Woolworths launches Celeste Barber’s Booie beauty range into supermarkets
The woman who built a comedy empire mocking Instagram poses, Celeste Barber, has created her own makeup you ‘can’t f..k up’, with Woolworths launching it nationally.
Comedian Celeste Barber launched her own makeup brand Booie Beauty into Woolworths supermarkets across the country.
“I used to dance,” Ms Barber said, going for understated in a sequined showgirl dress and feathered headpiece for the occasion in Sydney on Wednesday. Booie is the brainchild of Ms Barber, in collaboration with Claire Greaves, the co-founder of athleisure wear company P.E. Nation. The pair started the brand online about six months ago and it will now have its first physical presence in 1000 Woolworths stores.
Booie had started selling into the US, where “Celeste has a huge following” Ms Greaves said, but currently it is on hold due to the fluctuating tariffs US President Donald Trump has ordered. Both the US and the UK are markets are in the brand’s future.
The brand has ten products designed to take no more than five minutes to apply that the entertainer and actor hopes will appeal to “my ladies”, meaning the 15 million followers Ms Barber has on social media.
Her largely female audience is mostly in the 35-plus age group, and not the cohort adopting the Korean beauty 12-step skin routine, or the makeup contouring made famous by Kim Kardashian.
“I don’t know how makeup became so stressful,” said Ms Barber, who did a makeup course in her early acting years and described many of the in vogue multi-step processes as “overwhelming and too convoluted”.
Famous for her real life imitations of the bizarre posed shots of supermodels, she joked that “this is makeup that you can’t f..k up”. The brand includes a tubular mascara, a BB cream and lip gloss.
Behind the laughs is a business case. The Australian makeup market is currently dominated by the world’s biggest makeup company L’Oreal, which now owns local skin care success story Aesop, as well as Lancome and Maybelline.
In Australia, the only domestic brand in the same price point with a broad rollout is Mecca Brands’ own label Mecca Max. That company, owned by Jo Horgan and her husband Peter Wetenhall, pulled in $1.2bn in revenue last year, although the bulk of that was from non-Mecca products.
For Woolworths, cosmetics sales at the supermarket have risen 50 per cent over the past three years and many of Ms Barber’s “girls” are Woolworths shoppers.
“We’ve been listening to our customers who tell us they are looking for the convenience of buying on-trend new beauty products while they do their grocery shopping,” said Annette Karantoni, managing director of Woolworths Retail.
While this is Ms Barber’s first foray into retailing, “it was such a big day when we got an office,” she recalled, it is not her first time in the beauty space. She was an ambassador for lower-price point Australian beauty company MCoBeauty, which was founded by Shelley Sullivan and is now owned by billionaire Dennis Bastas. MCo’s market skews younger than Ms Barber’s likely fan base.
“It’s a big playing field and there is room for everyone,” said the entrepreneur. “This is authentic to me and I’ve built a really big audience with loyal excellent ladies. I wanted to move into the beauty space to celebrate them and us and it’s always something I really wanted to do.”
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Originally published as Woolworths launches Celeste Barber’s Booie beauty range into supermarkets
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