Global growth, local talent: Inside Rare Beauty’s award-winning accessibility strategy

Drawing on her own experience with a chronic illness, Gomez has spoken publicly about how limited dexterity pushed her to build a cosmetics company with accessibility at its core.

“We somehow inherently made the products easy to open,” the singer and actress-turned-founder told Amy Poehler on the Good Hang podcast. “And then we realized, wait, they kind of have to be that way.”

Rare Beauty created its Made Accessible initiative with a clear aim: To create cosmetics packaging that’s easy for all to open, close, hold, and apply.

But for a brand with the ambition of global reach, this objective inevitably became more complicated to achieve in practice.

The global accessibility challenge

“The only way to make a great product that resonates with people is to have a diverse team.”

Karin Quissell, Director of Research and Development

Accessibility looks different in different places.

Regulatory standards vary. Consumer needs vary. What works for a customer in North America may not reflect the experience of someone in Singapore or the UAE.

For the Made Accessible initiative to succeed, therefore, Rare Beauty needed people embedded in markets across the world – not just distributing products there, but listening, learning, and feeding those insights back into product development.

“Local talent provides firsthand insight into regional consumer behavior, regulations, and market dynamics, leading to better product development, and more effective marketing,” explains Karin Quissell, Director of Research and Development at Rare Beauty.

Moreover, Quissell adds, it lowers the potential for “cultural missteps.”

The Made Accessible initiative, and Rare Beauty’s impressive global growth plans, rely entirely on-the-ground insights from local communities to drive product innovation.

“Your market is diverse,” Quissell says. “The only way to make a great product that resonates with people is to have a diverse team.”

Rare Beauty builds a global team

The need to work with talent around the world posed a challenge for the US-based brand.

Setting up local entities would take months, create heavy administrative overhead for the HR team, and open them up to liability. Rare Beauty needed a solution that would help them to efficiently onboard key talent without getting bogged down in admin or compliance challenges.

“Multiplier has been a supportive partner in our growth.”

Anita Punjabi, Head of People and Culture at Rare Beauty

Anita Punjabi, Head of People and Culture at Rare Beauty, decided that the best path forward was to establish a partnership with an Employer of Record (EOR), to act as a local employer for Rare Beauty’s global team.

After evaluation, Rare Beauty decided to partner with Multiplier, to “streamline logistics, support us on regional legal requirements, and act as an intermediary to provide the best knowledge and support to our global team members,” says Punjabi.

Over three years of collaboration, Multiplier has served as an infrastructure partner enabling Rare Beauty to hire more than twenty team members across six countries — including France, Singapore, Canada, the UK, Australia, and the UAE.

The team actively helps Rare Beauty manage specific local compliance issues. For example, in France, their largest international market, Multiplier’s payroll experts help navigate the complexities of weekend pay regulations and salaried timesheet compliance to ensure the company stays legally protected.

“Multiplier has been a supportive partner in our growth by evaluating unique circumstances and offering tailored solutions that meet our specific needs,” Punjabi emphasises.

Enter Multiplier

“Multiplier has been a supportive partner in our growth.”

Anita Punjabi, Head of People and Culture at Rare Beauty

Anita Punjabi, Head of People and Culture at Rare Beauty, decided that the best path forward was to establish a partnership with an Employer of Record (EOR), to act as a local employer for Rare Beauty’s global team.

After evaluation, Rare Beauty decided to partner with Multiplier, to “streamline logistics, support us on regional legal requirements, and act as an intermediary to provide the best knowledge and support to our global team members,” says Punjabi.

Over three years of collaboration, Multiplier has served as an infrastructure partner enabling Rare Beauty to hire more than twenty team members across six countries — including France, Singapore, Canada, the UK, Australia, and the UAE.

The team actively helps Rare Beauty manage specific local compliance issues. For example, in France, their largest international market, Multiplier’s payroll experts help navigate the complexities of weekend pay regulations and salaried timesheet compliance to ensure the company stays legally protected.

“Multiplier has been a supportive partner in our growth by evaluating unique circumstances and offering tailored solutions that meet our specific needs,” Punjabi emphasises.

‘Made Accessible’ made possible

Partnering with Multiplier helped Rare Beauty’s HR leadership to hire globally and to trust that their international workforce is operating in full compliance across the board.

Most importantly, this global team has paid dividends for the company’s Made Accessible Initiative.

With Multiplier’s assistance, Rare Beauty has brought on liaisons that help them to tap into local communities and refine packaging solutions that reflect real-world needs.

This global reach is already producing results. A new Rare Beauty Eau de Parfum recently won an award from Women’s Wear Daily for replacing the one-finger actuator typical of fragrance brands with an oversized pump anyone can use.

A study in partnership with Casa Colina Research Institute (CCRI) also helped identify the key factors in accessible product design for people with limited hand and arm mobility, enabling them to partake  in the beauty community — something many had assumed was no longer possible after illness or injury.

“Make up is part of self care, of helping people get their life back,” notes Quissell. “Designing with accessibility in mind always ends up having positive effects on everyone using your products, even beyond those they may have been designed for.”

The partnership continues

Global perspective is absolutely necessary for a brand that is built on inclusivity.

Karin Quissell, Director of Research and Development

Rare Beauty has ambitions to lead a larger shift toward accessibility across the market, making their research available for other brands interested in making their packaging design more inclusive. 

“We hope to highlight the need for more conscious, accessible design across consumer product industries,” Quissell explains.

Confidence in its ability to hire local talent, therefore, will continue to be vital to Rare Beauty’s ambition to expand its footprint and deliver accessible products to new markets.

“Global perspective is absolutely necessary for a brand that is built on inclusivity,” Quissell concludes.