Guide Dogs NSW/ACT is introducing the first Accessible Beauty Guidelines in Australia, urging local beauty brands to adopt inclusive practices in product and packaging design.
According to Circana and SeeMe Index, three in four consumers consider diversity and inclusion when making purchases, and inclusive brands experience growth at 1.5 times the rate of others.
Despite this, beauty products are still not widely accessible for the estimated 500,000 Australians who are blind or have low vision.
Guide Dogs NSW/ACT’s announcement comes after the first Boundless Beauty Summit, an event where beauty leaders, content creators, disability advocates, and accessibility experts gathered to tackle systemic exclusion in the beauty sector and promote progress.
“Accessibility in beauty isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s a fundamental right. Everyone deserves to feel seen, valued and included. We’re calling on Australian brands to step up and be part of the solution, not just for the benefit of people with low vision or blindness, but for the future of a truly inclusive industry,” said Dale Cleaver, CEO of Guide Dogs NSW/ACT.
Guide Dogs NSW/ACT partnered with brand studio By Ninja to create the Accessible Beauty Guidelines based on insights from the summit, to serve as a practical, industry-facing toolkit, helping brands take immediate steps towards accessibility such as tactile markers, high-contrast labels, audio-enabled QR codes, and inclusive product naming.
Guide Dogs NSW/ACT also invited Australian beauty brands to collaborate in developing the country’s first fully accessible beauty product, setting a new standard for inclusive innovation.
At the summit, Molly Burke, beauty influencer and accessibility advocate, shared her personal experience as a blind beauty consumer and how exclusion often results from poor design and not personal limitation.
“Every time I can’t read a label or differentiate a product, I’m reminded: this wasn’t made for me. But it could be. And when it is – everyone benefits,” said Burke.
“It’s incredibly frustrating walking into a store and not being able to tell one product from another. Everything feels the same in your hand, same shape, same texture, no labels I can read. It’s a reminder that the industry wasn’t designed with us in mind,” said Karlee Symonds, Guide Dogs Client.
“When I am faced with a lack of accessibility within products, my self-expression is restricted and confidence greatly limited, leaving me and many others living with blindness or low vision to feel invisible and excluded.”
The Boundless Beauty Summit forms part of Guide Dogs NSW/ACT’s larger Boundless mission to remove barriers for people with low vision or blindness by 2030.
“This is the next frontier. We’re proud to lead the charge and we’re looking for brave, commercially minded brands that want to make beauty better for everyone. Including those who can’t see it,” said Cleaver.