Methodology

How data is collected

Clinics are found through Google Maps searches for cosmetic treatment keywords around city centres, sub-centres and regional towns. A clinic is listed once its own website has been crawled and its treatments, prices and contact details extracted. Every recorded fact keeps the page it came from and the date it was read. Clinics without a website are found but not listed.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data is downloaded from the ABS website, checked and loaded by a script. The file's SHA-256 hash, release, reference date and every validation result are stored with it.

Australian Cosmetic Clinic Density Index

Question and measure

Which parts of Australia have the most cosmetic clinic locations listed in the Cosmetic.com.au dataset relative to population. Clinic density = unique eligible clinic locations ÷ estimated resident population × 10,000.

Sources

• Population: Regional population by age and sex, 2025: Population estimates by age and sex, by SA2, 2025 (Table 3, persons), estimated resident population at 30 June 2025, released 27 August 2026.
• Boundaries: ASGS Edition 3 digital boundary files: Statistical Area Level 2 (SA2) 2021, GDA2020 shapefile.
• Clinic locations: active, non-test listings in the Cosmetic.com.au database with map coordinates from their Google Maps listing.

Geography

The 2025 population release is published on ASGS Edition 3 (July 2021 to June 2026) boundaries, so the index uses the Edition 3 SA2 boundaries. Edition 4 (2026) SA2 codes are not mixed in: no population has been published on them yet. Each clinic location is placed in the SA2 whose boundary contains its coordinates (point in polygon), not by suburb name. SA2s, SA3s and SA4s are ABS statistical areas and often differ from suburb or council boundaries. Cities are the ABS SA4 regions mapped to each city on this site; state totals follow the boundary that contains the clinic.

What counts as one clinic location

• One physical premises counts once, however many treatments or categories it lists. A business with several premises contributes one location per premises.
• Two locations of the same business within 25 metres are one premises listed twice; one is counted.
• Different businesses at the same address are counted separately (medical and shopping centres hold several clinics).
• Excluded: locations whose Google Maps listing says permanently closed, locations without coordinates, and coordinates outside every ABS boundary. Unpublished, rejected and merged listings are never included.
• Current snapshot: 6,941 active locations, 6,889 counted, 13 duplicates, 34 closed on Maps, 5 without a boundary match. 1 counted location sits in a different state from the one in its address and is counted where the coordinates fall.

Treatment filters

A location counts under a category when it lists at least one public treatment in that category, and under a treatment when it lists the treatment or one of its named types. Treatment lists come from clinic websites; a chain's menu published once for all branches applies to every branch. Named prescription-only treatments are not offered as filters.

Discovery coverage

Directory counts are lower bounds, and how far below the true count they sit depends on how thoroughly an area was searched. Each SA2 carries a coverage level. An SA2 inside a city keeps the city's level only when its centre lies within 20 km of a city search centre or 10 km of a sub-centre; regional SA2s within 15 km of a town search centre are “town centre searched”.

Thresholds

• A rate is shown for an area with at least 1,000 residents. Below that, or with no population, the rate is left blank, never zero.
• Rankings use SA3 areas searched to saturation with at least 20,000 residents; the highest list also needs 5 or more listed locations.
• The index compares an SA3 or SA4 with its city (or state outside cities), and a city or state with Australia: 100 means the same rate.
• Map colours are quantile classes of the areas on screen; zero has its own class.

Australian Cosmetic Treatment Price Index

Question and measure

What prices Australian clinics publish for comparable treatments, and how they differ between treatments and places. The index reports published prices only; it is not the average amount patients pay.

Which prices are considered

For each clinic location, treatment and website page, the most recent extraction of that page. Prices are never edited after they are recorded; each extraction adds rows. Each price keeps its source page, the date it was first seen and the date it was last confirmed.

Price basis

Comparison groups

• Lowest single-treatment price. The lowest price each business publishes for one treatment session: a fixed price, a "from" price or the lower end of a range.
• Fixed single-treatment price. The lowest fixed price each business publishes for one session. "From" prices and ranges are left out.
• Advertised "from" price. The lowest price each business states as a starting price ("from $X"). Fixed prices and ranges are left out.
• Body area (laser hair removal). A price joins an area (underarms, brazilian, bikini line, full legs, half or lower legs, upper lip, chin, full face, chest, back) only when the clinic's wording names that area alone, with no combination of areas and no men's qualifier.
• Tattoo removal sizes are not grouped: clinics define small, medium and large differently.

Statistics

• Within a geography, each business contributes its lowest eligible price in the group. Copies of one chain price list on several branch pages count once.
• Median, 25th and 75th percentiles use linear interpolation between ordered values (the method of PostgreSQL percentile_cont). The interquartile range is the 75th minus the 25th percentile; minimum and maximum are the lowest and highest eligible price.
• Outliers: per treatment, prices outside 3 × the interquartile range on a log scale (computed over distinct business and price pairs, with a minimum spread) are excluded. 76 prices were excluded this way in the current snapshot.
• A benchmark is published only when at least 10 independent businesses are in the group. Smaller groups show the business count and no statistics.
• City and state differences are percentage differences between medians of different sets of businesses.
• No trend is published until there are repeated observations; a future comparison will separate price changes at the same businesses from changes in which businesses are sampled.

Regulatory exclusions

The TGA FAQ on advertising health services and cosmetic injections states that a price stated for a prescription-only cosmetic injectable is likely to be an advertisement for it. Prices for treatments that depend on prescription-only medicines are recorded but never aggregated or published. Categories are excluded or held for review as follows; a new category is excluded until it is configured.

Inside included categories, these are also excluded: treatments that depend on a prescription-only medicine or have such a named type, surgical procedures, prices attached to a whole category, and hair transplant and hair loss treatments (A surgical procedure priced by graft count (per graft or per procedure); prices are not comparable as one session. Umbrella category that can include prescription-only medicines; under review.).

Current snapshot: 51,472 recorded prices considered, 42,762 eligible, from 1,994 businesses, observed 17 to 18 October 2026.

Australian Beauty Industry Statistics

Source and classification

ABS Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits (cat. 8165.0), Data cube 2 (businesses by main state, industry class and employment size) and Data cube 3 (the same by turnover size), from 5 releases: 2021 to 2025 release (class cubes released 16 December 2025); 2020 to 2024 release (class cubes released 17 December 2024); 2019 to 2023 release (class cubes released 18 December 2023); 2018 to 2022 release (class cubes released 16 December 2022); 2017 to 2021 release (class cubes released 16 December 2021). The subject is ANZSIC 2006 class 9511 Hairdressing and Beauty Services. Classes 8511 General Practice Medical Services and 8512 Specialist Medical Services are loaded for a separate reference table and never added to it.

• ABS definition: class 9511 consists of units mainly engaged in providing hairdressing services or beauty services such as nail care, facials or applying make-up. Its listed activities are barber, beauty, electrolysis, hair restoration (except hair transplant), hairdressing, make-up, nail care, skin care and tanning (solarium) services.
• The class excludes units mainly providing medical skin care services such as cosmetic surgery and dermatology, and medical or surgical hair replacement or transplant services. The ABS places those in class 8512 Specialist Medical Services.
• Each business is coded to one class from the description of its main activity. The ABS does not say where clinics offering cosmetic injectables are coded.

Rules

• Each financial year comes from the newest loaded release that publishes both cubes for it. The release is shown with every figure and stored with every CSV row.
• The count at 30 June is the “operating at end of financial year” value; the first point is the “operating at start” value of the first year.
• Employment size uses the annualised indicator. Experimental point-in-time employment tables are read and skipped. The 2017-21 release combines 1 to 19 employees, so the size chart starts where five ranges begin.
• Businesses per 10,000 residents use ABS estimated resident population at the same 30 June. If the dates differ, the figure is not calculated.
• Cosmetic.com.au clinic listings appear in a separate panel. No ratio, share or coverage figure is calculated between them and the ABS counts.
• The ABS revised the 2021-22 counts down in its 2023 release after unusual reporting during the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of the ATO-led Operation Protego. Across all industries the 2021-22 population fell by 30,176 businesses, from 7.0% growth as first published to 5.7%. The ABS does not give a figure for class 9511.

Checks before loading and publishing

• Each cube: release date in the file equals the configured release; five column groups and every size band recognised; each class has nine state rows and a total; state rows sum to the class total, bands to the total, and start plus entries minus exits plus net movement to the end, within the perturbation allowance (8 businesses or 0.1% of the total; 20 for the 2017-21 release, whose state rows differ by up to 17).
• Each run: contiguous financial years; employment and turnover cubes agree on totals; states and bands sum to the national count in the latest year; only class 9511 is charted.

Limitations

• The counts cover actively trading businesses in the Australian market sector on the ABS Business Register. For most businesses one Australian Business Number (ABN) is one business, counted if it is registered for and remitting GST. A business is not a shopfront: a business with several salons counts once, and one premises can hold several businesses.
• Businesses under the $75,000 GST registration threshold that are not registered for GST are not counted. A business stays in the count while its ABN is active and it has remitted GST within the last five quarters.
• Each business is counted in its main state: for most businesses the state of the main business address.
• The ABS perturbs values in the class tables except totals for industry divisions, states, size ranges and Australia, so a class figure and the sum of its states can differ by a few businesses. Small changes in small territories may be perturbation.
• Employment size uses the ABS annualised employment indicator for the financial year, mostly from the previous year's payee data; it does not capture short-term changes. Non-employing businesses have no employees on payroll.
• Turnover comes from Business Activity Statements, lagged by six months, with imputation where values are missing. The ranges are fixed dollar amounts that are not adjusted for price changes.
• Each December release revises the previous year. This report takes each financial year from the latest release that publishes it and lists every revision.
• Class-level counts exist only for Australia and states. Survival rates are published only by industry subdivision, so none is reported for class 9511.
• The 2015-19 and 2016-20 releases are published in a format this report does not read, so the series starts at 30 June 2019.

Current snapshot: 6 financial years, 2019-20 to 2024-25. Division-level counts to 30 June 2026 come from the 2022 to 2026 release (released 18 August 2026); class-level cubes for 2025-26 are scheduled for 18 December 2026. ABS methodology

Australian Cosmetic Ingredients Explorer

Three layers, kept apart

• AICIS Inventory. The downloadable Inventory spreadsheet (Full list of chemicals on the Inventory 2 June 2026 -V9.XLSX, snapshot as at 2 June 2026), loaded as published: CR number, CAS Registry Number, chemical name, AICIS approved name, molecular formula and the terms of listing. The downloadable spreadsheet is a copy of the Inventory at its snapshot date and is not the official Inventory. Check the online Inventory for current listings. What AICIS Inventory results show
• EU CosIng annexes. Annexes II to VI of Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 as exported by CosIng. CosIng database has informative purpose and no legal value. Only Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 and its Annexes establish whether, and under which conditions, substances may be used in cosmetic products. The CosIng ingredient inventory has no bulk download and is not loaded.
• Cosmetic.com.au references. Records researched from regulators, peer-reviewed studies and the CosIng entry for each chemical form. Each salt, ester or other form is a separate identity with its own INCI name and identifiers; evidence is never moved from one form to another.

Functions

Function filters (humectants, moisturising, emollients, skin conditioning, exfoliating, preservatives and others) come from two sources only: the CosIng functions of an ingredient's main form (not its salts or derivatives), and EU Annex IV, V and VI for colourants, preservatives and UV filters. An AICIS listing is never used to infer a function or cosmetic use.

Matching

Layers are matched only on an exact CAS Registry Number, never on similar names. CAS Registry Numbers are American Chemical Society information, which the AICIS licence excludes; CAS states that publishing them or using them to support a public feature needs a CAS licence. Until that is resolved, the explorer does not show or search CAS Registry Numbers and does not match layers by them.

Reference pages

• A page exists only for a record whose research met the standard: a confirmed CosIng identity, at least three authoritative sources, sourced text for what it is, why it is used, the evidence, forms, tolerability and Australian regulation, and no unsupported claims.
• Every paragraph cites numbered sources. Copy is checked for safety, approval and marketing claims and for product recommendations.
• Publication needs a recorded editorial review and, where the research flagged a topic for clinical interpretation, a recorded clinical review. Re-imported content returns the page to review.
• Searches, filters and individual chemicals are not pages and are not indexed.

Australian Cosmetic Ingredients Explorer

Validation and publishing

• An ABS file is loaded only if every check passes: expected columns, unique 9-digit SA2 codes, whole non-negative populations, SA2 rows summing to the published state totals, the same SA2 set and hierarchy in the population and boundary files, and the GDA2020 datum.
• Each calculation is stored as a numbered dataset version with its inputs and checks, for example: every location in at most one SA2, at least 99% matched, state, SA4, SA3 and SA2 counts summing to the national count, no excluded treatment in a published price group, quartiles in order and outliers under 2% of prices.
• A version that fails a check cannot be published. A published version is replaced only by another validated version; the previous one stays available and can be restored.
• Pages, charts and downloads all read the same stored version, so a CSV always matches the figures on the page.

Updates and versions

• Population: when the ABS publishes the next regional population release (the 2026 release is scheduled for 31 August 2027).
• Business counts: each December, when the ABS releases the class-level cubes (next: 18 December 2026).
• AICIS Inventory: when AICIS publishes a new downloadable snapshot (it aims for two a year). EU annexes: when CosIng updates them.
• Clinic density: recalculated as listings change. A recalculation with the same population year is labelled as a listings update, not new population data.
• Prices: recalculated when clinic websites are re-read. Each version states its observation period; an older observation is never presented as current.
• Version labels name the report, the calculation date and a sequence number. Earlier versions are listed under each report's downloads.

Using and citing the data

Journalists and researchers can quote figures and charts with the citation shown on each report. Please name the dataset version, which fixes the numbers.

• Say “clinics listed in the Cosmetic.com.au dataset”, not “all clinics”.
• Say “published prices” or “advertised prices”, not “average cost”.
• ABS population, boundary and business count data are used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. The ABS has not reviewed or endorsed this analysis.
• AICIS material is licensed from the Commonwealth of Australia under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. EU CosIng content is European Commission material under CC BY 4.0.
• Questions and corrections: hello@cosmetic.com.au. Clinic details can be corrected through Suggest an update.

Australian Cosmetic Clinic Density IndexAustralian Cosmetic Treatment Price IndexAustralian Beauty Industry Statistics