When the big names in skincare weren’t giving this Newcastle local what she wanted, she decided to take matters into her own hands, creating her own line of carefully curated natural products.

Kylie Myatt is the founder of Savant Apothecary, a natural skincare range manufactured and sold in Newcastle, New South Wales. Starting her business in 2016, Kylie has since grown her range of products and customers base, with two retail stores and plans for a third to open in Sydney.

Skincare is no easy market to break into. Walking through any pharmacy or beauty store, you’re bound to pass hundreds of almost identical products claiming to ‘rewind the clock’ and ‘target your fine lines and dark circles’. On top of the big name brands, every second celebrity has a line of face cream, lip gloss or body wash they promote to their millions of Instagram followers.

So what makes Kylie’s products stand out from the crowd? Unlike some well-known skincare and pharmaceutical brands on the market today, Savant’s range dives deeper than pretty packaging and snappy marketing.

The science behind her success

Kylie’s time at university studying biology and chemistry inspired her to explore the capabilities of science when it comes to improving the aesthetics industry.

“It really just changed my life,” Kylie says. “Just from being a human being, looking at the world from the perspective that you are one organism in amongst a whole incredible beautifully working system.”

Kylies has always been passionate about developing products that are backed by science, allowing people to simplify their skincare routine with a high-quality range that incorporates natural ingredients and vitamins.

“I was quite good at helping women with skincare because I understood how it worked, and what an ingredient list was actually saying,” says Kylie. “I felt then that skincare had the power to change the way the skin behaved, and that was really exciting, but I couldn’t find a brand that would do natural skincare.”

When her family of six settled in Newcastle after moving around the country for her husband’s career, Kylie continued to fuel her passion for natural ingredients, experimenting with her own range of homemade products.

“The real push to make a product came with being unhappy with what I could find in the market,” Kylie recounts. “I understood why cosmeceuticals were important, particularly vitamins, and I think when they entered skincare was probably when I really got interested”.

Watch Kylie’s story here:

Post continues after video.

From small beginnings to fast growth

After gifting her early batches to friends and family, Kylie opened up a stall at a local market, officially kickstarting her retail venture.

Just 12 months later, Kylie and her team opened their first major retail store in Westfield Kotara; a testament to the community support that fuelled Savant Apothecary’s early stage growth.

“To come here into a major shopping centre and pull out the fit out that we did with not a lot of money and some really talented creative people that were willing to give everything, that was a really proud achievement,” says Kylie.

Two years after that, Savant was in a position to open up a production facility to sustain the growing demand for its products across its two stores (the other is at The Junction, Newcastle) and online.

As her business has grown, Kylie says using Square’s hardware and online payment systems has helped her keep track of stock and orders, finding the intuitive layout easy for her staff and customers to navigate.

“Square is probably the most important staff member that I have,” Kylie says. “It’s a program that handles our manufacturing and the movement of our stock onto our stores.”

With an increasing percentage of her sales now coming from online customers, Kylie has found Square reliability and product updates have allowed her business to grow in a way that supports her and her team.

“We haven’t had a day where it’s been down and that just gives you a certain amount of trust,” Kylie says. “They stand behind what they do.”

Despite immense growth over the last few years, you won’t be seeing Kylie’s products stacked in the shelves of major retailers anytime soon. Keeping control over her customers’ experience and education about the product range is something Kylie will always strive to maintain.

“We’re very particular about how people are looked after and how they’re spoken to, and so that knowledge about why I’ve made products the way I have can go from me straight through our staff to the customer,” she says. “We just feel if we wholesale everywhere, that that voice would really be lost and people wouldn’t be heard as well.”

Leaning on the Newcastle community

Since a high-quality product line and thoughtful marketing don’t always guarantee growth for a business, Kylie also attributes the steady success of her not-so-small operation to the supportive regional community around Newcastle.

“What I’m doing is contributing to such a huge amount of variety in the community and lots of people having really cool ideas and managing to bring them to life,” says Kylie. “So you feel like you can start something and really give it a go here.”

When it comes to ensuring local businesses like hers keep their doors open, the skincare expert urges the wider community to shop local.

“I think the community can really support local business by trusting that a lot of us having the owner present in the business, and that we really are striving to make very good quality products,” Kylie says. “The money that comes through our door goes back out the door into the community.”

From developing her product formulas to building a skincare brand from the ground up, Kylie has always been guided by the logic of her scientific education.

“Everything has a cause and effect,” Kylie says. “If you’re coming across a problem, it’s not going to be permanent.”

Savant Apothecary is part of Kochie’s Business Builders and Square‘s Regional Heroes campaign to celebrate the vital contributions regional businesses make to our communities. Square is committed to helping businesses of all sizes adapt and grow, no matter where they’re based. See how Square can help your business today.

This article is brought to you by Kochie’s Business Builders in partnership with Square.

It's time to decide who will win Regional Heroes 2023!

Which business deserves to be crowned our Regional Hero? It’s up to you! Vote for your favourite finalist now