Taneesa Williamson How Amelia Goff transformed Fresh Face Skin into a Melbourne success story.
Creating a successful skincare brand in today’s crowded market takes more than just great products—it requires a deep understanding of clients’ needs, a clear vision, and unwavering dedication. Amelia Goff, the founder of Fresh Face Skin, embodies all these qualities. Drawing on her experience as a dermal therapist, Amelia saw a gap in the market for natural, results-driven skincare that was both simple and affordable. From there, she developed Fresh Face Skin, a brand focused on empowering clients through effective, toxin-free products.
Today, Amelia has not only built a skincare range but also successfully launched her Melbourne clinic, Fresh Face Skin Salon, where her holistic approach to skin health continues to thrive. Below, she shares her journey from product creation to clinic success, offering insights and inspiration for fellow beauty and wellness professionals.
What inspired you to start your own skincare line, despite the number of other brands on the market?
At the time, I had been working as a dermal therapist for six years, treating clients and addressing a wide range of skin concerns. It was here that I witnessed first hand, the sense of overwhelm and confusion clients felt, when it came to starting a skincare routine and selecting the right products for their skin needs.
I could see what we were purchasing the products for via the wholesale cost price, vs what the client was paying and it shocked me just how much these professional-grade skincare products were marked up. I also found many clients had a misconception around natural skincare. I often had clients make comments on how ‘natural skincare doesn’t work’, so being a lover of skincare and specifically skincare raw ingredients, I made it my goal to educate these clients on the power of natural ingredients and to clarify their knowledge around natural skincare. An ‘active’ ingredient is more than likely sourced from a natural source (i.e, fruits or plants) and it’s the strength of this active ingredient within the skincare they use that makes the difference when it comes to skin results.
It was after these continuous observations, that I felt a deep need to start Fresh Face Skin. I wanted to make a skincare range that was 100% natural and toxic free, while being simple and affordable. I wanted my skincare to use the power of nature to provide real and honest skin results, long term, while providing self care rituals that could suit any lifestyle and budget – being as simple or as complicated as needed, to support everyone on their skin journey to a skin you feel proud to wear.
For me, creating Fresh Face Skin makes real skin results accessible for everyone and leaves no harm to the body, long term, due to the purity of my products. Fresh Face Skin began – initially launching with just three key products – our treatment range, that have been designed to work as a serum and moisturiser in one – correcting surface skin concerns such as skin barrier damage, redness, pigmentation, skin hydration, skin sensitivity, skin hydration and acne treatments, while also supporting and maintaining healthy barrier function, allowing moisture to be retained within the skin. Now, seven years later, we have a product range of 14 and growing – allowing our range to be buildable, while providing our customers with options for all skin needs and concerns.
How did your initial business then venture into starting your own clinic?
When I first launched Fresh Face Skin skincare – I stepped back from treating to focus on the launch of my range. After one year I began to miss treating skin hands-on, after all, skin has always been my true passion and interacting with clients on their skin journeys, brought me so much joy. So I listened to the inner calling and rented one room in a local hairdressing salon and began my journey to what is now Fresh Face Skin salon!
I had not one client but was determined to bring my passion, expertise and knowledge to my treatment room, building my clientele from the ground up! In the three years prior to launching Fresh Face Skin, I had been head trainer for numerous Victorian skin clinics – training the dermal therapist teams on all things skin and how to educate their clients, with clarity, during the skin treatments they were performing. To me, the education expressed in the treatment rooms was vital to build client trust, as-well as add to the clients overall experience.
When I reflect on my journey starting in the rented beauty room and how quick my growth was, I realise just how powerful word of mouth is. People talk and when you make a real impact on someone – whether it be positive or negative, word travels like fire. My only form of marketing then, was word of mouth and brochures in the hairdressing salon that my room was rented from.
When you provide quality experiences, that’s all the marketing you need. After just ten months of working alone, I hired my first employee – a friend and previous work colleague that I trusted with my clients who had only ever experienced me. I had so many new clients wanting appointments, I couldn’t keep up with the appointments alone and after just six months of sharing the room with change over shifts and seven days a week, we opened up our then 5-treatment room salon, creating more space, to allow us to expand and grow.
I now have a team of 14, Fresh Face Skin Salon has seen treatment rooms and a client base of over 5,000 and pinch myself daily for the success I have and the journey that has been.
Share with us your day in a life of navigating both businesses, especially with formulation and packing stock versus the clinic day to day!
The journey from where I first started to where I am today has been one of constant growth and learning from mistakes! I have always had the belief that there is no such thing as ‘mistakes’ because without them, we would have no lessons or things we could improve on! My entire business has been based around learning on the go. Jumping in and swimming – no matter how strong the current! In the beginning, I juggled it all – social media posts, packing and sending of online product orders, hands-on treating clients and the admin tasks that go along with that.
I have always had a website manager that built and managed my site, but apart from that, it was me for the first two years. As my business has grown so has my team and my support network.
For me, focusing on the end goal helped me become more and more comfortable with this. Rather than the ‘it’s easier if I do it’ mindset, I focused on the fact that if my team weren’t given the opportunity to do, they couldn’t learn and as a result, my business couldn’t grow.
Finding the right people within your business is also key. Your team need to believe in your purpose, mission, values and vision, just as much as you do. Growing my team has come with its challenges, but has allowed me with so much opportunity to further grow as a human being and as a leader. My two salon managers, who have been with me since the beginning, allow me to step back from the day-to-day management of the salon, allowing me to focus on the big picture. My talented team of dermal therapists now carry out performing our in-salon skin treatments for our loyal clients and my equally talented reception team carry out all admin tasks within the salon aswell as the packing of the online Fresh Face Skin product orders.
To me, nurturing relationships with industry experts that have helped get Fresh Face Skin to where it is today, is key to our success. I work alongside our product formulator – who has been with Fresh Face Skin since the very beginning, who takes my vision and brings it to life. My constant product research and interest in the skincare industry and natural ingredients, aswell as always being open to our customer feedback, is what has led to our product expansion over the last 7 years, now offering 14 products within our range, with more in the works, to come.
For me, my day-to-day life managing both the online skincare range and salon – is forever changing. Having a team of 14, an in-salon clientele of over 5,000 and a forever growing national customer base for our online range, is a constant juggle, but one I am forever grateful for.
I get to do what I love and nurture and empower the passionate professionals within my team and my Fresh Face Skin community. What a gift it is.
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