QUESTION: With one of the most botanically diverse but also harshest environments in the world, Australian beauty products are created and formulated with our lifestyle in mind, and tailored to our specific needs. Identify one hero ingredient from an Australian beauty product and explain its merits.
This was one of six questions thrown to our panel of thought leaders at the tenth Professional Beauty Industry Roundtable, focused on Australian Made Beauty, at the Nude Lounge in The Glebe Hotel.
Our industry experts ‒ Maria Cocciolone from Inskin Cosmedics, Nicola Le Lievre from In Therapy, Mark Durkin from asap skin products, Belinda Merlino from The Skin Clinic, Carley Stewart from asap skin products, Andrew Taverna from Artav Australia, Dr Donna Lee-Marcal from Dermatonics, Lynn Hetherington-Briggs from Advanced Skin & Body ‒ agreed that Australia had some incredibly unique actives, but to remain competitive in an international market, some ingredients had to be sourced from overseas.
Maria Cocciolone from Inskin Cosmedics said she tried to look for Australian-made ingredients where she could, but some of the best, innovative, and cutting-edge ingredients didn’t necessarily come from Australia.
Carley Stewart from asap skin products said something really exciting that we had seen over the last few years was the technology in active ingredients.
Donna Lee-Marcal from Dermatonics said they used a lot of amazing Australian botanicals in the Dermatonics products, like Kakadu Plum and Desert Quandong, but they had to also look elsewhere for some of their ingredients, like Javanese turmeric.
Andrew Taverna from Artav Australia said some of their products are used for pedicures, so typically Australian ingredients like eucalyptus oil and tea tree oil were used because they had anti-fungal and anti-bacterial properties.
Mark Durkin from asap skin products said you had to use the best quality ingredients, wherever you could get them, and if they could be sourced in Australia, that was fantastic.
Nicola Le Lievre from In Therapy said the SPF regulations in Australia were second to none, which is why sun protection products were some of the top sellers in her salon.
Belinda Merlino from The Skin Clinic said the hero ingredient and what she predominantly sold was Vitamin A.
Lynn Hetherington-Briggs from Advanced Skin & Body said in our environment, we naturally grew some amazing, albeit limited, varieties of ingredients.
Watch the video below for the full discussion.
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