Gráinne Binns truly is living her best life.
The content creator is well-known for her styling videos, vegan recipes and envy-invoking travel content.
She boasts 17.6k Instagram followers, and a further 13.3k TikTok followers.
Goss.ie spoke to Gráinne for our latest Up and Coming feature, in which she spoke about how she became confident with putting her life online, and her love of fashion.
The content creator also revealed where the inspiration behind her brand Subtle Poison came from.
Find out more about Gráinne and her brand in our exclusive chat below:
Q. How did you get into content creating?
It was actually so long ago that I started. I got into it back in the Tumblr days – I was a Tumblr kid. That was kind of in my teen years.
When I was in school I was just always obsessed with dressing a little bit differently, so I shopped vintage and charity shops when it was almost a frowned-upon thing to do. People were like ‘ew, second hand clothing’.
I started posting my outfits then and I wrote blog posts on Tumblr. Then I kind of stopped for a few years, and it was only when I was in college that I started a blog.
So, I had a blog for a few years, then as the world of blogging died I focused on my Instagram and from there I did YouTube for a few years, and yeah I think it’s just kind of been a waterfall effect of being a child of the internet.
It’s always been something I’ve been interested in doing, and I always just had tunnel vision with it. So, I thought if I enjoy doing this, why not make it something I’m going to do as my job.
Q. What’s your favourite content to create?
That’s a really tough question. They’re all so different, I feel. I think, for me, because I started out in fashion – the biggest advice given to people when they’re starting out on social media is to find your niche, stick to it, and post within that.
It was during Covid-19 that I started posting about other stuff, and I was like ‘oh God, is this gonna affect me?’
But then I thought, you know what? It’s my life, it’s what I’m interested in, it’s what I want to post.
I don’t know though – they’re all so different, and I enjoy them equally, and I also think it’s great that I have all of them ’cause to be honest, say fashion reels are quite time consuming and you’ve to change your outfit loads, but I love editing those. I don’t really love filming them, but I love editing them.
If I had to do that every day, I know for a fact I’d be like ‘I hate this!’, but when I do it every so often although it’s time consuming, it’s quite fun.
But yeah, I think all of them, just because they’re so different and keep my brain busy and I have to be thinking all the time.
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Q. As you said, it’s incredibly time consuming. Do you ever find it hard to keep up momentum?
I think what people don’t really take into consideration when they see people doing content creation is the fact that the people creating the content have stuff going on in their own lives.
The only time I really find I’ve taken a dip [in content creation] is when I’m going through something personally.
For me, just before Christmas I had a call with my agent and I was like ‘I was using Instagram as a user and not a creator, and I’m ready to get back into it now!’
I think it’s important to not be too hard on myself if I do have those moments, because people take time away from work when they’re going through stuff. So, I think it’s only normal to have those moments and also to come back feeling re-inspired.
I know when I took the break – I say I took a break, it probably wasn’t even that obvious to people on the outside. But for me, I just felt like I wasn’t giving it my all. When I came into the new year I felt ready to give this my all.
Again, I was really inspired and really excited by my career, I guess.
While I think it is hard to keep momentum going, I also think it’s important to take this step back and able to look at it, and not feel the pressure to post all the time.
I’ve been in phases where I’m kind of just posting for the sake of it. Usually what I find happens then is the content doesn’t perform as well, and that also affects you then cause you’re like ‘why isn’t this performing?’
But when you actually look at the bigger picture, it’s because I was posting quantity over quality.
Q. You said fashion is your niche. Where do you get your inspiration from?
I think a lot of my inspiration comes from what I do in my everyday life.
I always say [fashion] is my creative outlet, because I’m terrible at drawing. So, it was always a way for me to express my creativity to the world.
I think I wear my emotions, and I’ve always done that. You can tell when I’m in a slightly lower mood because I’ll usually be wearing darker clothing.
Then if I’m in the best mood ever I’m drawn to colourful clothing.
Even when it comes down to designing stuff for my brand, a lot of inspiration would come from my life – so say for example, I spend so much time at the beac.
I’m also mad for a sunset. So, I always say the colours in a sunset or the colours in the sky after a sunset – I find inspiration in stuff like that.
Q. Can you tell us a bit about your brand Subtle Poison?
I started it about two years ago, and then I took a little break. It had done really well, then I was like ‘I need to go to Bali, be a 25-old, then come back and focus on my career!’
The reason I started it was because I always wanted to have a brand. I always saw it as something I could do.
I always loved – when I found a brand, I always loved the way it could make me feel. So, I always just wanted to be able to give that feeling to other people.
I thought it was something I’d do later in life, but then Covid-19 hit and I was at home, so I had extra time. We had nowhere to be spending our money, so I had a little bit extra disposable income at the time as well.
I had a few friends in the UK who were running brands, so I thought if they were doing it I was just gonna ask how they were doing it to see if it was something I could do too.
Obviously, you hear of super high minimum order quantities, but I just wanted to look for somewhere that did them within my reach. So, I did that and it was such perfect timing because it was around the time that I had just started rollerskating again.
I couldn’t find clothing that I felt I could skate in, but also match my style. I found a lot of the stuff I was looking for to skate in was just your basic athleisurewear. But I wanted clothes that I could skate in, that I could wear to a festival and that I could wear to the beach – but all in one.
That was where the idea for the brand came about. Similar to the content creation, I had a bit of a hiatus and then came into the new year ready to give it my all.
Q. What are your aspirations for the brand?
My main goal at the moment is to build a community around it. It’s more than a brand, it’s a lifestyle.
That’s why we started running the beach yoga events with the sauna. They’ve been really cool because people have been wearing the clothes to them.
I think building on that, and having this safe space for people to come to and do these hobbies that I enjoy and I find are quite niche in Ireland – like sea swimming, skating, surfing, yoga.
It’s quite hard as someone in their 20s to find people who are interested in these things and don’t just want to party.
I think building on that element of the brand is super important to me, and as important as the clothing. What I’m trying to get across through the brand now is the clothing is almost an accessory to this lifestyle we’re trying to build.
So, yeah. Just to build on all of that is my biggest aspiration with it. Obviously, one day I’d like to have some super cool shop somewhere. That’s long-term though, I think!
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Q. You’re also known for sharing your vegan recipes. Would you ever explore this further in the future with your own cooking series/cookbook?
That’s so funny, because I don’t think I’m in any way a good enough cook to do that, but then maybe the simplicity, who knows?
Literally yesterday I was thinking about it – like when I share the recipes they get so many saves obviously to try it themselves – but yesterday I was sitting in the car I started giggling because I can’t imagine people trying to recreate that.
Obviously they do, but they’re just recipes I’ve come up with. I can’t believe people actually want to try them.
It’s not really something I’ve given much thought to, but again, who knows?
I’m not really the kind of person – I don’t really go into things with much planning, I’m just like ‘oh I wanna do this, I’ll do this’.
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Q. A number of social media stars have gone on to do TV shows such as Dancing with the Stars and Ultimate Hell Week. Would you ever consider doing something like this?
Oh my God, I’d literally die to do Dancing with the Stars.
I’ve literally practice before doing my workouts in the mirror. Get me on there!
I was a Billy Barry kid, so I’m dying to.
Q. What advice would you give to others who want to start a career in social media but are too afraid of what others think? It obviously takes quite a lot of confidence to put yourself out there online.
Yeah, 100%. I think I’m quite lucky because I just had this absolutely delusion from an early age. I started doing this at 16 – I was posting stuff on Lookbook and Tumblr.
I got bullied for it in school, but I always thought to myself ‘they’re only saying that because they wish they could do it.’
That was the thing that I relayed over in my head, and it’s so funny now ’cause some of the people I was with in school and who gave me stick for doing it are like ‘wow, you’re doing amazing. It’s so cool to see, fair play to you!’
I think everyone’s always going to have an opinion, whether they love you or whether they hate you. People are always going to have something to say.
The most important thing is knowing the most important opinion is the one you have of yourself. Once you’re telling yourself ‘this is what I wanna do, I’m not doing this for anyone else, I’m doing this for me!,’ then all of that [anxiety] disappears.
It can be hard, and there were times as a teenager when I cried about it, but again just telling yourself that anyone who has something to say – it’s coming from a place of insecurity.
