Booie, the beauty brand for women the industry forgot
In a beauty market that trades on aspiration, transformation and perfection, Booie beauty arrives with an entirely different proposition. It is a brand built not on reinvention but recognition. Born from the instincts of Celeste Barber and the brand discipline of Claire Greaves, Booie landed in 2024 with a clarity and emotional intelligence that spoke directly to women who felt overlooked by the mainstream beauty conversation. In less than a year, it has become one of the most discussed new entrants in the Australian beauty sector, a rare case where virality has intersected with genuine commercial traction.
The story begins with a gap that feels obvious only once someone points to it. Barber has long acted as an informal truth-teller on social media, dismantling the contradictions and impossibilities of beauty culture with humour and honesty.
When she asked why beauty products aimed at women over a certain age were overwhelmingly anchored in anti-ageing rhetoric, the question resonated. When she said she had spent years mixing her own blends to get the finish she wanted, her audience listened. As she puts it, in a quote that became central to the brand’s founding narrative, “When did makeup become so bloody stressful and why are the only beauty products targeted at women over a certain age anti-ageing creams?”
Booie is a brand anchored in accessibility and ease, created to strip back the noise rather than create more of it. Barber described it as a response to a beauty landscape that had forgotten a huge portion of its audience. “We conceptualised Booie as a brand for people the beauty industry forgot about,” she said. “For those who aren’t necessarily confident with makeup and who often feel totally overwhelmed by the abundance of choice, but still love makeup and would love to be included. Those people are my people, my audience.”
This foundation is not positioned as a lofty mission. It is a commercial strategy expressed plainly. A brand that gives people what they say they want is a brand built for longevity.
The discipline of scaling
Greaves, known for co-founding P.E Nation and now back at the business as creative director, recognised the same opportunity from a brand-building perspective. She saw the gap not as a deficiency in the consumer but as an oversupply of noise from the category.
“Makeup is a whole new playing field for me, and it just feels remarkably easy and genuine. Individuality and accessibility is the cornerstone of this business,” she stated.
Where Barber brought lived insight from her community, Greaves brought structure, language and the discipline of scaling a brand that carries emotional weight.
Booie launched on July 15, 2024, with a five-piece collection priced to signal quality without alienation. Illuminator moisturiser, tint, tubular mascara, eyebrow gel, and lip balm formed a starter architecture for a makeup wardrobe that promised to be functional and fast.
The set was described with a tone that blended humour with clarity. The products would take you from looking tired to looking like you had slept, in the space of a few minutes. They could be applied by hand. They could be layered. They were designed to collapse the distance between the everyday consumer and the expert.
“It wasn’t just that people were buying our products, they were sharing, tagging friends, laughing, relating,” Greaves told Inside FMCG. “That level of emotional engagement told us we were making women feel seen.”
This emotional currency mattered as much as the early sell-outs and the strong repeat-purchase rate that followed. In a crowded industry, connection becomes a form of defensible advantage.
Retail partnerships reinforced this momentum. Booie launched online at Booie.com and entered Stylerunner, Active Skin and Woolworths to reach a consumer who might not be searching for Booie but would discover it through movement, trial and tactility.
The combination of online and in-store created a dual engine for growth. “Retail has been a game-changer because it allows women to discover Booie organically to touch, feel and try our products in person,” Greaves explained. The direct channel, meanwhile, became the home for education and community voice. “Retail drives discovery, while DTC builds depth. One fuels the other.”
The brand’s bestsellers reflect a consumer who does not want complexity. “Our You’re Welcome Mascara is a consistent bestseller and true hero product,” Greaves said. The tint Bam! Bam! Bam! in Rose, is the next most-loved item, chosen for its flexibility and ease.
These choices reveal a customer who values products that simply work. Greaves frames it plainly. “They’re busy, evolving, and looking for beauty that meets them where they are, not where the industry says they should be.”
The absurdities of midlife
Virality has played a visible role in the brand’s early rise, but Greaves is careful to draw a distinction between visibility and equity.
Barber’s voice brings humour and truth to topics many brands avoid: ageing, hormones and the absurdities of midlife. Yet Booie does not rely on her alone. “That’s not a gimmick, it’s our foundation,” Greaves says. “Virality gets attention, but performance earns loyalty.”
The brand invests in community stories so that laughter becomes recognition and recognition becomes advocacy. It is not performance marketing but rather cultural participation.
The category context matters here. Women in perimenopause and menopause represent a growing market segment with rising purchasing power yet minimal representation. Booie’s new Peri range responds directly to this gap.
Its creation was not led by trend forecasting. It was informed by thousands of conversations, many late at night, about skin that felt different, energy that fluctuated and identities that shifted. “It’s skincare, yes, but it’s also self-recognition,” Greaves says. The range positions Booie as more than a cosmetics brand. It becomes a form of emotional care.
As the brand continues to scale, the strategy is to protect its identity as carefully as its product formulations. Greaves draws heavily on her experience at P.E Nation to hold that line. “Brand architecture, tone of voice, and product strategy all stem from that,” she says. “Scaling sustainably means protecting our DNA, keeping the humour, honesty, and quality at the centre, even as we grow.”
Next comes Snazzy Face. The line arrived in November and is positioned as a natural extension of Booie’s ethos. Greaves describes it as the next chapter. Barber frames it more playfully. “We built Snazzy Face for the elevation moments. Not full glam, not full chaos, just a little extra zhuzh when you want it.”
The intention is to expand the brand without diluting its clarity. The products are created for ease, not artifice.
International expansion is on the horizon, although the brand will take a measured approach. Booie wants partners that match the mission: normalise ageing, empower women and help them feel brilliant in their own skin. Growth is not the goal. Growth with integrity is.
The business opportunity is significant. The beauty market is shifting toward simplicity, authenticity and emotionally-honest brands that support women through different life stages. The noise of maximalist routines is giving way to a new aesthetic of ease. Booie sits at the intersection of that shift. It brings relatability to a category often built on distance. It brings humour to an industry that can take itself too seriously. It brings truth to a space that rewards performance.
The early success signals are clear: a high repeat-purchase rate; strong retailer engagement; multi-platform visibility; and a community that communicates in language the brand did not script.
These are signs of a brand that arrived at precisely the right cultural moment and understood the consumer with precision.
Booie began as a solution to a problem Barber articulated with clarity: beauty did not feel like it belonged to everyone. Greaves turned that insight into brand language and product architecture. Their shared intellectual and emotional alignment built something commercially compelling.
The brand’s invitation remains simple. Real people deserve really good makeup that is easy to use and enjoyable to wear. Booie has turned that simplicity into strategy, and that strategy into momentum. As the brand grows, the challenge will be the same as its origin story. Listen to women. Reflect the truth back to them. Honour the humour and the honesty. Build products that make them feel seen.
The business case for Booie is clear. The emotional case is stronger still.
The post Booie, the beauty brand for women the industry forgot appeared first on Inside Retail Australia.