5 Minutes with Jamee Parker, Creative Director & Founder of a-beauty

Just like k-beauty and j-beauty, Australian beauty or a-beauty is now a term known worldwide. We have such a distinctive beauty style; think laidback, effortless and au naturel. Jamee Parker is the Creative Director and Founder of abeauty, the worlds go-to curation of Australian beauty.

From niche start-ups to global heritage brands, Jamee’s experience across all aspects of the lifestyle and beauty landscape, both from a brand and agency perspective, led her to seeing a gap in the market for promoting the best of Australian beauty. In 2020, she launched abeauty.co with the intent of sharing everything that the Australian beauty industry has to offer with the rest of the world.

With past gigs at Sephora and our own hero brand Alpha-H, I could tell that Jamee knew beauty and I set out to borrow a few minutes of her time to ask some burning questions!

What inspired you to create your website and destination a-beauty?
After many years as the global brand manager at Alpha-H, which saw me spearhead the brand’s launch into the Sephora network globally, I felt like I was ready for a new challenge and I needed a bit more of a work/life balance.
I spent some time in New York in various press sittings to promote Alpha-H and it was when I was sitting chatting to the beauty editor at Into the Gloss that a lightbulb clicked. She was chatting to me about the beautiful Australian landscape and ingredients and asked me, what do you do to get that effortless, no-fuss and care-free look that is synonymous with Australia. It really got me thinking about creating a destination for Australian brands and after doing some research there wasn’t really one luxe destination for shoppers to go to. And that’s where a-beauty was borne.

What has been the most exciting moment since launching a-beauty?
That’s a hard one. There have been so many since launching. If I am honest, I have a hit list of brands in the back of my notebook - brands that I would love to stock on site. I guess its a bit of a wish list, so whenever we get a new brand coming on board that I can tick off, its always thrilling.

If you had to pick, which is your favourite a-beauty brand?
Oh I can’t just pick one. And it also changes all the time. At the moment, I am loving Ere Perez and Eye of Horus for makeup. Mukti Organics is on high rotation for my skincare and I will forever be a BIG fan of Lumira candles.

What skincare ingredients will you forever be loyal to, and any that you avoid completely?
I love Niacinamide, the Alpha-H Vitamin B is probably my ride or die skincare staple. Next to SPF. In terms of ingredients that I avoid - not really, I am particular with the forms of Retinol and Vitamin C that I use.

What's on the horizon for 2022?
My goal in the next two years is to become the authority in Australian Beauty. When beauty consumers think – oh I would love to find a new cleanser, and I am ready to make the shift to shop and support local – I want them to think of a-beauty. We want to be your one-stop-shop for all things Australian beauty – so watch this space.