Are you aware internationally-renowned supermodels currently envy you something? That you possess something they cannot quite reach?
That something is your elite access to Lucas’ Paw Paw Ointment, the little red tube or jar coveted worldwide; yet made and sold exclusively in Australia.
It’s the gaffer tape of ointments, so versatile you can use it on minor burns and cuts, sunburn, nappy rash and insect bites. I am not ashamed to admit I have also used it as an emergency moisturiser (oh shoosh), and something to lubricate the chaffing between a blister and my shoe when I didn’t have a band-aid. I even used this magical potion as an adhesive to stick a Googlemap to my dashboard, because I find the sat nav takes far too long to recognise the sky and load a map.
And all this for $5.95 a tube. Made by an Australian family who’ve kept the business in house for more than one hundred years. This, despite the fact the good family Lucas could apply for approval to call the ointment a cosmetic and then be able to export it worldwide, turning their humble tube of goodness into a $100 million business. Yet it remains elusive and exclusive and those jealous supermodels have to wait and bulk buy when they travel Down Under.
GiseleAnother Australian company experiencing global success is Lanolips. Kirsten spent her childhood on a sheep farm in Lucindale, South Australia and grew up versed in the magical ways of lanolin, a natural substance taken from freshly shorn sheep’s wool.
Or as I prefer to think of it, the captured tears of happiness a sheep sheds during pinnacle sheep-life moments like the birth of their baby sheep, or when they see their sheep offspring throw their fleecy mortarboards at graduation – THAT’S HOW GOOD THIS STUFF IS.
Kirsten used lanolin to create a perfectly textured lip balm – the Lanolips 101 ointment; which has now won at least one Best in Beauty award every year since 2010.
My favourite is the 101 ointment in Apple, which I think has just the right amount of red pigment for a fresh day-gloss choice. Sister product Lemonaid Lip Aid is a clear gloss and great all-rounder. It’s particularly good if you are trying to avoid consuming sugar – because it tastes just like lemonade, you big cheat you.
This month we’ve also discovered that Zoe Foster, Lord High Priestess of the Cult of Rampant Beauty Clickery (Australasian Sect) will be launching her own line of beauty products this coming April. Making her products in New Zealand (no doubt in honour of the ANZUS alliance, what a patriot) and promising they’ll be REAL easy to find and buy, perhaps next Australia Day weekend we’ll be writing up a new Australian adventurer done globally good.
My top 16 Aussie beauty buys:
4. Invisible Zinc UV Silk Shield Foundation Stick Spf 30+ Tan 15g
5. Le Tan Fast Tan Deep Bronze Foaming Mousse
6. O&M Surf Bomb Sea Salt Spray
7. Jurlique Herbal Recovery Eye Cream
8. Al’chemy Shampoo in Mandarin
9. Aesop Rind Concentrate Body Balm
11. Napoelon Perdis Auto-Pilot Skin Foundation Primer
12. Becca Beach Tint
13. Milk & Co Dry Touch Dry sunscreen
14. Mor Luxury Soaps
15. Face of Australia Loose Bronzing Powder
Which of these globally celebrated Australian products do you use? And what local beauty favourites you’re currently stockpiling deserve some international acclaim?
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Top Comments
I love Washpool Farm soaps, skincare and balms. Made in country Queensland! I also love Purity Essential Oils products in another country Queensland area.
Aromababy is surely one of Australia's best kept export secrets if it's not on this list? My family (from Taiwan) buy up all the stock from Myer when they come here because it's expensive back home. They have been doing this for 12 years now. My favourite is Barrier Balm which is quite famous in our country.