“I have been obsessed with beauty for as long as I can remember. My mother was of that generation where women never left the house without being impeccably made up. I think this helped shape an obsession with makeup from a very early age. When I became a makeup artist, skin became incredibly important. Applying products on other people’s skin meant I had a duty to treat it with the utmost care, to learn and understand what causes skin issues and study skincare products more closely.”

It also helped me on my own skin journey. In my younger years, I had oily skin and large pores which led to a desperate obsession with finding solutions to these ‘issues’. From acid peels, abrasive scrubs, microdermabrasion, and maximum strength everything. I realised that my skin really didn’t change in any dramatic way and sometimes became worse.

Then I was diagnosed with rosacea and told to stop using so many strong actives. I had damaged my skin barrier when I thought I was doing all the right things.

I started to focus my research on the skin barrier and my understanding of skin, how it works and what it needs completely changed: in order to have glowing and vibrant skin, you need a healthy and strong skin barrier. Using strong actives and regular peels was damaging my skin barrier and causing inflammation. The concept of skin ‘health’ changed everything.

This shaped how I treated clients’ skin, informed the products I put in my kit and I began treating their skin as I did my own. This transformed my makeup process and subsequently almost every person I have worked with since then has commented on their skin, how it feels and looks like real skin even with a face full of makeup. Real skin became my signature look, giving clients, both models and real women a flawless ‘no makeup makeup’ look that begins entirely with the skin. I learnt that the best foundation was great skin and great skin is healthy skin.

In my work, it was the same repetitive questions, skin issues and misinformation coming at me from my clients who also just wanted to understand what to use to improve the state of their skin. There was just too much information out there for the regular person to sift through.

It became my mission to figure out how to use the actives I knew worked in a way that wouldn’t disrupt or damage the skin barrier, how to repair the damage that was done, and build an armour to prevent future damage. And how to do it in as few steps as possible.

Skincare was moving into high potency actives, percentages, layering. Devices that poked, shaved and peeled, putting skin into a constant damage/repair cycle. Sekkeizu’s philosophy is do no damage at any step.