It's nearly 10 years since I started Apothaka, and lately I've been reflecting on the journey.
When I first started formulating skincare, I thought the hardest part would be the nailing the formulations. Getting the textures right, finding the right ingredients, making products that actually worked. And yes, that was challenging, but it wasn't the hardest part.
The hardest part was unlearning everything the beauty industry promoted about skin and actively going against it.
Here are a few things I wish I'd known at the beginning:
-
Less is almost always more. The skincare industry profits from complexity and and bloated product ranges. But skin doesn't need ten products and it doesn't want to be a guinea pig for constant newness. It needs the right basics for your needs, used consistently. I built Apothaka around this principle from day one, and ten years on, I'm more convinced of it than ever.
-
Skin doesn't need to be perfect or flawless. The goal isn't perfect skin; it's focussing on skin health and understanding your skin well enough to support it. We need to fight the impossible beauty standards placed on us, and that starts with filter-free skin and embracing beauty as we age (that's why you won't see any "anti-ageing" language from me).
-
Ingredients matter to a point, but usage rates and formulation matter more. I've seen products with popular ingredients either do nothing or cause extreme irritation, and more intentional formulas with the right combination of ingredients at sensible usage rates significantly improve someone's skin.
-
"Natural skincare" or "clean beauty" isn't best (it doesn't even have a proper definition!). "Natural" ingredients aren't "better" because your skin doesn't recognise the difference between natural and synthetic ingredients, plus constraining yourself to natural ingredients limits the possibilities with product performance, skin feel and product shelf-life. Natural ingredients also aren't always better for the environment (in some cases they're worse!). I would almost go as far to say that pushing natural skincare / clean beauty is a type of lazy, fear-driven marketing which suggests a lack of knowledge of skin science. The more important questions should always be, "does this ingredient support / improve skin health, and what's its impact on the environment"?
Ten years on, Apothaka is still driven by the same belief it started with: that skincare should be honest, effective, and kind to your skin and the planet.
Thank you for being part of that journey. 🌿
