Niamh McHugh

Research shows that although men and women decrease spending during a recession, there is an exception when it comes to beauty products.

Known as the “lipstick effect”, women in particular still want to look and feel good despite financial circumstances. While their spending on many goods decreases, their spending on beauty products such as lipstick actually increases.

Niamh McHugh who works as a freelance fashion stylist and Louise Dunne, who works as freelance beauty professional in Dublin, have learned first-hand over the past decade just how much women love to look good and are now hoping to cash in on this unique feature of Irish life. Dunne spent 10 years working for Mac in Brown Thomas in Dublin, which she says is the second busiest Mac counter in the world.

Here she saw the endless demand for beauty products and witnessed hundreds of disappointed customers being turned away as the inhouse makeup artists were booked up for weeks on end. McHugh also witnessed this increased demand for beauty services while working as a freelance fashion stylist. She says, for example, that Irish women are so focused with looking tanned year round that they are now the biggest consumers of fake tan, per capita, in the world. Both McHugh and Dunne found it extremely difficult to book appointments to get a simple manicure or blowdry before a night out as they were normally working during salon opening hours. Pucker, their on-demand app for booking beauty appointments with freelance professionals, was developed out of this frustration. “It was nearly impossible for me to get appointments at the times I was free and Louise found it difficult to find extra work as a freelance professional,” McHugh says.