As one of the speakers at Westfield Kotara's pop-up The Powder Room series, which hosts Newcastle businesswomen during July, the Savant Apothecary founder will speak, among other things, about what rankles her in the beauty game.

"Women are supposed to have been stronger and independent and confident and not getting wrapped up in things that don't matter and yet in skincare and beauty it's very strong that you are not actually good enough, you need to change and have plumper lips and botox and fillers," she says. "I see young girls in their 20s under so much more pressure than what I remember and I think, who made those rules?"

Underlining that every woman is entitled to choose her own path, Ms Myatt is equally passionate about natural skincare.

Raised in south-east Queensland, Ms Myatt's skincare baptism was working at the counter of Estee Lauder and Clinique. She added more brands as she began biology and chemistry studies at university.

She saw a disparity with her studies and what skincare products were capable of: "I was at odds with the skincare companies because I didn't believe their claims or I would want to use their ingredients to help a different skincare concern."

"I wanted more control over how product was given to people and over the ingredients I knew would work and I wanted to get rid of that sense of making women feel insecure - let's focus on healthy skin instead of trying to make them feel like they are 25."

At 35, she began Blue Door Beauty and stocked "functional, no fluff" brands.

"It was close to what I wanted but not enough: prices were high, volume was small and there were lots of synthetics," she says. "The natural end of the market was so pure they didn't put in vitamins and such, then the cosmeceutical end thought natural skincare was a waste of time. No one was blending the two."

Moving from West Australia to Newcastle, she tested three initial facial products at Olive Tree markets. Soonafter she launched natural skincare range Savant Apothecary.

"The ingredients are all from plants in their pure forms or are compounds our bodies require or manufacture themselves to function healthily," she says. "It contains ingredients that we as a species have lived with for millenia and have a proven safe history with."

Savant Apothecary is at Junction Fair and Westfield Kotara, where Mrs Myatt manufactures in store. She also retails raw beauty ingredients.

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