Why Australian Beauty Is The New French Beauty

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There’s a good chance that part, if not all, of your beauty routine has come from abroad. We’ve borrowed K-beauty from Korea, slathering on snail mucus in the morning and camel milk at night in 10-step skincare routines that promise flawless, poreless skin. We jumped into Japan’s beauty ring, attempting the refined skin rituals of the Japanese with their streamlined, luxurious products. And we’ve spent years following France’s lead; from micellar water to the perfect rouge, French girl beauty has long fascinated us, at once highly coveted yet seemingly impossible to emulate (even for the greatest Francophiles among us).

Yet while all these wonderful, culturally rich proponents of beauty will forever hold a place in our hearts (and cabinets), the last couple of years have ushered in a new, more laissez-faire approach. Enter A-Beauty (or Australian Beauty for the uninitiated): a one-stop shop for natural beauty.

Unlike the complex routines of Korea or France’s pharmaceutical-heavy products, A-Beauty is blissfully unfussy, hardworking and natural — much like our way of life. For us Aussies, life’s simple pleasures — the beach, the sun, the great outdoors — are beauty’s unsung heroes. According to Irene Falcone, clean lifestyle expert and founder of Nourished Life, “A-Beauty is all about simple, pared back regimes featuring naturally beautiful products loaded with powerful ingredients that do what they say they do.” Aussies are famous for their “no worries” attitude, and it’s exactly this “stress-free approach to life which is thought to have a positive impact on the skin’s appearance,” Falcone adds.

With nature and the environment at its core, A-Beauty’s growing popularity reflects a broader cultural shift into a greener gear: we’re becoming more invested in what we put on our skin and consuming beauty in a way which is sensitive to global environmental issues like sustainability and climate change. Falcone calls the move towards A-Beauty “an evolution that ties perfectly into current trends of transparency, minimalism and the expectation of ingredient efficacy.” It’s a shift that aligns perfectly with many Aussie beauty brands: to focus on natural ingredients and processes that are kind to you and the environment.

Australia abounds in rare, precious geography unlike anywhere else in the world. From sand to sea, forest to desert, our natural spoils are many. Herein lies both the beauty and power; our country’s unique landscape makes for some pretty cool (and highly innovative) ingredients that our skin loves. Harnessing this flourishing, diverse landscape, Australian beauty brands tend to be made not just in Australia but from Australia.

But why A-Beauty, and why now? Given the unrelenting and unprecedented chaos of the world, it’s a fitting really. 

The last few years saw us up the self-care in spades, but also saw us strip back in many ways, returning to the simpler things in life. We sought solace across the board, which inevitably saw the beauty sector also do a reset: hair regained its natural texture and colour (voluntarily or not), nails went bare and skin enjoyed a well-earned break. We began to turn our backs on overcomplicated, fussy routines in favour of a simpler beauty life.

That simpler beauty life is A-Beauty. As COVID continues to shift our perceptions, easy-breezy but totally efficacious skincare brands satiate this desire for simpler (skin) pleasures. In fact, global research by McKinsey has seen that the pandemic has only increased the desire for natural, sustainable beauty, with 57% of consumers stating that they had made significant changes to their lifestyle to lessen their environmental impacts. And so there’s probably never been a better time to say G’day to A-Beauty.

Shop some of our favourite A-beauty products below.