The cheapest country to live in if you’re a beauty addict

In Australia, we have an incredible beauty market, where thousands upon thousands of products, procedures and services are available to us. But they’re not without their sometimes-hefty price tags.

As much as we all might want our hair cut and coloured every two months, or would like to snap up each and every new beauty launch that takes our fancy, our personal economic reality often doesn’t allow for it.

While this isn’t likely to change anytime soon, a recent study conducted by Latin American e-commerce platform Linio has clued us in on the most affordable countries for a beauty addict to live in and unsurprisingly, Australia is way down the list.

The study ranked 50 countries by their average retail cost for 16 different cosmetic procedures, services and products before converting those costs into US dollars.

Overall Asian countries were the most affordable with Vietnam taking the top spot, followed by India, South Africa, Thailand and Egypt.

If you’re looking for a cheap eyebrow wax, Brazilian wax or women’s haircut, Egypt is your go-to with the services coming in at a grand total of $1.93, $5.81 and $5.25 respectively! Additionally, the most affordable foundation can be found in Vietnam with an average bottle costing $15.42.

Alternatively, the beauty index also highlighted the countries with the most expensive beauty markets, with Venezuela reigning supreme. But it’s worth noting that Venezuela is experiencing major political unrest, which has caused an inflation crisis.

Switzerland, Norway, Denmark and Finland were the following most expensive countries for beauty purchases, where women need to be prepared to pay close to $100 for a haircut and over $60 for a manicure.

Australia just missed out on a spot among the top five most expensive countries, coming in at number six. While we shouldn’t expect to pay exorbitant amounts of money for our beauty products, services and procedures when compared to the likes of Venezuela, our high cost of living has definitely transcended into the beauty market.

If you want to see just how well Australia stacks up against the rest of the world, you can check out the entire beauty index for yourself (it’s actually quite addictive).

If you want to know you’re spending where it matters most, check out which hair products are worth the splurge (and the ones that aren’t).

Let us know in the comments which of Linio’s beauty index results surprises you the most.

Image credit: @bellahadid