Áine named in Forbes 30 Under 30 list

LUCAN entrepreneur Áine Kennedy, the founder of viral Irish beauty brand The Smooth Company, has been named in Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Europe.

Ms Kennedy’s beauty product company is a major success story with engaging social media content and accessible products.

She started the business at her Lucan home in 2022, packaging products with her grandad and sister, and today her hair-taming products are sold in over 90 countries and stocked by major retailers including Brown Thomas, De Bijenkorf and H&M.

In the Forbes 30 Under 30 list, Kennedy was included in the Retail & Ecommerce list alongside nine other Irish figures.

The Irish founders are an especially diverse group, working in areas spanning beauty and financial planning to acting and artificial intelligence.

The list spotlights business people across 10 categories, all under the age of 30, who they believe are driving innovation and change in their respective fields.

According to the publication Forbes, Ms Kennedy (28) “invested her $12,000 house deposit to launch The Smooth Company from her bedroom. Leveraging eight years of beauty industry experience and a degree in entrepreneurship, she used TikTok to generate over 150 million organic views”.

Kennedy shared the news on Instagram, “Genuinely the craziest email to EVER get!! I am lost for words right now but so so grateful! this is such a dream come true.

“I’ve wrote down getting on the Forbes 30 under 30 list as a goal every single year since I started The Smooth Company and I can’t believe it’s just happened.”

Earlier this year the Maynooth University Entrepreneurship graduate won the Future Leader award at The Irish Times Business Awards.

It was the latest accolade for Kennedy, who saw The Smooth Company win the retail category at the Small Firms Association (SFA) National Small Business Awards 2025.