Lebanese need for beauty: how the fuel crisis in Lebanon is reshaping the beauty industry

By Dr. Hamid Douaihy

It should not be a surprise to the world that the Lebanese way of living is certainly infused with lots of beauty – leisure, and wellbeing – to the extent that part of the actual suffering of the people is related to the then-limited access to beauty trends ever since the crisis started in 2019. This limitation was certainly not meant for long as the need for beauty has witnessed an increase in 2021 with women, as well as men, rushing to city spas and cosmetic clinics for self-revitalization and pampering, especially in times where prices for high-standard care medico-aesthetic services have dropped to their lowest in the world and in the history of cosmetics in the area.
The need for beauty services has dropped in 2019 by 90% when several aesthetic practitioners started to flee the country in search of better income in fresh US dollars and this emigration amongst doctors have led many premium clinics to shut down in an urgency that haven’t been witnessed before. Entire medico-aesthetic devices were put on sale at only 10% of their original prices and were mostly sold to clinics in the Arab gulf. More than 60% of the medico-aesthetic product suppliers have stopped catering for the Lebanese market. So-called class-A doctors, some with more than 15 years’ experience, have suddenly left their patients with no medical or cosmetic follow-up, leading large portfolios of cosmetic patients to run untreated and aesthetically unsupervised in the streets of Beirut. That was the crazy deflation of 2020 that lasted for months after the bloody Beirut blast. A total melancholia hovering over the streets of down town Beirut with wrinkles re-appearing in faces previously thought to be ageless.

Luckily for the country of the Phoenix, some doctors decided to stay as a modern fashion for resilience, in a land where the entire world decided not to spare. This have eventually made all the difference in the Lebanese beauty market. With the highest wave of Covid-19 hitting on the doors of 2021, covid-recoverees started asking for skin revitalization and facial treatments to fuel-up against the imposed effects of the deadly coronavirus. Numbers of patients tripled in just weeks as the Lebanese decided to claim their beauty again! Treatments provided by medico-aesthetic clinics have grown exponentially with a noticeable growth in demand for injectable treatments such as boosters, dermal fillers and anti-wrinkle injections. Many suppliers eventually reconsidered leaving Lebanon and decided to stay but this decision have been questioned again with the fuel- crisis now hitting hard on every citizen of every socio-economic level. Remaining clinics are now shrinking their schedule to as low as one or two days per week with increased limited access to energy and power. On the other side, patients access to clinics is now restricted with gas stations being drained out of fuel and even the shortest car rides made almost impossible.

Only time will tell how this fuel crisis will impact the struggling Lebanese beauty market and how the entire population will respond to the suicide of a vital sector that have once been amongst the first beauty markets in the world, even in 2021! Will Lebanese aesthetic doctors will now focus on finding ways to transport their patients on and off their treatments? Or will they make wiser decisions to merge altogether and shift to alternative energy forms in an attempt to save what can still be saved?