Natural beauty products have really taken off in recent years. Jenny Laue meets a North-East businesswoman who moved half-way round the world to realise her ideas for totally natural skincare.

BEING head-hunted at the age of 51, three months after your husband walked out, and moving half-way round the globe to start a new job is no mean feat in anyone’s books.

But that’s only the start of Pauline Clarke’s amazing success story. The Middlesbrough-born and bred businesswoman visited her hometown for the first time in 14 years last week to speak to other female entrepreneurs about how she overcame personal tragedy to start a new life down under and developed her own international brand of skincare products.

“At a time of life when most people thing they’re over the hill, I was headhunted.

I’m 65 now, but I was 51 when I was approached by a businessman from Sydney to come and work for him. That was three months after my husband decided to leave. It couldn’t have come at a better time, really,”

says Pauline in her now undeniably Australian accent.

That was in 1995 and after ten years of working hard and starting all over again in a foreign country thousands of miles away from her family, Pauline decided that her energy hadn’t been spent and that at the age of 61, when others think of retiring, she wanted a new challenge. So in 2005 she set up her own skincare range, Bush Essentials, which is now sold around the world and is used by big Hollywood stars like Matthew McConaughey.

“It all started in my garage as a onewoman enterprise. I’ve always had an interest in beauty and skincare, but 20 years ago, if someone had told me that what I put on my skin would end up in my bloodstream, I would have laughed. Now, of course, a lot more is known about harmful substances, so I decided to stop using conventional cosmetics,” says Pauline.

“I started researching aromatherapy and the benefits of natural ingredients.

Then I decided to work with essential oils and produce my own stuff.”

In her converted garage on the Australian Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane, Pauline started to produce her first product – a body scrub. Later came moisturisers, body washes, massage oils, baby lotions and lip balms, all made with 100 per cent natural plant ingredients and without any synthetic components.

In the beginning, Pauline only manufactured on Mondays and Tuesdays and then sold what she’d made at local weekend markets in Queensland.

“I also realised that if I wanted to launch Bush Essentials without a big budget for advertising, I had to get the products on people’s skin and then talk to them. So the markets were ideal and because word-of-mouth works best, the success was phenomenal,”

she says.

“I very quickly took on help because it just lifted off. By the end of the first year, we moved out of the garage and into our first factory.

There was a point where I almost couldn’t move in my own house for stock, and the packaging was clogging up my drive.”

By that time Pauline’s products had grown in popularity so much that the company turned over in excess of a million Australian dollars in its first year. Repeat orders from buyers, referrals and enquiries came in from all over Australia and around the world and to keep up with the demand, Pauline and her employees had to move again, in March 2006, into a new factory in Queensland with room for further expansion. From there Bush Essentials products are shipped to countries around the world, from the UK, New Zealand, South East Asia, Hong Kong, the United state to Sweden and Germany.

Pauline’s visit to Middlesbrough to promote Bush Essentials’ new baby range, gave her the chance to catch up with family and friends.

“I have to see people all over the place and it’s a whirlwind, but I enjoy it because I’m passionate about natural skincare. It’s amazing to see that every time I come back, the roads are busier. The North-East has changed an awful lot in the past 14 years, but I think it’s all for the better.”

■ Bush Essentials products are 100 per cent natural with no harmful chemicals, parabens or preservatives, making them suitable for every skin type. They are not tested on animals and all packaging is fully recyclable. For more information or your nearest local stockist, contact Ann Clement on info@bushessentials.co.uk, 01388-819991 or log on to bushessentials.co.uk