In episode 101 of the Glow Journal podcast, host Gemma Watts talks to the founder of Saint Louve Skincare, Elly Seymour. 

The wheels of Elly Seymour’s career journey were set in motion when she was a child with a very specific dream of wearing surgeon’s scrubs. Elly decided she wanted to be a cosmetic nurse when she was just a teenager, convincing her parents to allow her to study a Diploma of Makeup in lieu of Year 12. Her reason was a pragmatic one- when she turned 18 she’d be able to enrol as a nurse, and a beauty qualification would allow her to freelance on the weekend to supplement the cost of the nursing course.

In 2019, with several years and even more qualifications beneath her belt, Elly opened and funded her own clinic in a similarly pragmatic way, electing to continue working as a registered nurse in her local hospital simultaneously to save money, build relationship and maintain those acute skills.

In March 2020, only a few months in and with a client waitlist close to 150 people long, the pandemic forced Elly to close the clinic’s doors indefinitely. Where many would, understandably, have crumbled, Elly used the unknown to her advantage. She used the clinic’s social media platforms to cultivate a reputation for herself as an industry authority, she took a permanent position at the hospital, the more secure income from which allowed her to fund her next project, and underwent further study in cosmetic formulations. In August 2022, the aforementioned project came to life- Saint Louve Skincare, a topical skincare brand that she runs alongside her well-and-truly up-and-running again Louve Skin Clinic. 

In this conversation, Elly shares her take on going all in with a startup versus maintaining a secondary source of income, when and why to allocate budget to outsourcing elements of the business that aren’t your areas of expertise, and why being a forward-facing founder has been of such great benefit when it comes to brand education.

Read more at glowjournal.com

Follow Saint Louve Skincare on Instagram @saintlouveskincare.

Stay up to date with Gemma on Instagram at @gemkwatts and @glow.journal, or get in touch at hello@gemkwatts.com

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