• Some customers say that Australian beauty companies still don’t offer samples and product ranges that cater to the diversity of Aussie consumers.
• Beauty influencers, activists and consumers say high end companies stock makeup for a wide range of skin tones but more affordable retailers like Coles and Woolworths don’t.
• “Accessibility is so inconsistent…It’s not really equal access because not everyone can afford the high-end stores,” beauty influencer and writer Ruchi Page told Business Insider Australia.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Alison Brown says that she signed up for a beauty subscription box, she wasn’t able to use any of the products outside of a moisturiser because they all catered for a eurocentric skin and hair type.

Brown, who has lived in Melbourne for the past eight years but grew up in the US, told Business Insider Australia her experience is symbolic of her wider experiences trying to find affordable foundation and hair products in Australia.

Shakti, who is 24 and also lives in Melbourne, told Business Insider Australia via Reddit she had received samples in deliveries from companies including high-end retailer Mecca’s beauty loop boxes that she couldn’t use for the same reason.

“I have received samples in things…where it was a conditioner meant for blonde hair, which I thought was a bit odd,” she said.

Business Insider Australia spoke to a range of everyday customers from across Australia, as well as beauty influencers and an activist. They all said that while representation in beauty media has improved, Australian companies seeking to build brand loyalty still cater samples toward a eurocentric ‘norm’ and fail to offer makeup suited to a diverse range of skin tones across the spectrum of high-end and discount retailers.

A recent announcement by Woolworths that it would be trialing a broader range of foundation and concealer tones from Maybelline has brought many customers online to speak about their experiences of shopping for makeup in Australia and the lack of accessibility that still persists.

‘I know for a fact I won’t find anything for me’

Ruchi Page, a beauty influencer and writer, told Business Insider Australia she noticed accessibility was an issue when she first started shopping for makeup as a teenager.

“That’s when I noticed I was having a problem,” she said.

“Because I was young I just assumed that was how it is. You accept being ignored.”

Now, as an adult, Page said it’s frustrating to still not have options at supermarkets that are in line with the range of skin tone options available at higher-end department stores like David Jones or beauty retailers like Mecca and Adore Beauty.

Page said that over the past 10 years the shade ranges stocked by Australian retailers have improved.

This has been especially evident since pop singer Rihanna’s makeup company Fenty launched its foundation range that boasted 40 shades, prompting established makeup companies to scramble to expand their own product lines. Many international brands with foundation for darker skin tones are now stocked by Australian companies.

Along with many other customers, Page said having limited options outside of high-end stores means that the range of makeup options available to white shoppers weren’t available to them.

“Not everyone has 50-plus dollars to spend on a foundation,” Page said. “I don’t even think of Woolworths and supermarkets to buy makeup. Because I know for a fact I won’t find anything for me.”

Along with many other customers, Page said having limited options outside of high-end stores means that the range of makeup options available to white shoppers weren’t available to them.

“Accessibility is so inconsistent,” she said. “It’s not really equal access because not everyone can afford the high-end stores.”

Brown said she orders the majority of her makeup online for this reason. “I do a lot of ordering on Amazon,” she said.

She said from her experiences shopping for beauty products in the UK and the US that she knows many of the major beauty companies, like Maybelline and L’Oreal have foundation lines for a diverse range of skin tones — “they just don’t bring it here.”

“So it’s not even about them not existing; whoever’s doing the purchasing is deciding to not actually purchase those colours,” she said.

“Maybe you can go to Sephora or Mecca and buy a fancy product that’s in the right shade for you, for example,” Brown said.

“But if you’re someone who’s like a teenager, or if you’re on a budget, or you’re just not willing to spend, you know, like $60 on foundation, which I think is what Fenty costs, there’s just not that accessibility.”

Linda Jackson, an Indigenous woman from Perth who uses one of Reddit’s popular Australian beauty forums, told Business Insider Australia she joined the beauty groups online to engage in conversations about the accessibility of diverse beauty products in Australia.

She also spends more money than she would prefer on expensive products, and finds it frustrating that she can’t find products for her skin tone at Kmart or Coles, even though she lives in an area with a multicultural population.

“Maybelline has a big range. Revlon’s range is huge,” she said. “But they just pick the ones that will sell quickly.”

Frances Mao, an Australian journalist, told Business Insider Australia that she feels beauty standards in Australia are “still very Eurocentric” and that “makeup products reflect that”.

She said that while Fenty “was a turning point” for the industry, in Australia “most of the problems that existed prior to Fenty still exist.”

“You can’t walk into a Priceline and still get a cheap foundation that would have the range that Fenty or those kinds of other brands have,” she said.

And I think that is obviously really limiting in access.”

Woolworths expanded makeup range highlights gaps in the market

Earlier this month, Woolworths announced that on August 23 it would launch an online trial to offer a broader range of foundation and concealer tones for home delivery orders in 500 metro areas in NSW and Victoria, with 31 tones from a popular Maybelline foundation line available.

While the move represents an expansion of the options offered by the retailer, Rebecca Willinck, the activist behind Make the Space, a campaign to expand makeup ranges in Australian retail, said the announcement was initially encouraging – but she quickly ran into problems trying to make purchases.

“They had a really big campaign that was advertised on my Instagram,” Willinck told Business Insider Australia. “And they had shades in my colour.”

But she said when she went into her local Woolworths, she wasn’t able to find the products as they were only available online, something she said wasn’t made clear to her in the advertising campaign.

Willinck said that while the brand’s foundation available in-store was on sale, the shades available online from the exact same range weren’t.

With the cost of shipping added on “it was a difference of about $28,” she said.

Willinck’s response was to start a petition, which now has more than 4,000 signatures, calling on retailers and makeup brands to “make the space for BIPOC cosmetics on shelves.”

Both Woolworths and Coles have responded to the campaign with pledges to improve the availability of expanded makeup products by the end of the year.

But Willinck said her campaign has surfaced a wider issue around affordability and access to makeup in Australia.

I think it is “really unfair that people of colour couldn’t just go in and get a product the same way that someone else might be able to,” she said.

“Brands like L’Oreal [and] Maybelline now cater for more skin tones.”

The problem is we just don’t have access to those products here in Australia for some reason.”

Inclusivity in makeup

Willinck said one of the responses she received from Woolworths – that the company’s stock is based on data around what sells best in different locations – highlighted to her a pervasive misunderstanding about what inclusivity should look like.

“I think that makes sense coming from a commercial lens,” she said.

“But in terms of, you know, looking through for genuine inclusivity it doesn’t make sense.”

“It’s kind of treating skin colour as a preference,” she said, like stocking a drink brand that sells well.

Page said she wants brands to “stop scrambling to diversify.”

There’s a difference, she said, between “brands that actually want to change and want to include people because it’s the right thing to do” and “brands that are trying to put a person of colour on their campaign to tick that box.”

Willinck said she hopes her campaign continues to push forward how Australian companies think about the products they stock and the impact this has on consumers.

“My skin tone is not a preference,” she said.

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