Accessibility Watch › Data Study
Cosmetics And Makeup Stores Accessibility: We Tested 6 Sites Against WCAG 2.1 AA
Web accessibility is a legal requirement — under the ADA in the U.S. and the European Accessibility Act in the EU. We ran an automated WCAG 2.1 Level AA scan on 6 cosmetics and makeup stores to see how the group measures up.
How many cosmetics and makeup stores pass accessibility checks?
67% failed the automated checks (grade C, D, or F). Of 6 sites scanned: 2 scored an A, 0 graded C, 4 graded D, and 0 graded F.
Grades reflect the high-frequency barriers automated scanners most often flag — so an A means a site is clean on those, not that it has zero issues of any kind. Across the full set of WCAG 2.1 AA checks, sites averaged 5 types of barrier.
The most common accessibility failures
| Barrier | Share of sites |
|---|---|
| Some links have no readable text — usually icon-only links. | 67% |
| Some content on the page isn’t inside a recognized region (header, nav, main, footer, aside). | 67% |
| Ensure landmarks are unique | 50% |
| A button’s visible text doesn’t match the description it announces to screen readers. | 50% |
| Some text on this page is too light to read against its background. | 50% |
| Some images on this page have no description for screen readers. | 17% |
| Some buttons or links are too small to tap reliably on touch screens. | 17% |
| Ensure all ARIA attributes have valid values | 17% |
| A heading on this page has no text. | 17% |
| This page is missing a main heading (H1). | 17% |
The most accessible cosmetics and makeup stores
These scored an A — clean on the high-frequency barriers we grade:
- ulta.com
- dermstore.com
Methodology
We scanned each site with axe-core 4.11.4 against WCAG 2.1 Level AA, in its default state, and reported automatically-detectable failures. Automated testing catches a portion of accessibility barriers; full conformance also requires manual and assistive-technology testing. See our methodology for details.
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