The disability gap: is the beauty industry glossing over inclusivity basics?

The beauty industry has long been accused of making inclusivity a ‘tick box’ exercise. It’s one thing to create ads and major campaigns with a diverse group of models, but another to actually make products that cater to them. While aesthetics promote such positive changes, do the products do enough for disability inclusivity?

A study conducted by P&G back in 2019, only 4% of beauty personal care products directly address the needs of those with physical disabilities. This includes thought-through packing like including braille on products or easy-to-open lids. Considering there are 14.6 million people in the UK alone living with a disability (that’s 22% of the total population), it doesn’t take much to see this is a serious problem.

In the last few years, brands have taken some steps in the right direction with new innovations. Take L’Occitane, Bioderma and Dr Jart, brands that have implemented braille onto their packaging. Estée Lauder’s voice-enabled makeup assistant AI-powered app is helpful to those who are visually impaired or Rare Beauty's easy-to-hold sphere top applicator, which although wasn't specifically designed for those with dexterity issues, has been praised for the inclusive packaging. A significant new move from Lancôme came with its HAPTA announcement earlier this year. The brand announced it was releasing an AI-powered motor-stabilising device to help those with limited arm mobility apply by keeping the device level as you move, creating a steady application process.

The ergonomic grip and “self-levelling” tech sounds extremely helpful, but also science-y, and therefore, seriously expensive. The price wasn’t originally disclosed, but reps since say they project it to be around £199 from its first launch. Does the price tag reflect a prioritisation of accessible, inclusive beauty? Or, more a display of tech-y prowess? Especially when a lipstick usually costs under £20? I'm not so sure.

Lancôme is of course a luxury brand, so it was never going to be a bargain buy to begin with. However, I don’t know about you, but I’ve never parted with this amount of cash for an application device, so why should someone with a disability have to in order to participate in the beauty space like I do? One in five people with a disability in the UK spend an extra £1,000 a month just living according to the House of Lords. While this tech is going to be life-changing for some, what about people that love the beauty space living with a disability but don’t have mounds of disposable income?

“As someone with a disability, I have definitely felt the need to spend more money on my beauty routine to find products that work for me,” says Millie Flemington-Clare, founder of Human Beauty. “This often means buying more expensive specialised tools or products with magnetic closures that are typically only used by ‘luxury’ brands as they are easier for me to use due to my weak wrists. Unfortunately, these types of products often come with a higher price tag.”

Millie created Human Beauty with the hopes of allowing everyone to experience the “healing and therapeutic power of makeup” that she herself had looked to as a form of therapy. The brand's stand-out Liquid Confidence Mascara (£18.50), is designed to perform even when used vertically or horizontally, to aid those with mobility issues. It’s reasonably priced, and a make-up bag staple, whilst being analogue in the tech department. Proving an eye-watering price tag isn’t always necessary for innovation.

“By no means was it easy to create a brand in such a saturated market, and in an industry that is so ingrained in its outdated ways. Creating accessible products is a constant learning experience and educating an industry and society that is so deep in its albelist ways is going to take time,” says Millie. That’s an incredibly admirable achievement, but is the rest of the market ready to follow suit?

The user experience is central to how we take part in beauty, and when you’re disabled, that comes with an array of individual issues. Brittney Ellis lost her sight due to Idiopathic Intracranial Hypertension, which occurs when increased pressure happens inside the skull. She tells Cosmopolitan UK the most difficult part of her beauty routine is trying to decipher which product is which from her makeup collection, and then how to use it.

To help resolve the issue, she says “packaging could include a barcode or QR code that can be scanned and then take you to a webpage that can explain what it is you are purchasing and how to use it”. It’s a simple change that could make a world of difference.

Back to basics

Let’s also talk about the actual IRL experience of shopping for beauty products, too. While picking up your beauty bits might seem like a throwback, if you’ve visited your local highstreet store lately, you’ll find there’s double (if not triple) the number of beauty counters there once was, with Boots having brought 1,600 new beauty lines to their stores so far this year. Often the stores themselves haven’t gotten bigger to accommodate the glut, meaning there’s less space and more cramming. Then accessible entrances are few and far between.

The Equality Act of 2010 requires businesses to provide accessible entrances for all, but a study found more than four in ten of disabled people still experienced “barriers” when shopping. This issue is estimated to cost high street stores £267 million in lost revenue. That’s before we even look at beauty specifically.

If you’re in a wheelchair or on crutches, these crowded spaces with limited entrances and exits make shopping stressful or near impossible. “As someone who has worked on beauty counters, I can attest to the fact that many counters are completely inaccessible,” says Millie.

The alienating shopping experience for people with disabilities is echoed by Jordan Bone, who was left paralysed from the waist down after breaking her neck in an accident. “Most counters are far too high to see and enjoy the products in the way that someone who isn't a wheelchair user does. It would be a step in the right direction if at least one area was wheelchair accessible, where we could wheel underneath the counter and indulge in the products before we make a purchase,” she says.

Height is a ubiquitous issue, from the counters to the chairs – plainly, they’re often too high and completely unadjustable. Not to mention the popular tiny swivel chairs lack basic support and require a balancing act to sit on. Being able to swatch or interact with products then seems inconceivable if you depend on crutches or a walking stick.

Millie suggests having adjustable counters and “for staff to have better training on disability inclusivity, such as how to assist those with mobility aids or how to communicate effectively with those who may have hearing or vision impairments,” would make a huge difference.

“Having a designated quiet area for those who may need it would be helpful, or a quiet shopping hour, as some disabilities can make it difficult to be in a noisy and crowded environment for extended periods of time,” she adds.

You might assume online shopping might be one safe haven, but that has its own set of issues. According to We Are Purple, 73% of potential disabled customers experience some kind of barrier on more than a quarter of the websites they visited. For example, the lack of image descriptions for the visually impaired. The same study also found businesses lose roughly £2 billion a month by ignoring the ‘purple pound’ (AKA the spending power of those with a disability).

Bridging the gap

I’m not disputing that positive changes have been made over the last few years, but there’s a sense of frustration over how certain areas of disability inclusivity are being prioritised, and who that, ironically, shuts out on the way.

“I feel like beauty brands are getting better with inclusivity, but I don’t think it’s happening quickly enough. They do everything else overnight but for some reason, they are having the hardest time making products inclusive,” says Brittney. If you think about how quickly brands react to issues in other areas, such as responding to criticisms on social media or recalling faulty products, it shows a lack of enthusiasm for equality.

As for tokenism, Jordan says she’s “happy to see it is moving in that direction by seeing disabled content creators sometimes in campaigns”.

“However, it seems very rare, which makes it often feel somewhat in-genuine. Seeing those with disabilities using beauty products consistently will make it feel less like tokenism, but genuine and will help so many people gain more confidence,” she says.

Beauty standards have long been exclusive and narrow – for the disabled community, that’s particularly poignant. “When I was younger I never saw myself represented which felt lonely, so I put myself out there and will continue to,” says Jordan.

Ideas for nimble and quick adjustments to beauty products and the wider industry are there for the taking. Think: adding educational barcodes to the packaging, and training staff at counters on how to help disabled customers, or even lower music in stores. It isn’t exactly groundbreaking. Fancy tech and virtual worlds are things to market and praise, but let’s get back to the basics.

“The beauty industry is severely lacking in disability inclusivity in a full 360 degree view. The issue is multifaceted and encompasses several aspects, including packaging, representation, and accessibility. The industry prioritises style over practicality, which often leads to inaccessibility,” says Millie.

We live in a world where there are more brands than ever catering to those living with a disability, it’s just unfortunate that these individuals have often had to create the products themselves as they’ve never been readily available. For most of us, that’s incomprehensible to even imagine.

“I am so proud of the disabled community as I see more and more people advocating and putting themselves out there. We just need the beauty industry to step up a bit and be a true advocate for us, not when it suits them”, says Jordan.

While tech innovation designed to aid those with disabilities indicates a new level of progress, let’s hope we can settle the basic needs with that same kind of tenacity.

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