The early days of Jamee Parker’s career were carved out in a beauty and lifestyle PR agency based in Sydney, before she moved on to roles at Grazia magazine, global fashion brand Billabong and then took on the role of Global Brand Manager at Australian skincare brand Alpha-H.
It was Jamee’s experience across all aspects of the lifestyle and beauty landscape that led her to seeing a gap in the market for promoting the best of Australian beauty and in 2020, she launched abeauty.co.
Jamee is now committed to changing people’s perception of what ‘Australian made’ looks like in the beauty space.
abeauty.co is an editorial and e-commerce site dedicated to celebrating the best of Australian beauty. We provide expertise and a curated collection of Australia’s premium beauty brands through well-researched articles, expert interviews, and our edited selection of Australian beauty products, which can be purchased through our e-store. We provide expertise and a curated collection of Australia’s premium beauty brands through well-researched articles, expert interviews, and our edited selection of Australian beauty products, which can be purchased through our e-store.
We got to know Jamee a little more.
Jamee on a-beauty
a-beauty is unique because we champion Australian brands, big or small – new or old. With the goal of becoming the authority in Australian Beauty by the end of the year, we want to be the first-place people think of when they think about Australian beauty. Be it discovering a new brand that they haven’t yet heard of or purchasing one of their long-time favourites.
We also like to leave everyone that visits our site with learning, which is why we put so much love into the Editorial vertical on site, called The Edit. This is a space for us to feature new and undiscovered brands even regardless of if they can be purchased on site or not. We chat to industry experts, brand founders and influencers in the beauty space to deliver content that’s on trend and educational for our readers.
The piece of advice Jamee wished she had been told before starting her entrepreneurial journey.
Oh that’s a hard one. Probably do as much market research as you can and remember that success doesn’t come overnight!
The best decision Jamee has made in business.
I believe in making sure you add to your team in a considered way. If it doesn’t feel right, don’t just hire because you need someone now. Make sure you wait for the right person, as one bad egg can upset the apple cart, often in more ways than one.
On whether she prefers to outsource the skill or learn the skill
It really depends, I probably tend to sit on the fence with this. Personally, there are some skills that I am happy to learn and some that I know instantly are not for me. For example, I am self-taught in basic Graphic Design so am comfortable using the Adobe Creative Suite as a necessity of having an eComm business but ask me to code and I say NO WAY!
On generating new ideas
I think taking time to find inspiration is monumentally important for business founders. If its listening to a podcast to get ideas, looking on Pinterest for a bit of visual inspo or attending a virtual conference to use others as a sounding board, it’s really important to pencil the time out to work on your business, not just in it.
Budgets and finances would be the one thing keeping me up at night.
A business app Jamee can’t live without
The Later/Linkinbio App is really insightful for social media and equally Google Drive for when I am on the go but still need access to everything.
Jamee’s tips for work life balance
Turn your email notifications on when you are not in the office. That way, when you dive in outside of office hours, you are doing so intentionally. This one thing alone has made it so much easier for me to switch off of an evening and be more present with my two girls.
A quote that my beautiful mother Michelle Doherty, late founder of Alpha-H, said to me was that “if you never give it a go, you’ll never know” and it’s one thing that has always stuck with me throughout life and it’s a mantra I take into each new day. If you don’t take the leap, then you will forever be wondering, so why not give it a shot?
We Are Emersyn uses an inclusive definition “female” and “women” and we welcome trans people, women, genderqueer women, and non-binary people who identify, have identified, or have been identified as female, women, or non-binary.