How MCoBeauty’s Shelley Sullivan built a $1b brand and redefined masstige beauty

After creating a global beauty brand that offers Aussies ‘luxe for less’, MCoBeauty founder and former CEO Shelley Sullivan could soon be consulting to the stars.Five years after founding the masstige beauty brand MCoBeauty, Sullivan last week sold her remaining 50 per cent stake in the business to DBG Health’s Dennis Bastas, at a $1 billion valuation. She sold the first 50 per cent to Bastas in 2022. By making quality beauty products and skincare available to the masses, Sullivan created a cult following of her own, shaking the stigma often associated with duping luxury beauty brands.Beauty businessFollowing the acquisition, MCoBeauty will sit within DBG’s VidaCorp portfolio, which also includes Nude By Nature, founded in 2008, and Makeup Cartel, founded in 2013. Bastas bought both brands for $60 million in 2024.The sale of MCoBeauty at a valuation of $1 billion, and the fact that MCoBeauty was Australia and New Zealand’s number-one-selling cosmetics brand in the last 12 months, suggests a legitimisation of the dupe category in the beauty market.In a previous interview with Inside Retail, Sullivan said, “I really saw an opportunity with masstige beauty.”“I think MCoBeauty came at the right time – it was Covid. There was a lot of luck as well because back when Covid was on, you couldn’t shop beauty anywhere else,” Sullivan said in an interview with Sunrise on 7 this week.“We were Woolworths’ main cosmetic brand, so women were cruising the aisle of Woolworths and had nowhere else to shop but the grocery stores. The makeup brand aisle was definitely one that was shopped heavily, and it created a lot of trial for the brand back then. Australian women fell in love with the brand, and it just accelerated from there. So it was all about timing.”Nick Gray, retail and brand specialist and founder of I Got You Consultancy called Sullivan’s journey with MCoBeauty a “masterclass in brand positioning, disruptive strategy, and knowing exactly what problem the brand solves”. “Her success is a direct answer to a shifting consumer mindset, why should luxury beauty only be accessible to a few?” he told Inside Retail. “By offering ‘luxe for less’, she didn’t just compete with legacy brands, she redefined the space, pulling high-end shoppers into the mass market and proving that affordability doesn’t mean sacrificing quality. This proves that the most powerful brands don’t just exist; they answer a fundamental need. If your brand is the answer, what’s the question?” Gray said.“If MCoBeauty is the answer, the question was never ‘What’s another beauty brand?’ It was, ‘How do we give everyday consumers access to the beauty products they aspire to without the luxury markup?’ Sullivan understood this deeply, and the numbers speak for themselves.”Lauren Kelly, Interbrand, strategy director told Inside Retail that a key part of MCoBeauty’s stems from the fact that it was born out of ModelCo. Another makeup brand that Sullivan launched in 2002, it had legitimacy in its own right and gave MCoBeauty credibility.Creating a brand identity was key to MCoBeauty’s success and delivering on its promise of ‘luxe for less’ without compromise. Kelly said that the brand’s curated and considered feel and commitment to moving fast with trends positioned it in a lane of its own that differentiated from other dupe brands.“They’ve heroed clean and cruelty-free formulas from the outset (something the brands they copy often don’t do), [giving customers]  a reason to buy over others. And finally, whilst the cost is cheap, nothing about the design or experience is. The packaging is as aesthetically pleasing as Glossier, the efficacy of the products stands out, and it’s so easy to get your hands on. Nothing feels like a compromise,” Kelly added.“Getting the support of true beauty experts, those that have worked at Ulta (US) or Mac, or Sephora, getting them to try and genuinely use the products amongst the premium brands adds weight and credence,” she added. The billion-dollar valuation of MCoBeauty “says more about the exceptional formulation, brand experience and distribution strategy of MCoBeauty than it does dupes as a whole,” Kelly said. “There are many other brands out there that claim to copy luxe brands, from hair tools to skincare, that haven’t cut through the way MCoBeauty has.” Sullivan’s travelsSullivan started her career as a model agency receptionist before starting her own agency, which led to her first beauty business ModelCo and the heated eyelash curler.Whilst ModelCo has taken a back seat to MCoBeauty for the past five years in terms of growth, Sullivan’s hot pink beauty brand has made its place in the market by anticipating what consumers want in their vanities.ModelCo has over 250 products and sells globally online through Amazon US, The Warehouse and its direct-to-consumer global site – concurrently with its Australian native site and stockists. Now that Sullivan has sold MCoBeauty, it could be time for ModelCo to book the next big show.Sullivan stepped down as MCoBeauty CEO last week and has hinted at taking on a consulting role, but it has not been confirmed who will take the reigns as CEO for the brand’s next chapter. Sandy Mellis is the CEO of VidaCorp and Kaitlin Rady is the current GM of MCoBeauty.American talent agency CAA has signed Sullivan, and when Sunrise on 7 asked her what was next for her, she hinted,  “Perhaps working on some other brands over there at some point in time, but not too much in the near future.”“I’m now ready to go on and do something else with my life. I’ve created a global beauty brand … I’ve achieved the goal of out-selling all the big guys. I’ll stay on [at MCo] in some advisory capacity in the background,” Sullivan told Forbes Australia.Sullivan remains humble in her achievements and credits her team for scaling the business and outselling Rimmel, L’Oreal and Maybelline.“It was definitely a team effort. I’ve got an incredible team of people who are still there at MCoBeauty. Moving forward, the brand’s got the team behind them, and Sandy and Kaitlin, who are driving the brand forwards. I did it with a team. Friends, family have all been hugely supportive along the way. So whilst I put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears myself, it was definitely a team effort,” Sullivan said to Sunrise on 7.