Melissa Haddad is not your typical beauty founder. By day, she's entrenched in the high-stakes world of commercial litigation at a top-tier law firm. By night—and every other spare moment—she's the force behind DEIA Cosmetics, a clean beauty brand that’s rewriting the rules of what it means to be local, intentional, and skin-first.

“Building something outside the legal profession is so challenging—emotionally, physically and mentally—it is not for the faint hearted,” Melissa says. But for her, the beauty industry wasn’t a random pivot. It was a calling. “I have always been knowledgeable about skincare and passionate about makeup,” she explains. “I saw a gap in the market for a clean beauty brand that celebrated the incredible, skin-loving benefits of Australian botanicals in a bold and playful way.”

This vision wasn’t born in a boardroom—it took shape during a period of deep self-reflection. “I found myself reflecting on my life trajectory and sense of personal fulfilment,” she says. “In that moment it honestly felt like two worlds colliding—my new sense of appreciation for Australia and my years-long passion for beauty.”

This fusion of experiences led to the creation of DEIA, a brand that refuses to blend into the background. A force that doesn’t whisper, play it safe, or tiptoe around the clean beauty category with pastel packaging and overused buzzwords. It owns its identity. “I knew that the brand had to be inimitable and synonymous with the uniqueness of the Australian landscape,” she says. “Our branding is bold and unforgettable and quite different to other clean beauty brands who tend to follow an aesthetic that is minimalist and green. DEIA is like nothing else, so it couldn’t look like anything else.”

The boldness isn’t just skin-deep. Every product is formulated and manufactured in Australia—a decision rooted in purpose, not convenience. “I think people would find it difficult to trust a beauty brand built around Australian botanicals unless the brand was formulating in Australia where the expertise about Australian botanical ingredients is available,” Melissa says. And that commitment isn’t flexible. “We will never create a product that doesn’t benefit from Australian botanicals… every decision I make for the brand comes back to what the brand is and what it stands for.”

That standard even meant walking away from an almost-finished formula. “Even recently I spoke online about having to scrap a new product concept I had been working on for the last few months solely because we couldn’t find a way to incorporate Australian botanicals into the formulation without compromising on performance,” she says. “As painful as that decision felt, I knew it was the right decision.”

It’s that high bar that sets DEIA apart—along with the formulas themselves, which took years to perfect. LipCush® required 21 iterations. StandStill®? A full do-over with a new lab. “We developed a formula which went through various iterations and about two years in I just felt like it wasn’t hitting the mark,” she recalls. “The ingredients didn’t mesh well, there were compatibility issues with packaging, and it just wasn’t a product that I felt confident and proud enough to introduce to the world.” So she started again.

“I ultimately decided to re-start the entire process with a different lab, which felt a little crazy especially because I felt like years of work had been done for nothing and I was about to spend thousands more trying to nail a formula that I wasn’t even sure was possible.”

But as gruelling as it was, it came with clarity. “What I didn’t realise at the time and am incredibly grateful for now… is the learnings that you take away from the product development process. My knowledge of ingredients and manufacturing had expanded so much… the new process was so much easier to navigate.”

Melissa is the first to admit that formulation is relentless. Expensive. Emotional. “It takes such a long time, it is brutal and exhausting, and incredibly expensive,” she says. “You need to have grit in business and confront setbacks with the curiosity to find a solution.” Her north star through it all? Purpose. “Before I even started the formulation process, I had mapped out DEIA—why it exists, who it was going to help, its values and what it stood for. When things got tough and I felt lost in the process, I always turned to those things and reminded myself what I was trying to achieve.”

That focus shows in every product. These are multitasking formulas designed for skin that moves through life, not just makeup that photographs well. “We live in such a busy society that people expect to be able to do much more with much less,” she says. “Let’s take StandStill® for example—it is more than just a quick fix setting spray; it helps treat the problem why people use setting sprays in the first place. Our multipurpose mist regulates oil production in the skin and gently exfoliates and smooths the complexion so that makeup sits better without sliding and fading.”

Still, launching a brand while holding down a demanding legal career was no small feat. “I constantly felt like I was jumping at shadows and hoping that I would land with two feet on the floor,” she admits. “The day I submitted a purchase order for mass production of our launch products, I didn’t sleep, and I don’t think I slept for a whole week. I had this overwhelming sense of anxiety—like what if I have just spent all this money on something that won’t sell?”

Her solution? Perseverance. “I just kept moving forward, one foot in front of another, and knew that if I kept working hard and asking questions to answers that I didn’t know, I would eventually work out. Nothing is impossible.”

Now, DEIA has launched with momentum—but Melissa knows that brand building doesn’t stop at the drop. “Right now, it is just about being experimental and finding out what is working and what isn’t so that I can use this intel to build out a really solid marketing strategy that I know will work for DEIA and resonate with our community.”

The long game is clear: expansion, innovation, and—if the stars align—a place on the shelves of her former beauty stomping ground. “MECCA is a huge dream and something that feels written in the stars,” she says. “To have a brand that embodies Australian beauty on MECCA’s shelves makes so much sense and would be absolutely epic!”

It’s a big dream, but then again—Melissa’s never been afraid of starting from scratch.