Makeup Ghana, University of Ghana launch first beauty and wellness industry report

Makeup Ghana, a professional body that advocates for the development of the beauty and wellness industry in Ghana, in collaboration with the University of Ghana College of Humanities, has launched the first-ever report to address challenges that have stalled the industry. The report, which seeks to sanitise the operations of practitioners, building their capacity is expected to bring new reforms to the sector.

The Ghana Beauty and Wellness Report 2026, the first comprehensive, evidence-based national study of the sector, was launched at the 10th Ghana Beauty Awards in November 2026. CEO of Makeup Ghana, Rebecca Donkor, delivering her opening remarks The report answers long-unanswered questions such as who buys, what they pay, who sells, who trains, who regulates, and what it would take for the industry to employ more young people and earn more for Ghana.

It was commissioned by Makeup Ghana, marking its tenth year, and produced by an independent steering committee chaired by Professor Sheena Lovia Boateng of the University of Ghana Business School. The evidence rests on 1,250 face-to-face consumer surveys across ten regions in October 2026, fifty in-depth interviews, and submissions from 27 institutions, including the Food and Drugs Authority, the Ghana Standards Authority, the Ghana Revenue Authority, the Bank of Ghana and two commercial banks.

It also included the first public registers of the industry: 118 manufacturers, 982 cosmetics retailers in all 16 regions, and about 160 spas, wellness businesses and aesthetic clinics. Everyone in Ghana can see the beauty industry. It is on every street, in every market and in most homes. Until now, nobody had counted it. Demand is strong and growing.

Eighty-six per cent of buyers say they spend more on beauty than five years ago, and 94 per cent expect to spend the same or more in future. This is a cash and mobile money economy of small, frequent payments, led by hair. Hairdressing dominates spending, and three quarters of buyers pay in cash. Trust travels through people, not platforms. Family and friends inform 76 per cent of buyers, television 66 per cent, and influencers only 3 per cent.

Safety has a gap. Three in four buyers have heard of the FDA’s registration mark, but only one in five checks it when buying. When something goes wrong, complaints go to the salon, not the authority. In June 2026, a one-week FDA exercise seized 4,504 unregistered cosmetic products. On trade, Ghana imported about US$95 million of cosmetics in 2025, against exports of US$6.6 million in 2023.

Yet the Ghana Export Promotion Authority lists cosmetics among its priority export sectors. The sector also trains itself. Associations and colleges report over 3,000 trainees a year, on national credential pathways that already exist. The report argues this makes beauty one of Ghana’s readiest youth employment channels. Professor Sheena Lovia Boateng Speaking at the launch, Professor Boateng said the evidence was always here, but it had never been brought together.

She highlighted three findings. First, this is a hair economy. Braiding and wash-and-set each reach more than seven in ten of the women who buy.”If you work in hair, you are not part of this industry. You are its center,” she said. Second, customers are spending more, even inside tight budgets. Third, trust travels person to person. “Your best advertisement is a satisfied customer walking out of your door,” she said.

Boateng was plain about what the report cannot say. It is a baseline, not a census. The report closes with 14 actions, each assigned to a named institution. They include a sector council, an enforcer for service standards that already exist on paper, and licensing tiered by risk so that small operators are helped into the formal system rather than driven out of it.

It also calls for a 2027 edition to measure what this baseline could only outline. For an industry long seen but never counted, the report offers Ghana its first clear picture — and a starting point for policy, investment and jobs.