Hair product sales spike during lockdown and relief from boredom found in baking

Big retailers have revealed changes in the spending habits of Australians during the coronavirus lockdown.

Australians have turned into a nation of beauty-obsessed wannabe chefs with little care for how our breath smells if spending habits during the coronavirus lockdown are anything to go by.

The country has been in partial shutdown since March to slow the spread of the deadly virus.

In that time, toilet paper and dried pasta flew off the shelves. Supermarket chain Coles reported an increase in purchases of at-home products such as hair colour, but a downturn in some everyday items.

“As customers increasingly work from home, we are seeing less demand for packaged salads, while social distancing has led to a downturn in sales of gums and mints,” a Coles spokeswoman said.

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Australians may care less about their breath but they are not neglecting their faces despite beauticians and spas being shut down.

Department store Myer, which closed its physical doors on March 27 and won’t reopen until May, reported a 520 per cent increase year-on-year in beauty product sales and a whopping 600 per cent rise in skincare purchases.

Online cosmetic store Adore Beauty has seen a 61.2 per cent increase in the sale of face masks in the past month and 62.7 per cent in exfoliators. As we pamper ourselves during the pandemic, we are doing so in comfort, with online retailer The Iconic recording an 800 per cent surge in slipper sales in two weeks.

Tight social distancing restrictions have changed the way we shop. Picture: David Mariuz/AAP

Myer also reported homeware sales were up 260 per cent compared with April 2019, showing coronavirus may have created a nation of interior designers.

People are also cooking up a storm with cafes and restaurants closed. Myer had a 170.9 per cent year-on-year rise in entertainment sales driven by cooking appliances, with some of the best performing products being coffee machines and mixers.

Coles has seen a rise in purchases of vegetables, such potatoes, onions and carrots, while larger volumes of broccoli, lettuce and cabbage are being grown.

Woolworths said after disinfectants, bread mix was the second most popular purchase, with demand growing by 88 per cent between March 18 and April 14.

The supermarket chain also saw sales of dried herbs and spices rise by more than 70 per cent, dried soup mixes more than doubling.

And Woolworths recorded a 1000 per cent rise in demand for hand sanitiser compared with this time last year.

Consumer group Choice said the results of individual retailers were seen across the country and overall, Australians were buying up on coffee machines, benchtop cookers and renovation-style content, as well as printers and antivirus software as more people worked from home.