How It All Began (Part 1)

Many things come into consideration when deciding on your favourite beauty product. Is it in the way a certain cream makes you feel the moment you apply it to your skin? Does it come with a full sensory experience? Or maybe it’s the vanity-worthy packaging that makes you feel like you’ve got your shit together. For Robyn, our Beaut founder and visionary, it was all these things and more (with a little help from her friends).

Robyn explains, “My mom started taking me for facials when I was young, so my skincare routine was solid from the get-go. I had the classic 3-step: cleanse-tone-and moisturize, which took me through teenage breakouts and oily foreheads. I would try any and every product I could get my hands on, and I enjoyed lapping up information about beauty and skincare from… I don’t know where we got our information from in those days, Seventeen/Cosmo-girl? Wherever I could get it. Fast forward to my adult life where the internet and social media, and the world of influencer-led recommendations took hold of me. I became a chronic beauty product purchaser, sometimes even travelling abroad just to spend most of my time perusing the shelves of beauty stores. My tendency to splurge on new products, coupled with swoon-worthy bathroom shelfies, curated flatlays, and a world of information at my fingertips lead to a bathroom cabinet bursting at the seams. My routine was exceedingly over the top, unfocused, and completely unnecessary. And at the time I just couldn’t understand why, if I was using all these overpriced and imported products, why wasn’t my skin having any of it.

It was during lockdown in 2020 that I turned to my self-care routine as a form of daily escape. And I was able to slow down a little and think more intentionally about what I was putting on my skin. I remember thinking to myself, I ingest vitamin C to ward off disease and I apply it to my face to brighten pigmentation… How is a single compound like this so versatile? I began scanning and learning the ingredient lists on the back of all my products and researching the multifaceted uses for each one. I soon found myself deep within a world of skincare research, from blogs, studies, ingredients dictionaries, to rating systems and pretty serious product reviews. I paid special attention to the ingredients that were in my favourite products, learning more about what made them my favourite. Before long I had mapped out the different types of active ingredients that, on paper, would yield the best efficacy for my skin. But finding products that were formulated exactly how I wanted them to be became tricky and frustrating. That’s when it all began. I envisioned four simple serums. The only products I’d ever need in my routine, apart from cleanser and moisturizer, of course. And products that wouldn’t irritate my skin if I used them together. All I would need to do is use them consistently.

After chatting to my friend, and now Beaut Director, Abby, I realised that I wasn’t alone in this thinking. The beauty industry is so highly competitive that brands have had to rely on marketing that trains people into believing they need complex, extremely concentrated 12-step routines to achieve perfect skin, when in reality that is what’s causing most of our skin concerns. The industry needed a disrupter. A straight-talking, no BS brand that gets the job done simply. No strings attached. And we were going to do it.

With the perfect products on paper Abby and I decided to get them made. We started talking to more of our friends, who wanted to come on board and so they did! As investors, ideation generators, and business advisors. Together we began our search to find the best biochemist to formulate the Beaut serums. And then we found her… in Pretoria!