Meet the Founder and Formulator

The kernel of Synergie Skin began in my late 30s when I found myself surrounded by friends and fellow mums who were constantly venting to me about their skin concerns. Back then, skincare was mostly limited to either prescription medicine or over-the-counter brands with very little in between, and the average person wasn’t as label-savvy as they are today.

With my background in microbiology, immunology and later in formulating chemistry, I made it my mission to help these women, but I quickly realised that the only way to obtain skincare products that I’d be comfortable putting on my skin, my friends’ skin, and my kids’ skin was to create them myself. In those days, there weren’t many skincare companies led by cosmetic chemists who truly understood the skincare needs of women, and even fewer were female! In every fibre of my being, I felt that I knew what my customers needed, and I possessed the skills to make it happen. I was determined to create ethically formulated skincare and mineral makeup that only used scientifically verified ingredients without any additives that were considered questionable to our customers or our planet.

Using all of my savings at the time, I opened a small skincare clinic in a quiet Melbourne suburb called Skinformation - a name that spoke to the sentiment of transformation, whilst empowering people with the right information to make their skin healthier (sidenote: I would later pay homage to these humble beginnings by adopting the same title for my first skincare book, Skinformation). I vividly remember sitting at the bay window overlooking the train station and praying for commuters to venture into my little clinic. Business gradually picked up and my skincare range – which was much smaller back then - gained a local cult following. But when the GFC hit, I thought I was in serious trouble. Many customers stopped coming for treatments, yet to my surprise, they continued emailing me to make special orders for my products - they said that whilst they couldn’t afford treatments anymore, they couldn’t afford not to have my products.