5 MINUTES WITH ZOË FOSTER BLAKE

At 33, Zoë Foster-Blake has a CV that reads like a seasoned veteran’s: beauty editor, columnist, author of Air Kisses; Textbook Romance; Amazing Face; Playing the Field; The Younger Man and The Wrong Girl; and of course, avid lover of orangutans.

As a new mother to 7-week-old son, Sonny, the beauty expert – who is equally as funny as husband, Hamish Blake – has stepped up her game by changing the lives (and skin) of women all over the world with her new natural skin care range, Go-To Skin Care.

Here, Zoë chats exclusively with GRITTYpretty about the birth of her two new babies…

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Congratulations on the arrival of your new baby (Go-To – not Sonny – but double congrats!). How does it feel to have Go-To Skin Care out there after years in the making?

ZFB: It feels WONDERFUL. Kind of how peanut butter and white chocolate gelato tastes. It went from a fun idea, to a pretty terrifying commitment and unthinkable amount of work, to getting emails from customers who tell me they’ve had dry, red, itchy eyelids for years and our humble/magnificent Very Useful Face Cream has healed them. It’s been a wild ride but I’ve loved it. I’ve bloody loved it.

You’re a beauty editor; author, expert and now founder of your own skin care range. You’ve probably tested, trialled and slathered on just about every product available from $3 budget buys to $300 pots of cream infused with 24-carat gold. How and why did you decide to narrow Go-To Skin Care down to just five key products?

ZFB: Excellent question, and one I’m glad you asked. (Pulls out PowerPoint presentation.)

One of the chief reasons I created Go-To was due to the feedback I was getting and the questions I was asked as a beauty editor. It was wildly obvious to me that Australian women were and are confused by skin care. Hair care and makeup they are happy to play around with and bluff a bit, but with skin care they desperately want to know what to do, what to use and why. They want results. They want to feel assured. And increasingly, they won’t stand for synthetics and mineral oils etc in their products, which we smugly cater to with our angelically pure formulations.

So I thought, right. What if I made a tight edit of essential, fool proof, fail-safe skin care products that skipped all the bullshit terminology and confusion that so often sneaks into skin care, and instead made women feel confident and most crucially, gave them excellent results? And I did.

The resulting five products, in both form and formula, were devised from over a decade of testing and trying products, feedback from real women, interviewing experts, and knowing what the skin needs to look and feel good, (AHAs, power anti-oxidants, magical oils straight from the bottom of a diamond-encrusted well). Also, because I a tiny bit (“completely”) created them for myself and what I want to use, I know they are all you need day in, day out, for the kind of healthy, happy skin that makes your friends thrilled for you but also secretly jealous.

Your son, Sonny, is only 7 weeks old but if he could talk (he may well be extremely advanced, I don’t know!), what would he say is his favourite Go-To product?

ZFB: Oh look, Sonny loves a chemical exfoliant as much as the next infant, but I’d have to say Exceptionoil. I use it on him to massage his enormous, gassy, Buddha belly before bed, I use it in his bath, and I used/use it religiously on my body during my avid Stretchmark Avoidance Campaign.

It’s only been a few weeks now but Go-To Skin Care is already attracting enormous success. What can customers expect next? Any new products in the works?

ZFB: I can’t believe how incredibly positive the reception to Go-To has been, especially since we are a solely online company; you can’t sniff and play and test the products in a shop before buying. I consider myself very lucky.

There will be something new rather soon, provided I can nail the fragrance before, oh, 2056. I’ll only release products that I love and believe in and have been banging on about for years, so I doubt any of the upcoming products will be a huge surprise to anyone, but to me it makes sense that I create amazing mega mutant versions of existing products that I already use and like. Why bother, otherwise? You have to innovate, not duplicate.

Finally, some people might be surprised to know that GRITTYpretty’s Eleanor Pendleton was mentored by an inspiring chick named, oh, Zoë Foster-Blake. What would this lady say to Gritty Pretty’s readers should she have the mic for only 7 seconds?

ZFB: She would say: You’re in very capable hands. Hands that are well moisturised, featuring lovely-shaped nails that are perfectly glazed in the colour of the season.

Oh, and obviously, you should totally buy some Go-To. You won’t regret it. And if you do, I will see to it that you un-regret it with a huge pile of cash and a pile of rubies.

You can shop Zoë’s Go-To Skin Care range here.