Sydney woman claims Australian beauty giant Mecca is ‘ripping you off’

The price of beauty is not what it seems, according to this Sydney woman who did the ‘girl math’ on the Aussie cosmetics giant’s Mecca Max range and found it contained ‘literally half’ the product of other brands.

Mecca Cosmetica customer Jill Clark went viral for a video claiming the Australian beauty giant's in-house Mecca Max products aren't the value for money they claim to be. Picture: Jonathan Ng

Sydney beauty influencer Jill Clark has gone viral on TikTok with claims that multimillion dollar cosmetics behemoth Mecca is “ripping you off”.

In her video, which had been viewed 859,000 times as of Sunday, Clark compared Mecca Max products to name-brand alternatives and found they contained “literally half” the amount of makeup.

Mecca Max is the Australian beauty retailer’s popular in-house line of cosmetics.

“The catalyst for me was the Mecca Max Brow Guru pencil which retails for $20,” Clark said. “I purchased this and it ran out in two weeks.”

Mecca’s brow pencil is 0.04g, compared to the Anastasia Brow Wiz which retails for $41 and is 0.085g.

@jillie_clarkk MECCA MAX is ripping you offffff #meccamax#mecca♬ original sound - Jillie 🦋

“Mecca Max is known for being the more affordable option. It’s not,” she continued. “Because that’s the same amount of dollars per gram, for a far superior formula.”

She also compared Mecca Max’s ‘Life Proof’ concealer and setting powder, among other products in their range.

Meca Max’s concealer retails for $24 and contains 5mls of product. The Tarte Shape Tape concealer costs $51 and is 10mls.

“To get the same amount of milligrams there’s a $3 difference for the significantly better product,” Clark said.

The Mecca Max Brow Guru Micro-Matic Brow Pencil retails for $20 and is 0.04 grams.

Jill Clark is based in Ryde, NSW and says as a beauty fanatic she would purchase more makeup than the average person. Picture: Jonathan Ng

The 25-year-old, who lives in Ryde and works for a logistics company in North Sydney, said she’s been “an avid Mecca lover” since her teenage years — and has spent at least $3500 with the company in the last 12 months.

Interior of the Mecca Cosmetica flagship store in Sydney which opened in 2020 and is the largest dedicated beauty store in the Southern Hemisphere. Picture: Britta Campion

The “most outrageous,” to Clark was Mecca Max’s $28 setting powder. She compared it to Huda Beauty’s Easy Bake loose setting powder which retails for $66.

“If you saw these on a shelf and you’re on a budget, I’d bet my bottom my bottom dollar you’d pick up the $28 option,” Clark said. “Don’t.”

Mecca Max Life Proof cream concealer is $28 and weighs 5 grams.

The Tarte Shape Tape concealer costs $51 and is 10mls.

“Here’s the girl math,” Clark continued.

“Mecca has 5g in it. Huda Beauty has the standard 20g — so four times the amount of product. If I multiply the price of Mecca Max to give me the same amount of product as Huda, guess how much this now costs you? $112.”

Mecca Max Life Proof setting powder costs $28 and is 5 grams.

“To me, that’s just not worth it. The moral to the story is when you walk into these stores, simply because it looks cheaper on face value compared to the items around it, doesn’t mean that it is.”

Melburnian Jo Horgan started Mecca Cosmetica in 1997 to fill a Sephora-sized hole in the undeserved Australian beauty market. She cherrypicked a handful of the hottest products that weren’t available in Australia and signed them under exclusive distribution contracts.

A Mecca spokeswoman told The Daily Telegraph that “Jill has been quite selective” in the products she chose to compare.

“Mecca Max aims to deliver quality products at value and this isn’t reflective of the entire beauty line-up of over 100 product lines and 400 active skus,” she said.

Huda Beauty Easy Bake loose setting powder costs $66 and is 20 grams.

Today, Mecca has more than 100 bricks-and-mortar stores across Australia and New Zealand and the company’s most recently recorded annual revenue was $688.9 million, as of December 2021.

Mecca’s spokeswoman noted that Mecca Max, which was launched in 2017, is an “entry-level prestige beauty brand” and said “the majority of our products have pricing that falls between mass and luxury pricing on both an overall and price per ml/g scale.”

She said the couple of products featured in Clark’s video were more expensive because “we’ve chosen a superior formula and/or product packaging, which can increase the cost and therefore the price of a product.”

Founder of Mecca Cosmetica, Jo Horgan. Photo: Aaron Francis/The Australian.

She added that the range’s best-selling products, including the Off Duty Serum Skin Tint, Pout Pencils, Life Proof Setting Spray and Foundation, are price competitive with many mass brands and “priced below prestige or luxury brands”.

Overall, Mecca Cosmetica is “confident” that their Mecca Max prices and product sizes “deliver on strong product performance at good value,” the spokeswoman concluded.

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Are you a Mecca Max customer? Let us know your thoughts in the comments. Picture: Jonathan Ng/Daily Telegraph.

The Mecca Max Pout pencil in Daring, $16.