Colour My World By Louise May

Australian Colour Technologies was founded in 2017 by Kelly Inglis and Georgie Westley, two familiar award-winning faces in the cosmetic tattoo and beauty industry over the past 20 years.

The duo founded ‘’Aus Col Tech” as they call it, through a desire to provide high quality products and distribution channels to complement their industry, sourcing world-renowned brands and equipment and bringing them to the shores of Australia and New Zealand.

Georgie and Kelly are both successful entrepreneurs, each having founded their own skin and tattoo clinics in Victoria as well as being trusted and highly sought-after beauty therapists with an eye for quality skincare and client results. Both women have cemented their place as leaders in a highly competitive and ever-evolving industry.

Aus Col Tech delivers fast and reliable, great quality products that have been sourced from around the world. Aus Col Tech finds the best products and offers them at exceptional prices for the beauty and cosmetic tattoo industries. Products are easily accessible for orders 24-hours a day from up-to-date websites, and the team are also constantly looking for new products to enhance its supply and they have new stock arriving monthly. Kelly Inglis is an award-winning beauty therapist with over 16 years’ experience in the industry, and as the founder and director of The Skin Hub [formerly Pure Skin Clinic] she has been a fixture in Geelong’s beauty and skin treatment scene for the better part of the past 13 years, providing the region with an unparalleled level of beauty therapy and customer service.

Kelly completed her Diploma of Beauty Therapy at The Centre of Excellence in 2003, and she is recognised as an award- winning Cosmetic Tattoo Artist having trained with industry leaders in several eyebrow tattoo techniques as well as Scalp Micropigmentation, Advanced Eyeliner and Lip Tattoo. In 2016, she was awarded the prestigious Association of Cosmetic Tattoo Novice Award – cementing her as the industry leader that she is.

Kelly is a highly sought-after therapist for Cosmetic Tattoo including eyebrows, eyeliner, lip, beauty spot and scalp, plus she is the only therapist in Geelong to offer both saline removal and laser tattoo removal and she is renowned in the region for offering an extensive range of treatments. She is in such demand for Cosmetic Tattoo that she has had to reduce her beauty work.

Over the past five years Kelly has guided the business through a period of unprecedented growth, requiring an upgrade to a new 3000m2 space – triple the size of the previous clinic – and with Kelly at the helm, The Skin Hub is recognised as Geelong’s newest, largest, and most premium ‘hub’ for everything skin, wellness, health, and beauty.

Georgie Westley is the owner of Distinctive Features Cosmetic Tattoo & Beauty. She has extensive experience in the beauty industry stretching over a 20-year period, having undertaken a huge range of professionally certified training leading her to specialise in her passion of cosmetic tattoo, tattoo removal and training.

As a professional accredited trainer, she has taught beauty therapy, makeup artistry, nail technology, hair removal, skin and science resulting in the constant development of her knowledge for all things beauty. She makes a concerted effort to keep updated with the latest trends within the industry by traveling overseas and interstate to train with the best masters of her industry. She is a multi-award-winning tattooist and has been a finalist for the Australian Beauty Industry awards 2 years in a row for Educator of the Year and Cosmetic Tattooist of the year.

In 2019 Georgie and Kelly saw a gap in the market for an exceptional quality aftercare product, and together they designed and manufactured their trademarked Medicone Gel™ which is a medical-grade silicone product for aftercare use throughout the industry. This is like a liquid bandaid that can be use post care for cosmetic tattoo, burns, skin needling, cuts, abrasions, or any other skin injury.

The success of their first partnership brand Goldeneye Micropigmentation led Georgie and Kelly to a company retreat in the Maldives where they were introduced to bdr Medical Beauty skincare line. After a week-long seminar they knew that bdr was meant for the Oceanic shores. After a year of trialling the treatments and products in their own skin clinics and proving the brand to be not only luxurious but also results driven, Aus Col Tech is now sharing the experience and quality of bdr Medical Beauty with the rest of the country as the sold distributors and trainers in Australia and New Zealand.

Products sold include Medicone Gel™, Goldeneye tattoo machines, pigments, needles, and accessories, as well as bdr skincare. Beauty Biz Editor Louise May caught up with Kelly to find out what motivated them both to join forces!

What inspired you both to form a partnership, how did this come about?

Being Georgie’s first ever tattoo student we obviously stayed in close contact and formed a bond right from the start. Talking about the products available in Australia and how difficult it was to get Goldeneye from overseas all the time we decided to approach the company together to see if there was something we could do to be distributors.

What’s given your business and partnership strength over the years?

Before anything else we are great friends and have enormous respect for one another. We are both mothers with multiple businesses so can rely heavily on each other or support. Having that one person who always understands and has your back is invaluable. We are also polar opposites when it comes to our strengths. Georgie is bright and bubbly and passionate about science and teaching. Whereas I am quite shy and reserved and love nothing more than to run the behinds the scenes and manage the finances.

What challenges have you faced, if any? How do you both stay strong and agile during these unprecedented times?

Our biggest challenge is our distance from one another. Living in different cities makes it hard to plan and connect sometimes. We try to spend time together with our families on the weekends and holidays so that we can just be close enough to talk through a big list of things. We also call and text daily about anything and everything. With the constant lockdowns we found we had more time to focus and accelerate some of our other projects and having them to do took our minds off Covid. We also found the silver lining in being able to spend more time at home with our families and putting back time in our own personal growth and education. Georgie wrote and launched several cosmetic tattoo webinars and I continued with my master’s degree studies.

What is on the agenda for the future?

We have massive plans for AusColTech as we call it. We are building a warehouse this year which is our biggest achievement yet and a very exciting one. We have several products in production and will be launching later this year as well. Some of our own and also some new things from Goldeneye Micropigmentation that we have helped develop for the last 12 months. We are exhibiting at the Sydney Beauty Expo in August with our skincare brand bdr Medical Beauty as well as at APMAC in November. Whatever we do, we take our time to make sure it is perfect for our customers.