The Midlife Skincare Wake-Up Call - Stevie Smilas

Endocrine Disruptors And Carcinogens

What we absolutely know now, the studies show us it's unequivocal, is that most of those, many of those, are endocrine disruptors.

Yeah.

Which is huge. And many of them are also carcinogenic.

Welcome to the Midlife Rebel Podcast. It's time to rewrite the midlife story for women who refuse to be put in a box. Because maybe midlife isn't a crisis. Maybe it's an awakening. Midlife has a way of clarifying things. What matters, what doesn't, and what you're no longer willing to compromise on. For many women, that clarity turns into action, building something purposeful, values-driven, and impactful. My guest today, Stevie Smilis, is one of those women. She's an entrepreneur and the founder of Zero Zero Skincare, an Australian business with a mission to make an impact. It's great to see you again, Stevie. We had you here about well, we've got a bit of a history together. We had you here on the podcast about 18 months ago. Can you believe it? August 2024. It's really flown, hasn't it? I can't believe it's been that long. Yeah. Yeah. And we were talking about um your work in coaching at that point in time. And what I found, I was just listening back to our episode, and you were talking about aligning life with your core values. And I don't know, I feel like your coaching probably rubbed off on you. You'd hope so. Um, because you're now currently um you've you've created a skincare brand. And it's yeah, we're here today to talk about all things zero zero. Um there's yeah, and it's not just about talking about skincare. We're we're gonna talk about the reason that you started the business um having having an impact. Um, and yeah, there's gonna be a bit of education thrown in as well for us. Um because I think that we don't really realize the impact, the negative impact that most skincare products can have on our health.

Education As The Core Mission

Yeah, there is so much to talk about there. Absolutely. I think um a massive part of of what I'm trying to do with Zero Zero is to educate and to inform people. Um because it's it's you know, you don't know what you don't know, but once you do, it's it's you can't go back, you can't unknow things that you learn. So part of this journey of really deep diving on the ingredients, um, on uh what's in regular skincare, and even a lot of the, unfortunately, a lot of the clean skincare labels and companies, it's just it's quite scary. The things that are in there are quite scary. And without wanting to be alarming, it's there's a few simple rules that you can go by, which make everything really, really easy to remember. I often think about it like, you know, when you first started reading ingredient labels on food and how once you start learning things, you're like, oh my goodness, I didn't know this, I didn't know that. It's the same with skincare. And I think the more we learn about it, the more empowered we are to make the decisions that we want to make. If you don't know, you've got no choice, right? You've got no way to make a decision, and that's a problem. And it's it's a problem because we're not educated, but we're also unfortunately intentionally misled often, which I am not about at all. Like transparency and authenticity are probably two of my highest values. So I want to just bring that to the world in in France and the businesses that I'm creating, but also not to demonize what anyone else is doing, but just to give people a choice. That's what's important. You have to have a choice and then do what you can you can do or what what resonates with you.

Perfume’s Hidden Chemical Cocktail

It's really about bringing awareness as well, isn't it? I I was thinking about um us coming into this recording, and for probably well, since I had my kids, so Louis's nearly 12. Louis nearly 12. Um I got a bit of feedback then from your computer, so we'll just see how that goes. Um, yeah, so Louis's nearly 12, and I started making more of my own skincare and also like just cleaning products and that sort of thing. And the thing that always comes to my mind is like when we come across perfumes, fragrances, like we pull our hand to our mouth to block it out, and that is just our bodies telling us that it's not it's not right.

Fertility, Fragrance, And Real-World Impact

Exactly, it's not, it's not right, it's just not right. And uh perfume is probably the most insidious ingredient that there is, and it's not just in skincare, it's in like you said, it's in cleaning products, it's in laundry detectors, it's in softeners, it's in candles, it's in all kinds of uh other things. Anything that has perfume in it should absolutely be avoided. And the reason for that is that there are over 1,000 different chemicals that can legally be listed under the name perfume. Wow. A thousand. And more than a thousand. And if there is no uh further information on what those chemicals are, right? So companies can literally put any one of those products in, any one of those chemicals in and just list it. What we absolutely know now, the studies show us it's unequivocal, is that most of those, many of those, are endocrine disruptors, yeah, which is huge. And many of them are also carcinogenic. So we're putting things onto our skin. We're breathing in, right? That are going, and you know, the the nose is the the shortcut to the brain, right? So whatever you smell, it's going straight into your brain, it's going straight into your body, it's bypassing everything else, and and they're disrupting our endocrine system, which is bad for absolutely everyone, but particularly when you're at a point in life where you know those things are changing anyway. Um devastating, absolutely devastating. We've seen, I've spoken to lots of people, and there are there are, I mean, you can definitely find interviews online as well of women who specifically changed all of their perfume exposure in all of the things in their homes, and after many years of struggling with fertility, they were able naturally to have children. That's the depth of the impact of these products.

Absolutely, absolutely. That was the first time I actually it got brought to my attention. I had IVF with um my first baby, and I had acupuncture straight after the egg was put in. And they gave me a um like a little you know brochure saying do's and don'ts sort of thing for the next, you know, however long. And one of the big ones was like, do not use any perfumes, deodorants, um, artificial fragrances. Yeah, because it can affect the yeah, affect the process.

Absolutely, absolutely, which is crazy, right? To think that. But and these products are in so many things, so many things that we as we discussed before, you know, they're everywhere. It's very hard to um to escape them unless you actively try.

Founding Zero Zero: From Need To Brand

Yeah, yeah. We're gonna talk about uh more about the beauty industry. Um uh, but I'd love to hear a little bit about the story of Zero Zero and how it was born. Like, what's happened in the last 18 months where suddenly you were like, I know. Obviously, there's a little bit of like dissatisfaction with the stuff that you had available to you. But what what when did the penny drop? I could start making my own.

Keeping Skincare Simple

So interestingly, the um the like flagship product that we have, the moisturizer, um, is a product that I've been using for about nine years. So previously, a friend of a friend was making it and um and I was buying it from them and absolutely loved it. I knew it was 100% natural and it was phenomenal. Um, and then over the years, uh that person decided they weren't going to make it anymore. And I said, well, hey, I would really like to try making it myself because I can't be without it now. I need this in my life. And um, and so she gave me a rundown of of what she used um in the ingredients. To be honest, the recipe's quite different now. The formula has adapted and changed quite a bit. Um uh I've added frankincense, for example, and the ratios are very different. Um, and uh I started making it for myself, and then I just kept giving it to people who uh friends who um had skin issues or who were not happy with what they were using or all of these things, and I kept saying, you just need natural products, you just need natural products. And every time I gave it to someone, they would eventually come back and say, Hey, I want some more. Can I get some more? I was like, Yeah, of course, have some more. And then it kind of made sense to make it into a business and to go from there. And I had some, I've been really fortunate to have some some really great mentors. And I remember one of them specifically said to me, like, you know, you can't launch with with just one product. Like it's you need a range, right? It's a skincare product. So if someone is coming to your website to buy a moisturizer, they're gonna want a cleanser, they're gonna want a serum, they're gonna want, you know, something else. And if they're not able to get it from you, they'll get it from someone else. And then they may as well just buy the moisturizer there as well. You know, people want things to be easy, they want a whole set, they want to know and feel like they're working in connection with each other in collaboration. So at the time, I remember thinking, well, I know the moisturizer, I've been using the moisturizer for such a long time. Like I trust it. I don't know, firstly, how to make anything else. And secondly, what I would put in anything else, like I'm not a cosmetic chemist. That's not my history, that's a whole thing that people go out there to learn, you know. Um, and you know how sometimes when someone's been in an industry for a long time, the things that you think are gigantic problems, they just like wipe away in an instant. And I remember this awesome um guy that I was talking to, he just kind of looked at me like I was crazy. And he said, Well, he said, you just you just find a good cosmetic chemist that you resonate with and you pay them by the hour and you you get your formulations done. Cool. And I remember thinking, oh, okay, I can do that. But for me, of course, that would have been the path of least resistance, but that's not the way I chose to do it. I chose to do uh about four months of deep diving into all of you know what formulation looks like, the different kinds of ingredients, how they work together, how they don't work together, what essential oils to use, what's best for all of the different things. So I spent about four months really just in research mode, like deep in the rabbit hole of research mode, which was awesome and I genuinely loved it and I learned so much. And so then I put together exactly what I wanted in each of the products. Um, and then I found the most amazing cosmetic chemist, and we sat down together and we went through everything and we made a few changes here and there, and we adjusted some formulas and and um we came up with the product range that we have today, which is amazing and really simple. So we don't have and we will never have millions of products because the whole idea is that we need to simplify, that it's not complicated actually. And we have just been sold this idea that skincare is really complex and we need different products for under our eyes and different products for our T-zone and different products for for this and that and this and that. When really we don't, it's much simpler than that, and it can be much simpler than that. So we have the cleanser, we have uh the face um oil, which is like a booster, so it's like a like a serum, and we have a moisturizer, and that's it. There's nothing else, you don't need anything else. We will probably move on to to doing like a body oil and a body scrub, maybe a face mask, but you know, it will never be, you know, um friends often have asked me, you know, are you going to do like a an eye cream? And I'm like, no, because that's bullshit. You don't need it. If you know, people a good friend of mine, she said, oh, but you know, the the you know, your eye skin is so much more sensitive and you need different products. And I said, if it's if the product is too harsh for the skin under your eyes, it's too harsh for all of your skin. It's that simple. It's that simple. So um, yeah, that's something I'm super passionate about as well, just making it easy because we as women have enough to do without the extra decisions, the extra thought process, the extra 15 minutes in the bathroom. No way, I'm not committing to that. I'm not gonna ask anyone else to commit to that. If you're in there more than I say maximum five to seven minutes, it's too much. You know, go do the other things, the million other things that we've got to do.

Less Products, Better Skin

Right. Not to mention the pressure that it puts women under to think that they need to do all of those things in order to have good skin, glowing skin. Like that's the probably the ultimate goal, isn't it? To to look fresh, look healthy. That's well, that's my goal. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah, that's the goal. And it shouldn't be complicated. The the interesting thing, one of the most surprising things that I think I've learned from you know, when I knew nothing to to now, is that nearly always what the skin needs is less, not more. We don't need more. The more products that people try, the more like especially when you have skin that is slightly congested or slightly blemish prone, people make the it's the worst possible thing you can do is to keep trying different products to see what works because your skin is just getting overwhelmed and overloaded. And really, it's about the thought process should be what can I take away? What don't I need? How can I simplify? Because your skin will always respond better to less, always, always.

Can you talk to us about uh well, I love the quote on your website big beauty is big pharma. Is it in disguise? In disguise, absolutely, it is, it is.

Retinol, Vitamin C, And Natural Alternatives

I've remember listening to a podcast that was sponsored by a big beauty company, and they were saying things like, Oh, you if you make anything at home, that's dangerous. Don't put anything on your skin that's made at home, you know. And and I'm like, but you're sponsored by the big pharma companies. It blows my mind, you know. But they're out there sending this message, you know, and and I think that um we understand big pharma, and many of us are like you know, um big pharma, but big beauty is exactly the same. It's exactly the same. If you read the back of most products, they're terrifying, they can be really terrifying. I remember going back to what we said before when I first started reading the back of you know, ingredients on food, I remember hearing this really, really simplistic, beautiful rule that stuck with me forever, which was if you don't recognize it, if your grandmother wouldn't have eaten it, don't eat it. Yeah, it's that simple. And I remember there's a great quote from Jamie Oliver, which is like, um, food doesn't have ingredients. Food is ingredients. Ingredients, yeah. Yeah, and and it's and it's the same with skincare. And the reason it's the same with skincare is because the skin absorbs everything you put onto it. Technically, if you want it, the same rules apply. And if you if you wouldn't eat it, you shouldn't put it on your skin. And that's a radical idea for a lot of people to realize, but it's absolutely true. I'm not saying you should definitely be eating the products that we make because your stomach probably won't like them, but they're not gonna poison you, you know. They're not like they're not toxic in that same way. And it's when you start reading the back, and it's all of these chemical, chemical, heavy names, lots of them are petrochemical based as well. Lots of the synthetic ingredients. A lot of people will say that synthetic ingredients have a place, and there's an argument for that. I would rather use what nature has to offer us because it has everything that we need. I genuinely believe that. And I think instead of making things in labs because we think they'll be better, I think we should just trust that nature's got it and we can use everything that's there, you know. A great example of that would be retinal, right? That's everybody's that gives you that gives you the glowy skin, that gives you the dewy kind of glowy look. Or so they say. Retinal, or so they say, right? And keep in mind, everything that I'm talking about is what I've done from my own research. I'm not a cosmetic chemist, I'm not a dermatologist, but I think once you start researching because you're genuinely passionate, you can there's a lot of information out there these days. The skin absolutely gets addicted to retinol. So as soon as you stop using it, your skin will be worse. Oh that's absolutely true. And even things like a lot of the vitamin C serums that are out there are, you know, they'll say it's photosensitive. That means that you can't go out in the sun after putting it on. Now, surely if you have to stay out of the sun after putting something on, that means the concentration is too high. That means it's too hars on your skin, right? There is a beautiful, beautiful product called Black Oil, which is completely natural and it has the same, it's often marketed as um nature's rational, which is not chemically, it doesn't work in the same way on the skin. Um, so it's not really the same thing at all. It works very differently, um, but it does have the same impact in that it gives you that dewy, glowy, kind of plumped looking skin. The reason it does that is because it promotes collagen production in your own skin. It doesn't add collagen on because that's never works. It doesn't um in you know, a lot of the synthetic ingredients give you that look initially and in the short term, but then as soon as you're using them, uh once you stop using them, that goes away immediately because it's just surface level um short uh impact on the skin. It's not actually working on the deeper dermis and it's not choosing, uh it's not teaching the skin to help itself. That's the difference, and that's what we're always trying to do. What helps your skin be the best it can be? Not what makes your skin suddenly look beautiful the first time you use it so that you keep using it forever. It's not that's not sustainable. It's not sustainable.

How did you find all of this stuff out? Like where what's what do we know? How do we know what to believe?

Transparent Labels And Seven Ingredients

That's the problem, isn't it? Because the marketing does such a good job, and there's so many, it's like anything, right? Like there are there are you could say people are often say to me, Oh, there are studies that prove all the things. That's like potentially there are, but it's also about looking at the sources, looking at where the information's come from, looking also at who's funding the studies. Yeah, right. Because if it's big pharma, of course they're gonna lean that way. If it's big beauty, you know, uh I won't say any brand names, but if any of those big beauty companies are funding the studies, well, of course the results are gonna are gonna back the products that they sell. That's that's very logical. And I think another thing that I'll mention is that if you use a product and it feels harsh on your skin and it makes it a little bit red or it feels a little bit sore, absolutely stop using it straight away. Because what's also now very dangerously drummed into us is that your skin just needs to get used to the new product. Not true. Your skin is reacting to the product and those impacts are accumulative. So yes, your skin may get used to it and you know the redness will go away, but you're still damaging it. You're still damaging it for the long term, right? So I think often we can just intuitively feel into does this feel good on my skin or does it not? Is it like as close to natural as possible or is it not? So our products, all of the formulations, and the reason that I did the formulations myself before going to a cosmetic chemist was because I knew that we wanted the fewest possible ingredients that have the best impact. That's what we're always looking for. So the moisturizer is the product that has the most ingredients of any product that we make, and it has seven ingredients.

That's not much, really, is it?

Glycerin, Palm Oil, And Hard Lines

If you compare that to anything else that you pick up, like anyone that's listening to this or watching this, I like invite you to go to your bathroom and pick up any product and see how many ingredients there are. Because I guarantee you there's more than seven. I guarantee you there's probably more than 20. What are they doing? What are they doing? And what we often see also in in some of the more expensive brands and some of the clean skincare brands, unfortunately, is that the hero product, they'll they'll talk about a hero product like um like sea buckthorn oil, for example, or like bacucho oil that we talked about before, like aloe vera. And it will be all over the front and it will be all in their marketing, and it will be the like the natural thing that everybody wants. And aloe vera is fantastic for your skin, it's one of the best natural things you can put on your skin. Um, but then you know, you read the back, you read the ingredients, and it's the last ingredient on the list. And what that means is that it's got the smallest percentage of anything in the product. So, what are you paying for? What are you paying for? It's got one drop of an essential oil that's amazing for your skin, and they're selling the whole product on that. What about the other 19 ingredients above it? What do they do? What's the impact there, you know? And another thing that that sometimes other brands do, not to not to discredit anyone, but it's just it's important that people understand what they're putting on their skin so that they can make a conscious choice, right? Um, is that they'll only put the the Latin names which legally you are required to put on there, but then they won't put the common name. And that for me personally, that really irks me because people have no idea what those long Latin, you know, it's called the INCI name, which which um you are regulatorily uh obliged to have on the product. But not having the the common name for the product also means that people just scan that and go, I have no idea what that is. Rather than actually knowing. So it's important that we know what we're putting on our skin. That's that's one of the big messages is that you should know what you are putting on your skin. If you care about what you put in your body, if you care about what you're eating, you must care about what you're putting on your skin as well because it's the same.

I love this.

This is totally rebel, isn't it? It's like, no, I will not put up with all of that, and I'm gonna do something about it. I love it.

And the thing is, it's uh what annoys me is that it's been made so complex to scare us into compliance, and that pisses me off. Don't tell me what to do, don't make it complicated so that I feel like it's too hard and I just go, okay, sure. Because that's that's the trick of it, you know.

And it's that it's just the beauty industry as a whole, as well, isn't it? Like that, it's really a push towards um t just telling women that they're not enough and that they need all of this stuff and it and and preying on the preying on on that kind of oh, what would we say, weakness or fear of you know, fear of not being good enough or beautiful enough, and and then putting uh yeah, encouraging women to buy shit that's got a high price tag and a high cost to their health.

Midlife, Toxins, And Overload

Research Done For You

Absolutely. Well, the the whole beauty industry relies on us feeling like we need to be different. Right. Yeah and that's it's all about, I mean, yeah, we could go into whole big conversations about patriarchy and how awful it is, and how we're just being tricked and and and gaslit into thinking that we need all of these horrible chemicals to make us more beautiful when really they're messing with our cycles, with our fertility and with our ability to to breed as well as to be healthy. I mean, too much. It's too much. Why can't we just go back to nature? Nature has everything we need and it's not that complex. And that's you know, that's that's the message is that it's not that hard. I think everything we're talking about is about fewer steps, better products, yeah, you know, fewer ingredients that work really well together. Another one that I'll mention while we're talking about um the ingredients is glycerin. Oh yes. Glycerin is a product that is used commonly, very, very commonly. You'll see on the back of 90% of products, particularly water-based products, all of our products are oil-based. Um because it adds substance to water-based products, particularly. Now, what most people don't know is that glycerin is nearly always palm oil based. Oh I didn't know that. So if it says glycerin and it doesn't say palm-free glycerin, it has palm oil in it. And if anyone's using uh palm oil-free glycerin, which does exist, it's a great product. Um, you can guarantee it will be listed as such on the product, on the ingredients, because it's about six times as expensive as regular glycerin. If someone's paying for it, they're definitely going to tell you that I applaud to them every single time because what we know absolutely about there are studies that have been done on palm oil when it's ingested into the body. So when it's eaten, we know the studies categorically show, and I've got them listed on our website, that um they enlarge and grow cancer cells existing in the body currently. We know that the studies show that. So the studies have not been done on whether the application whether the impact is the same when it's topical. But if we accept that everything we put on our skin is absorbed into the body, for me, that is enough to be a line in the sand. We don't use palm oil in any of our products and never will we, because for me, and and I'll be honest with you, that makes formulation hard. Yeah. Because nearly everything has glycerin in it. And it was a very early-on decision that I had to draw a line in the sand and say, will I use glycerin or will I not use glycerin? Will I use glycerin that's palm oil-free? Will I formulate differently so that I can avoid it entirely? And those are the questions that were asked and that were made as a business because that's the way that I want to run things. I don't want to take the chance that maybe it's not the same when we put it on our skin. No, thank you. There are other things I can use and I will, and I want other people to know that too. Lots and lots of the clean skincare brands are using glycerin, and that's their decision. It's not something I would ever use, and it's I think something that people need to be much more aware of. Much more aware of.

Bacuchiol, Prickly Pear, And Seabuckthorn

Yeah. Wow. That so there's like two serious things that can go on for our health, and uh I just feel like they just this doesn't get taken seriously enough, or we just don't think it would happen to us, is the hormone disruption and the um carcin carcinogens. Absolutely. And what I always think is just like with food, when you if we're we're exposed to so many more toxins than we have ever been, environmental, like and uh well uh yeah, food, perfumes, uh cleaning products, all of these things, and our bodies literally can't cope. So our liver gets overloaded and yeah, the the process well it just yeah, it fucks everything up basically. And I think for women who are in this stage of their lives, you mentioned women who are trying to conceive and that experiment with household products and how it changed their fertility. But for women in midlife who are experienced, you know, going through perimenopause, yeah, this is a this if you are having difficulty, this is absolutely something you need to question. Like what toxins are in my home and what toxins are in my skincare, and what can I change?

And I think yeah, it it has the potential to have a dramatic effect on someone's experience and their health and their everyday, yeah, everyday feeling okay. Because I think it also and everything we've talked about up until this point, it can get really overwhelming for people, you know. And I think one of the most important things for me is just to be able to make the choice simple. Yeah, to swap, swap one for one. Yeah, don't think about it again, you know. Transparency, as I said at the beginning, is one of my highest values. And I'm happy to talk about everything that's in the products all the time because it's it's clear and it's simple. And as I said, it shouldn't be complicated. And I don't want people, particularly the glycerin conversation, I don't want people to be thinking, oh gosh, it's another thing I have to change. Where do I start? What do I do? Just buy something different that you trust.

Yeah.

And if you if you're the kind of person that loves to do research, like me, go do it. Absolutely. And if you're kind of the person, the kind of person that thinks, oh God, I just can't do all the research, I've done the research. These are the products. Yeah. That's why. Because I know not everyone wants to spend four months learning everything about skincare.

Yeah.

But I did, I did. And and I feel so much better for it. And I'm so I'm so excited about bringing these products to people and just simplifying. Simplifying.

Can you talk about some of the some of the ingredients that you do have in some of your products? I don't want you to necessarily go through everything, but you mentioned something that um helps to um stimulate collagen production. Um, so bucuture oil. Okay. And that's in that's in one of the ingredients in your moisturizer.

Organic Choices And Pricing Reality

That's one of the ingredients in the not in the moisturizer, in the face oil. So yeah, the face oil is um, to be honest, through summer, particularly on very hot days, I will often just use the face oil because it's so moisturizing and it's so like absorbs into the skin in the most beautiful way. And it really does give you that that kind of glowy, um, plumping kind of skin. I actually I just came back from a uh uh festival in New South Wales and I was helping out some girls there, and they said to me on the fourth day, they were like, How is your skin just glowing all the time? We're all out here camping. And you're like, and what I'm like skincare. It's good skincare, let me tell you. That's all I'm showering the same as you guys and just putting the face oil on and the moisturizer. Um, but it's it's not, yeah, it's not having to think about it. But back to the ingredients. So Bacuche oil is it's such a good ingredient and it's so natural and it's so easy. It does need to be, it can be used on its own. I've um, or in it in a carrier oil without going into too much of the the way that things are formulated. So what I love, like the face oil, I was joking about this the other day. I know that you know, we're not supposed to have favorites and they're all my children. I love them equally. But the face oil is absolutely my favorite. And the reason for that is because you will see Bacucho Oil, now that you've heard of it, you'll see in a lot of the very expensive face oils. And many of them will just have Bacuch oil, squalene, maybe vitamin E. Standard, stock standard. It's great, it's great like that. It's very good like that. I decided to add in the prickly pear seed oil as well, which is very high in vitamin C, which is really good for your skin when it's not overloaded. And I would say when it's not chemical, uh, when it's not um lab-built. Because quite often vitamin C oils are just created in a lab. They're not actually from a natural source. So I would always rather it be from a natural source. So prickly pear seed oil, also phenomenal for your skin for that reason. And then we also have sea barkthorn oil in there, which is one of the super, super oils for your face, particularly. So for me, it was like, how do what how do I find the best possible possible possible like quite often in a face oil, prickly pear seed oil will be the hero ingredient. Or QT oil will be the hero ingredient, or C. Buckthorn will be the hero ingredient. And I'm like, you know what? Let's put them all together. Let's make them a little happy family, and let's like see how phenomenal it is. And it's unbelievably good, obviously, if I have a biased opinion, but it's so good and it's so simple. There's no retinal, there's no overdoing the vitamin C. There's no, there's nothing else in there. It's very, very simple. Another thing I will mention while we're on the topic of transparency and of ingredients, is I think it's really important to note that our products are organic. They're made with organic ingredients. However, and this is on the website also, uh, in many of the products, um, I intentionally don't use organic essential oils. And the reason for that is um, first of all, affordability. Yeah, a lot of the times the um organic versions of many essential oils are are three, four, five, even six times more expensive than the non uh than the non-organic versions. And secondly, there are some really great studies, which are also listed on our website, that show that an essential oil is so far away from the original um ingredient that was uh harvested that um there is almost no trace of residual um pesticides left by the time it gets to being an essential oil. There are two studies specifically, and one of them one of them found no trace of pesticides in the products of the self-grid that they took. The other one found uh 0.1% in 30% of all of the products that they tried. So the fact that it's so minimal, I would rather use the regular ones, the non-organic ones, and keep the price affordable for the products than spend five times as much. Again, that's just bad marketing causing us to buy things that are not necessary. So I'm a massive believer in organic, organic food, organic products, absolutely organic shampoos, definitely. But we always want to do our own research. We always want to know why I am choosing this and what's the benefit, and do I absolutely need it? So for us as a business decision, the decision was not to use organic essential. It was not always the uh prickly pear seed oil and the sea buckthorn in the um face oil are organic. Um uh and we use that because scaling is not possible to get in an organic form. And the same with percute oil. So to keep the product organic and to keep it in our range of organic products, we use organic essential oils in that product. So it's a bigger conversation, but I think it's really important that people understand that you have to know why you're making a choice. And you have to be really clear about that. So that's that's something that I'm I'm really passionate about too. Why are we making the choices that we're making? Whether it's your skincare, whether it's your food, whether whatever it is, we need to know why we're making that decision and what the difference is.

Local Sourcing, Beeswax, And Single Origin

Do you feel do you I know that you've had uh you've uh had uh business before with the um organic food? Yeah. And you're very um conscious of having using farms that are local. What's um how do you go with getting your products in Australia? Do you is that a focus for you as well?

Or is that like the ingredients, yes. So it really depends on the ingredient, every ingredient's different. So, for example, in the moisturizer, um, we use uh the beeswax that we use is Australian organic beeswax. And I tell you what, the first when I started playing with formulating, um I just got the beeswax that was on the list to buy, and the difference is unbelievable. Really? Unbelievable. So when you um when you see the Australian, when you see the organic, it's like the smell is so stunning. You can actually, it's the overriding smell in the product. Like when people open the product, they ask if there's honey in it. No, it's the beeswax. Wow, that's how pure and beautiful the beeswax is. And um so yeah, where possible, absolutely, we choose local. Frankincense also is not grown in Australia. It's actually uh I know people that have tried, and it's almost impossible to grow here. Um, I was speaking to another company recently and they said, Oh, we do everything locally, and and I said, Um, and then they had a frankincense, and I looked and I said, even the frankincense? And he's oh no, not the frankincense, but everything else. And I'm like, okay, I thought so because I know no one has successfully grown frankincense in Australia.

Growing on a weird tree, isn't it? In Africa or something.

Yeah, it's very yeah, and pretty much in the Middle East and in Ethiopia are the only two places in the world that actually grow it. Um, so it's very interesting. But it's um so as much as we can, absolutely, um, but also within reason of keeping the product affordable, yeah. You know, like our products are not super expensive, but they're also not super cheap. They're they're kind of in the midline. Yeah, um, and that's that's where they have to be because of the the quality of the ingredients that we're choosing, you know, it's it's and so another conversation I was having with someone recently was um single origin. So single origin is a big thing, particularly in essential oils. Um when when things aren't single origin, it just means that as frankincense is an example, um it might be one shipment from Ethiopia, one shipment from the Middle East, one from this tree, one from that tree. There are also three different species of frankincense trees. So you need to know, you need to know, I need to know, maybe not everybody needs to know, I need to know what tree it is because also it impacts the efficacy, it impacts the smell, it impacts how it mixes into the formula. So single origin is a no um brainer for me, and it's it's uh not something I will ever compromise on. And there are big brands out there who you know people will say to me, Oh, you should buy from there, they're great quality. I'm like, they're not single origin. Good on you, so I'm never going to searching it.

Yeah, it's good, it's great. Yeah. Any other standout ingredients? You've talked about um the oils, and I can't remember their names. I'll have to look at the label to see how to pronounce them.

Coconut vs Jojoba: Two Moisturisers

Yeah, so in the the moisturizer, so in the moisturizer, so um the moisturizer, we actually have two versions. It's the same moisturizer, but it comes in two slightly different versions. And one has coconut oil in it, which is beautiful for your skin and so good and absolutely lovely, has so many great properties, antimicrobial as well. Um, but uh probably 10% of the population just cannot put coconut oil on their skin. It just doesn't work for them, causes outbreaks, can be um just not for them at all. So knowing that and understanding that. I decided to make a secondary moisturizer that didn't have coconut. I went back and forth with that and then decided that actually what felt truest to the business and to what we were trying to achieve was to have almost exactly the same formula, but just without the coconut oil and with jojoba oil instead. But jojoba is so very different to coconut that that meant the entire formula is different. All of the ratios are different in there. More beeswax because you know coconut oil has more substance and structure, it provides more structure in the formula itself. So there's more beeswax in the jojoba one because jojoba is it doesn't have that structure and that substance. So things like that always need to be taken into consideration. Also, both of them do have macadamia oil, which is so lovely on the skin, so nourishing, so beautiful. Some wheat germ oil as well, and um uh golden hemp seed oil, which again just provides that little bit of extra kind of nurturing and nutrition to the skin. So we're always with all of the products that we make, it's about long-term health. What helps the skin to be healthy for the long term? That's that's that's always the goal.

Yeah, amazing. So we've had a real good rundown of the um the beauty part of your work, the skincare. Um but that's not all you're doing with this business, is it? We're talking about business with impact, and you're you've got a philosophy around um your business that's not only about having good quality, simple skincare without any nasties in it. What else have you got going on?

Business With Impact: Who We Hire

Yeah, so um following on from the the I remember we touched on this in the previous conversation that we had. For me, impact is always incredibly important. I want to know what impact the business is having. I think that owning a business, you know, that is one of the absolute joys, is that you make up the rules, you do things the way you want to, and and you have free reign, as long as it's profitable, to do whatever you want to do, right? So for me, I think particularly because we're manufacturing everything, nothing is outsourced. There is a huge opportunity for employment and to employ whoever you want to employ. Now, the reality is once the formulation is done, um, making skincare, it's not rocket science. It's a lot of repetition, right? It's a lot of stirring, it's a lot of mixing, it's a lot of filling of jars, putting labels on jars, all of that kind of thing. So I recognized very early on that there was a really big opportunity to employ people potentially who haven't been employed for a significant amount of time. So I'm really passionate about providing opportunities for people who are long-term unemployed, whether that's from, you know, coming back from having children into the workforce, which I know when I did that many, many years ago, it was hard to find a job that worked around my son's school hours and didn't require before school care or after school care. Obviously, that was before COVID. I know things are a lot easier now, but still, it can be very hard to find jobs that are work around your schedule like that. Also, people that are coming um back from you know long-term illness, who are only just stepping back into the workforce and potentially can't do a Monday to Friday, nine to five, but still want to contribute, people who haven't interviewed for a long time, people who are coming out of prison, who are often overlooked, all of these groups of people, you know, people that are, you know, in their, unfortunately as young as late 50s, early 60s, who are consistently overlooked for jobs that they're more than qualified for, right? I think there's a fantastic opportunity to specifically look at people like that and to give them that opportunity, to not be rigid with the nine to five, to not be rigid with the five days a week, to not be rigid with the, you know, you must be here for this time and that time, to genuinely give people an opportunity to uh do what works for them with the understanding that they're it's a partnership. We're in partnership. I'm not here to crack the whip and to insist that you do whatever. And if that means that the business will have, you know, has to um have in the budget the ability to have 10% more staff rostered on that it needs in case of emergency, in case of differing circumstances, then I think that's very possible, as long as you're choosing to run the business like that, right? So I'm really passionate about that. And I think I know for myself, when I finally did manage to get a job that was within school hours, I can tell you I took no sick days, I showed up all the time, I was there to work, I was grateful for my job. Yeah. And that's the reality, right? People, particularly corporate people, will often say to me, working mums are the best workers because they get things done, they move quickly, and there's no messing around. They value their time, right? And I think that there is so many, you know, I know people that have come back from being really unwell for a long time and are nervous about how they're going to go back into the workforce and committing to times like that. We can understand that. We can work with that. I think that is there's so much room for that kind of compassion. Um, that I'm I'm super passionate about that. And I think that there's there's more and more that we can do. And also by doing it and doing it well, we show everyone else that they should be doing it too.

Absolutely. And that's what I love about it is that it's no well, there's change coming, right? And there are people that have to be the change makers. And you're by doing that, you're rewriting a story about what it means to be, you know, well, you yeah. Previously, I would think, or probably still presently, people are having difficulty after long long-term unemployment, finding work because you know, they're considered to have uh well, potentially a bad reputation, or they don't have any proof that they can do it, and it's yeah, they're just put into a a bucket of like no good. Less desirable. Less less desirable, exactly. But you're you're actually rewrite, yeah, rewriting that narrative by taking uh a step and and standing out and saying this is part of the philosophy of your business, which yeah, absolutely, and I think and I think if I'm honest, it's it's I want to have the impact, but I think that there's an opportunity to change the trajectories of people's lives by giving them a chance, and then the impact that that has ongoing on their children, on you know, on their ability to be employed, and the the difference that we can make is so huge.

And like for a business, like one of the the biggest expenses in any business that employs people is is retraining and uh issues with retention. If you're working with people and you're giving them a chance and you're treating them like humans and you're working in partnership rather than trying to be the boss or anything like that, all of those problems go away. It's actually a smart business decision. That's what other corporates just don't understand. You know, it's actually a really smart way to do business that also has an impact.

Compassionate Work And Smart Operations

Love it. We're kind of coming to a close. Is there anything that you would like to add, whether it be about um midlife specifically and and that you know element of rebellion that kind of shows up for us? Um or about your business, any of the things. Is there is there anything you'd like to add as we sort of reach the end of our conversation?

Yeah, I think I think um one of the things that we talked about last time that we haven't really talked about this time, but I think I would be great to leave on is that I genuinely believe that all of us do better in everything that we do when we simplify and when we align with what works for us. So having a better understanding of what lights me up, what makes me feel great, what am I passionate about, and how do I bring that into my everyday life? That's the goal. Whether that's going into a rabbit hole of researching skincare, whether that's you know, uh working out who you want to employ, whether that's, you know, loving pottery and deciding to teach other people how to do it, whether that's loving having conversations about midlife and doing a podcast about it. Like what is it that that lights? I would just invite everyone to think about what lights them up and and find a way, conventional or unconventional, to make it part of your life. Because I don't know, I'm so much happier doing my own thing and and maybe sure. Could I be earning more money right now in a corporate job? Of course I could. Would I be anywhere near as happy and as passionate as involved? I don't believe so. And that doesn't mean that this way of life is for everyone, but it means like, you know, I have good friends that are in the corporate world that that that love their traveling and the the the ability that that gives them to do that or loves the extracurricular activities, or you know, I think it's about asking ourselves better questions so that we know exactly what we're doing at whatever stage in life, but particularly I think as we get to midlife, I don't know about you, but for me, I have significantly less tolerance for bullshit, and that means that I just want to do what lights me up, you know, and that's that's such a joy and such a pleasure.

I love that. And yeah, it's it I don't know, I still feel like I tolerate tolerate a fair bit of bullshit. I'm kind of looking forward to that point where I don't tolerate it quite as much. I feel like it's coming. Um but yeah, it can feel a bit messy when we're in the middle of midlife as well. But I think that what you're doing and the you know the the path that you're you're taking is is a real inspiration for other women at this point in our lives to just you know just go go for it. Like if you've got something that you love, yeah, how can how can you get more of it in your life?

I think that's a great way to how can you get more of it in your everyday life? How can you simplify the things that are complicated? If it was easy, what would it look like? And how do I make that happen? You know, love it and swapping products, easy, easy when you know easy, it's an easy one. It is stop buying that, buy that instead. Stop doing that, do that instead, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you. This has been so much fun.

Yeah, it's been great. It's so good to see you. Thank you so much for taking some time to join me today. I've loved it. It's really great to see. Hey there, Rebel. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Midlife Rebel Podcast. If you'd like to support the show, you can buy me a coffee by going to Buy MeACoffee forward slash Midlife Rebel Podcast. Thanks for listening.