Everything moves through fuel—and right now, that’s exactly the problem.
The Philippines is in the middle of its most severe energy crisis in recent history. Since early March 2026, oil prices have surged week after week—nine consecutive increases for gasoline, eleven for diesel—until the Department of Energy called it what it was: the highest jump in fuel prices the country has ever recorded. Diesel past ₱114. Gasoline breaching ₱91. A national energy emergency was declared.
Prices and headlines that would have felt like fiction just a few months ago.
The most visible signs are easy to spot: busy streets famous for their traffic are eerily quiet, and long queues at gas stations on days when prices are considered low. But the real weight of this crisis isn’t just felt at the pump—it’s felt downstream, in every industry that depends on logistics, importation, and supply chains to function. And in the Philippines, that’s nearly everyone.
For local beauty brands, it hits differently.
Building a homegrown beauty brand here has never come with comfortable margins. Most founders have always operated in the narrow space between keeping prices accessible and maintaining the kind of quality that earns loyalty—all while navigating imports, rising production costs, and a consumer market still being won over. The fuel crisis doesn’t introduce new pressures so much as it intensifies the ones that were already there.
Shipping costs more. Manufacturing costs more. Getting a product from a production facility to a customer’s doorstep costs more. And unlike multinational brands with regional budgets designed to absorb exactly this kind of disruption, a local founder has far less room to maneuver.
What happens next—whether that means adjusted prices, delayed launches, or subtle reformulations—is a decision being made right now, behind the scenes, by the people building the brands you reach for every day.
We asked them to tell us exactly what that looks like.
The First Thing to Break
The impact didn’t arrive as a single event. It accumulated—in supplier quotes, in shipping invoices, in the recalculation of what it now costs to get a product made and out the door.
For most brand founders, the crisis made itself known not with a headline but with a number: the peso at 60 to 1, applied to every imported ingredient, every shipment, every line item that was already under pressure. Packaging moved first—its production costs tied directly to oil. Shipping timelines stretched, and rates climbed. And further up the chain, raw materials became harder to secure.
“Sourcing some materials has been harder to lock in, which can cause delays on shipment timelines, upcoming launches, and even availability of current products,” a beauty brand founder told us.
The disruption didn’t start at one point. It started everywhere at once.
The Numbers No One Is Advertising
When asked directly, most founders gave a range rather than a precise figure, which is already telling. One brand is absorbing a 10 to 15 percent increase across costs. Another is looking at 10 to 30 percent, depending on where the shipment originates.
The origin matters: a product sourced regionally hits differently than one arriving further from home. Local brands rarely have the luxury of a single, stable supply chain—and right now, every part of it costs more.
Holding the Line, For Now
None of the founders we spoke to has raised prices yet. But most are frank about the fact that this position has a shelf life.
“We’re still trying to shoulder it for now—but maybe in three to six months, we might need to increase prices,” one admitted.
Another is thinking longer. Steph Oller, co-founder and CEO of Pure Culture, isn’t adjusting existing prices. The woman behind the country’s first toxin-free, data-driven skincare brand—and one of F-beauty’s most recognized names globally—is developing a locally manufactured line to reduce import dependency entirely. For a brand built on the principle that what goes into a product matters as much as what it does, the move is less a pivot than a natural extension of the same thinking.
A third is holding firm as a deliberate act of care. Nina Sotto, CEO of The SOLA Group, knows a thing or two about building multiple brands under pressure—her portfolio spans SOLA, Tapies, Trizie, Pastel, and Naked Collagen. She’s one of the few founders willing to name the weight of that decision plainly. “The best we can do is prepare and plan ahead—contingencies from plan B to Z. As much as possible, we don’t want to increase prices. We want to lessen the burden on our community.”
The adjustment is coming. The question is when and how much each brand can absorb before it becomes unavoidable.
What’s Running Late
How much buffer a founder built into their planning is now the deciding factor.
“We plan a year ahead, so everything being sold now was ordered six months ago. The impact is more down the line,” one explained.
For others, the disruption is already present—longer lead times, delayed materials, and the cascade those create across production schedules. “We might expect a domino effect across our whole process—from manufacturing delays to launch postponements to inventory constraints on existing products.”
The launches consumers are waiting for may already be running behind.
The Changes Happening Out of Frame
What no one has touched—yet—is the product itself.
“We are trying to spend less on marketing to allocate emergency funds for inventory,” one brand revealed. Another is working more closely with their manufacturers: “We’ve refined our full-year forecast in close collaboration with our partner manufacturers. This allows us to secure materials earlier and more efficiently—ideally even before further costs increase,” a second founder explained.
“We didn’t touch the formula or any part of the product. As brand owners, we have to take the loss and protect what we put out.” Smaller margins, yes. A compromised formula? Not an option.
“Many people don’t realize how globally interconnected the beauty industry is. Even ingredients we consider everyday staples—like glycerin—can be sourced from regions affected by geopolitical tensions. When disruptions happen, brands have to quickly find alternative suppliers, often at higher costs and with longer lead times.”
What Consumers Don’t See
“Many people don’t realize how globally interconnected the beauty industry is,” one founder pointed out. “Even ingredients we consider everyday staples—like glycerin—can be sourced from regions affected by geopolitical tensions. When disruptions happen, brands have to quickly find alternative suppliers, often at higher costs and with longer lead times.”
The concern that surfaced most honestly wasn’t about supply chains at all. It was about what comes after. “More than our tight margins—I’m scared people will have less disposable income to spend on non-essentials like makeup,” another admitted.
It reframes the entire conversation. This isn’t just a cost problem. It’s a demand problem in the making.
What the Market Says
The founders in this piece are giving themselves three to six months before price adjustments become unavoidable. Prediction markets suggest that the window may be just enough.
Polymarket, a prediction market platform where traders stake real funds on world events, currently prices the Strait of Hormuz returning to normal by the end of April at just 19 percent. But Kalshi, a regulated US prediction market, places the odds at 67 percent by June 1 and 76 percent by July 1—a more hopeful reading that aligns closely with when most local founders say they can still hold. A US-Iran ceasefire is priced at 57 percent by April 30, rising to 78 percent by June 30.
The timeline is tight. But it exists.
Analysts at ING note that every $10 increase per barrel pushes inflation up by 0.6 percentage points—real pressure on consumer spending. But the same analysts point to rate cuts as a likely response, with markets already pricing in easing later this year. Relief, in other words, is being built into the forecast.
For local beauty brands, the bet is simple: hold long enough for the pressure to ease, and the market that’s been building here—loyal, growing, increasingly sophisticated—will still be there. The founders we spoke to believe it will be. And for now, that belief is doing a lot of the work.
How They’re Holding
There’s no resolution here, because none exists yet. But Jacqe Yuengtian-Gutierrez, founder of Happy Skin, has navigated enough uncertainty to know that holding the line is its own kind of strategy. She isn’t stepping back.
“We will continue with all our innovations to give them the best product out there,” she says. “Beauty products should be fun. It shouldn’t add to their stress with all that’s happening now.”
They’re still launching. Still absorbing. And for now, holding.
