The success of the Natural Compatibles make-up range relies on consistently high standards and uniformity of colour. For Denise Richardson, the company's owner, changes to the cosmetics industry in Australia six years ago meant there was no choice but to become a manufacturer.

Previously, all its products had been made under contract but the industry changes meant such arrangements ended for all powder products - eye shadows, eyeliners, blushes and wet and dry foundations. There was no multinational company prepared to make her formula.

"I found someone that would do it and they took over but the wind blew off their roof, literally," Richardson says.

Natural Compatibles was established in Cairns in 1992 and Richardson moved to Melbourne in 1999. She had just bought bigger premises when the contract manufacturing arrangement ended. Richardson says she was devastated.

"You can get lipsticks made quite easily in Australia. You can get mascara made. With colourwork [for foundation], when you [have to] make the same colour, it is not that easy as the raw materials change."

Nor is it cheap. The pigment carmine, as an example, which is made from the carminic acid of scale insects, is $1200 a kilogram and each batch can be a different pink or red.

"I had the dilemma of going to one of those companies who would use their foundation and make [mine] kind of the same. I certainly didn't want to go offshore."

Luckily a representative from her lipstick maker, Scental Pacific, happened to be in the office on the day the drama unfolded, confiding that it was getting out of the business of making powders and had some equipment for sale.

"It was just either manufacture or close shop," Richardson says.

The pressing machine Richardson needed was $8000. She used her contacts to find a second-hand pulveriser and both the engineer and chemist who worked with her were able to adapt the machines.

"People were so supportive,'' she says. "I think they thought 'here is this woman trying to give this a go'; they wanted me to succeed."

The Natural Compatibles range is sold through beauty and hair salons. The manufacturing process is lengthy and involves weighing, compound-mixing, pressing and assembly. It takes three people - Richardson pulls up her sleeves to mix the raw ingredients; her husband Ellis does all of the pressing; and they have another worker who helps them. The monthly output is between 8000 and 10,000 products with a retail value of $180,000.

Her daughter, Louise Mucha, is the company's international educator.

When Richardson and her business partner at the time established the company, she never imagined she would become a cosmetics manufacturer. "I would never have started it off that way,'' she says. "I was forced into that position."

The company exports to Britain, New Zealand, Norway and Asia. The philosophy behind all the hard work is simple: colours don't change through the seasons and people can feel better about themselves by applying some make-up.

"I was scared but I was kind of excited," Richardson says of her move into manufacturing. ''I knew if it worked, I would be in a really good position.''