum.

“We registered the business and name within 24 hours of coming up with the idea,” Jessica told news.com.au.

“We were convinced it was such a good idea and if we don’t do it right now someone else will do it.”

Just four months later they launched Lash Therapy Australia in September 2020, with three products: an eyebrow and eyelash serum, which both sell for $79.95, and eyelash wand for $11.95.

In one year, they raked in $800,000 from their new business and also added a growth serum mascara and an eyelash curler to their range.

But Jessica admits it wasn’t an overnight success.

“It was slow start. We did $5000 or $7000 a month, which we thought was amazing at the time, but from May it was extremely crazy,” she said.

“Last month we did $270,000. We went viral on TikTok and it was a big gamechanger. We had a video with our results go viral showing the lash serum before and after and that sold so many products.”

The video hit close to 900,000 views and they have now sold out four times in the last two months.

The 25-year-old credits their success largely to TikTok.

“It expanded out business in ways that we couldn’t image. We have sent our products to 37 countries around the world and places we didn’t know existed until we got orders,” she said.

“It’s the sort of reach you couldn’t get from an Instagram post or Facebook.”

She estimates they have sold 15,000 products, with 5000 sold in the last month alone.

“It’s been such a whirlwind and its happened so quickly and we are still struggling to get our heads around it. We had a vision board with goals and its insane, pretty much everything on there we have achieved and we thought that would be years down track, but we’ve managed to achieve that in our first year,” she said.

“We want to keep building on our brand and we would love to expand into a retail environment like Priceline and Mecca – to be able to see out products on the shelves one day would be surreal.”

Jessica said she feels lucky to be a part of a generation that can start a business from their bedroom or loungeroom.

“We have taught ourselves everything. You don’t have to go to university these days to accomplish anything,” she said.

“You can learn online and we learned so much from TikTok and YouTube and watching videos about how other people started a business. It’s more accessible and so much of an achievable thing for anyone these days.”

The friends are dreaming big and want to buy their own factory and warehouse one day.

When the pandemic hit, she lost $350,000 a week overnight but now she’s scored a Woolworths deal to stock her products in 950 stores.

The Sydney dad relied on people being “sticky beaks” and having a fear of missing out. Now he’s making millions every year.

A Queensland family says they have been hit with a bombshell revelation from their home builder and the emotional toll has been “heavy”.