Rationale skincare among Vogue Australia inaugural winners for best beauty products
Between a bottle of Chanel N°5 and an Estee Lauder night serum are the Australian beauty brands redefining self-care – and reaping the awards.
It’s a multi-billion dollar industry built on the premise of candescent complexions and smouldering looks, but only few products stand out on the shelves of a saturated market.
Vogue Australia‘s inaugural Beauty Awards, revealed Monday, crowns science the victor, as Australian brands rank alongside global empires as the premium in skincare, body, hair and makeup products.
With forty items crowned across five categories, hand-picked by Vogue Australia’s editors and expert judging panel, among the heavyweight houses in the luxury market is Rationale, the Victoria-based pioneers of a six-step cosmeceuticals line fusing medical research in every toner, moisturiser and serum.
Winning “best cleanser” for 2023, founder Richard Parker, 63, says the brand’s success across thirty years of skin in the game is “all about credibility.”
“The circle of trust in beauty is getting smaller, and skin is the largest and only external organ in the body.
“We’ve put decades of medical research into our formula, because you wouldn’t compromise the way you look after your brain, heart or liver.”
The cosmetic chemist’s line of products launched in 1992, garnering cult status for a regiment rooted in epigenetics, the process of analysing a client’s DNA and inherited characteristics to offer preventive treatment for conditions ranging from pigmentation to skin cancers.
Having branched out to a global market, the brand’s focus on major causes of ageing - sun damage, diet - Mr Parker says reflects the dynamic shift in the industry from fad treatments to appropriate medical care.
“We see the products made by influencers in their bathrooms come and go – but what the body needs nutrition wise through the various stages of life is similar to what the skin needs. It’s a health proposition more than a beauty proposition,” he says.
“Everything that gives us life has the potential to kill us - the problem I think we face today is we’re living longer with more environmental damage, and the skin is the only external organ dealing with all these external aggravators,”
“We’ve got this new awareness that says ‘oh god I’ve only got one skin, I’ve got to take care of it’.”
The beauty brand’s $1000 price tag for its complete collection of skin products has done little to ward off keen consumer eyes amid the cost of living crisis.
It’s symptomatic of the modern beauty market – in the face of financially conservative times, economists observe what they dub the “lipstick effect”, with consumers more willing to purchase less expensive – but still luxury – items.
Otherwise known as “dopamine beauty”, the pursuit of financially-friendly discretionary purchases has also seen skin-deep products rely on word of mouth to sell.
Vogue’s Beauty Awards affords both an industry expert and people’s choice honour in each of the five segments, with over 120,000 votes cast from the public.
The people’s choice winner for best hand cream, Kirsten Carriol, founder of Lanolips, tells the Australian “in the last ten years, reviews, blogs and reputation have all affected whether products survive or not.”
“You can Google and find out whether something is actually good or not and no amount of money can save your brand if people don’t enjoy it anymore.”
Carriol’s rich cream was inspired by childhood memories of her grandfather’s sheep farm in South Australia.
Crafting a cruelty-free product made with lanolin, a substance found naturally on sheep’s wool, the brand’s short ingredient list simplifies beauty for a consumer-friendly product.
Receiving a nod from the public for her clean beauty brand, Carriol says it is “the reason I ever launched Lanolips.”
“I didn’t do it for the money or for the travel, I just did it to create products that people love and helps them feel good.”
The full list of awards are revealed in the June issue of Vogue Australia magazine, out June 5th.
To join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? Register
Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout