The beauty industry has long been an underrecognised sector within the UK, and is now growing four times faster than the UK economy. Beauty is not always taken seriously, perhaps due to underlying misogyny within the UK. However, the industry now contributes significantly to the UK’s GDP, and in 2024, was worth £30.4 billion.
Many fail to recognise the sheer impact that the beauty industry has within the UK, from our beauty standards, to our consumption habits, and now, the state of our economy. While some see this as a notion of how important women are to the economy, others argue that we are still trading women’s insecurities. Let’s look more deeply into this.
Where does this money actually go?
L’Oréal is the leading beauty products company with over $40 billion in global sales, which is currently owned by Francoise Bettencourt Meyers, who is a billionaire heiress.
However, in 2022, The business and human rights resource centre, reported that workers in Taiwan, who were of Vietnam nationality were facing discrimination and one company that was named was L’Oreal. The report reads
“Migrants employed at Hwa Hsia Glass, which supplies to L’Oreal, Veritiv and other companies, experienced labour rights abuse including the payment of high recruitment fees, passport confiscation, fines, and intimidation.”
It is important to note that the British Beauty Council ‘boast’ a strong workforce, highlighting that in 2024, they employed 496,000 workers, and show an 11% increase year on year. However, the report does not specify the geographical region that these women belong to. There is a chance that a lot of this workforce are women from the Global south, who face harsh conditions.
On the surface it appears that women are directly profiting from the beauty industry, which can be seen as a positive. Conversely though, it is a certain type of women, predominantly, white, upper class women, who benefit at the expense of women from the Global South. The beauty industry is not the only industry where this is the case, the same can be said for migrant care workers, who often come from the South and end up in Western countries. Arguably, it is a capitalist problem, rather than just a beauty industry problem.
The one difference that stands out is that beauty is predominantly utilised by women, therefore there must be conversation between women, that favours those working in unfair conditions at the hands of other women.
Does the beauty industry do enough to promote diversity?
Advertisements now include plus-size women, women of colour, older women and attempt to challenge eurocentric standards. However it is important to question who is really benefiting from this diversity? As a consumer, it still appears that they are unrealistic standards of beauty.
Alongside this, the luxury of beauty products still appears as a privilege to women who are already marginalised. When we closely look at beauty adverts there is apparent colourism and whitewashing when women of colour are involved. Studies show that darker skin tones are underrepresented in adverts, highlighting that diversity is only promoted when it can still fit in a narrow ideal of what is deemed beauty by societal expectations.
Recently two adverts by Zara were banned for featuring models who appeared unhealthily thin online. This highlights that inclusion is still an issue with advertising across many industries. The idealised image of white, thin, Western women is often promoted within advertising and bias is shown within the marketing world.
‘Trading insecurities’
In 2024, professional services ( makeup artists, nail technicians, facial therapists etc ) made up to £10.1 billion of the total profit. In comparison, personal care goods ( beauty products, nail varnish, face creams ) accounted for £22.3 billion. Looking at these statistics, it seems positive. Maybe women are spending money on products to make themselves feel good and for personal reasons. Buying our own self care products appears to be less drastic changes, compared to services offered by professionals.
Two issues popped up as I explored this further. The first being that the total from professional services had increased by 15% from previous years, with personal care goods only seeing a 5% increase. This may indicate that professional services, associated with more drastic changes, are becoming more popular, showing a change in attitudes to beauty. The pressure for women to look perfect seems exacerbated by our access to social media, often showing the most perfect, filtered women.
This leads to my second issue, that ‘personal care’ and ‘self care’ are often repackaged as luxurious, when they stem from self-survival. Audre Lord, professor and writer once quoted “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare”. She was a black, lesbian woman and is highlighting how in a world that devalues her, taking care of herself is a radical act. Through this lens, beauty becomes more than just a luxurious, fun treatment for women. It highlights how in an oppressive system, ‘feeling good’ is a fight against the system, however also how women’s looks have been a means of survival.
Women who are marginalised and oppressed have to conform to societal standards as a way to survive, otherwise they are further ostracised. Therefore, are we simply just capitalising on insecurities and the need for survival rather than empowering women?
