Can you just tell me exactly what it is that you do?

I’m the mother of a little three-year old boy. And the mother of a Evohe, which is a natural skincare range I developed 12 years ago now. So that was my first baby.

 

 So obviously, you haven’t always done Evohe, there was a time before. What was that like? 

I actually worked in another type of skincare industry, which I refer to as the dark side. Yes, in my 20s. I had, you wouldn’t recognise me. I was like high heels, red lipstick, bleach blonde permed hair wearing a French uniform. And yeah, I just really believed it. I really believed in all the glamour and luxury and dazzle. I had a white picket fence and a big diamond ring and a Range Rover. And one day, I just went, what am I doing, I don’t even know myself. And I kind of went in further into the realm of the dark side of the skincare industry. And I saw behind the scenes, and I was really shocked at how shabby It was, like all the front entrances are all glamorous and amazing. And then you go behind the scenes to the offices, and it’s like, shabby.

 

So when you say shabby, and yuck, what do you mean?

Crappy desks, offices and, you know,  was just sort of all a facade. And I was really shocked. And then I started looking at this $300 eye cream that I’ve been selling, what’s actually in that? And I was shocked again, at the first three ingredients being water, propylene glycol, glycerin, it’s like 50 cents, not even 50 cents worth of ingredients. 

 

So you mentioned some ingredients before that are like fillers? Can you run us through that a bit? 

Well, it’s mainly things like propylene glycol and glycerin, they’re really cheap. But they come at a high cost, especially glycerin because of the palm oil issue. But really, all they do is kind of pad the product out. And then you can add, you know, point .001% of something fabulous. And that’s your marketing claim that you put on the front of the label that has all the amazing, you know, tests and studies but it’s just not really in there enough of a concentration to do anything.

 

At Earth and Skin, we’re Gold Coast’s best day spa for organic, sustainable and high quality treatments that feature amazing Australian brands such as Evohe.

 

How can people learn more about the ingredients in their products?

So the skin deep database is a great resource, because you can go down a rabbit hole, you can type in the ingredient and then follow it through. Like citrus seed extract is one of my biggest pet hates in the industry, because it sounds natural. But if you follow it through the skin, deep database, you’ll see it’s contaminated with chloroform and formaldehyde.

 

I really want to ask you, in the skincare industry, what would you say is the buzzword at the moment?

And so I have to come through in my business, and what I’m learning is self care. And I’m actually that’s been the last five years really, I’ve been a student of self care. It’s sort of like the University of life has handed me so much that self care became critical. Yeah, like, actually, to my survival. And to my, you know, preservation of my body. So self care is my thing. And I’m actually starting to see it pop up, as you know, fill your cup. And, you know, it’s okay to pamper yourself and look after yourself. So I am seeing that come up in the industry. 

 

 

Want to know more? Learn about self-care with Meg in our second podcast with her or read our blog about mindfulness!