My whole philosophy – that beauty begins in the belly – truly stems from my own story.
The evolution of The Beauty Chef was a very organic one. It’s interesting how one can veer off into a career that wasn’t planned, but naturally develops through a personal need, interest and passion. And now, I find myself deeply immersed and in love with what I do – and born with the last name of Oates, it feels like working in health and wholefoods was always meant to be!
Nearly 20 years ago, 10 years before launching The Beauty Chef, I had been working as a beauty editor for a mainstream newspaper and I became concerned with the number of toxic chemicals in skincare. I had always been interested in holistic health and wellbeing, so I started researching natural alternatives and the benefits of looking after your skin with clean ingredients and plant compounds that can rejuvenate the skin from the inside, out. I made the decision to start writing only about natural and organic health and beauty.
As a child, I’d also had eczema and allergies and as a teenager, I worked with a naturopath who dramatically changed my diet. This had a profound impact on my skin so early on, I began to understand the link between what we eat and how it can affect the skin.
Then, about 12 years ago, my own daughter began experiencing similar skin issues as well as allergies so that led me to research what might be causing them. After investigating various studies that looked at what we eat and how food affects the gut as well as our skin, I put my family on a gut-healing protocol. As part of this, I started including probiotic-rich, lacto-fermented wholefoods in our diet regularly. This had a huge impact on my daughter’s skin and the wellbeing of the whole family. When my friends began to ask why my skin always looked so ‘glowy’, I realised the power of the gut/skin connection.
This was really the birth of The Beauty Chef, as from there, I began experimenting with different ingredients in my kitchen at home, lacto-fermenting a selection of skin-loving superfoods, and eventually, I created my first inner beauty product – GLOW Inner Beauty Powder.
GLOW was born from a need for a real solution to skin and health issues. While what we put on our skin definitely influences its health (and within topical skincare there is a huge difference between products that are healthy for the skin and those that are not), I am a big believer that beauty comes from within.
What we eat has an incredible medicinal effect on our bodies and glowing skin is basically a reflection of healthy cells and what’s going in our gut, so by nourishing ourselves from within, we can experience a radiance that no amount of cosmetics can replicate.
The Beauty Chef products are designed to do just that, nourish our gut, our cells and our skin. I work closely with an amazing team of microbiologists, nutritionists and naturopaths to bring to you products that are complex and efficacious, but delicious and easy to take. I hope you enjoy them.
Best, Carla x
Visit The Digest for more beauty and wellbeing inspiration.