NAKED AMBITION

Joanna Gardiner
Ovelle Pharmaceuticals MD

WORDS: ZOE COMYNS

Had you lived in the Middle Ages your beauty regime would have consisted of smearing bats blood, or urine, on your face and swallowing poisons such as arsenic to improve your complexion. Joining a long line of women before me in search of beauty I have, from an early age, used all sorts of potions and brews to attain the body beautiful, although perhaps none as extreme as those mentioned above.

From wonderfully natural products like rose water, scrubs out of porridge oats and using lemon to lighten my hair: I have sampled just about everything. As I got older these natural products seemed less fashionable, base products kept disappearing off the shelves, only to be replaced by brands that were, it seemed, superior. My desire for them spiralled into absolute necessity, as they had new and improved formulas, were scented with a bountiful array of fragrances and promised results that not only made my body beautiful but improved my life, yet, at what price was this beauty?

Over the past while, I have started to realise that my life isn’t any better for these products and my skin certainly isn’t as soft as the packet said it would be. This realisation combined with the fact that there is a potential link between common chemicals found in cosmetics and deodorants with cancers has left me with the sinking suspicion that my beauty regime is doing me more harm than good. If only beauty were skin deep the possible hazards would be less worrying. The $160 billion a year global beauty industry is a Colossus with a nice even tan. Beauty is big business and through the cultivation of clever and classy sales techniques to sell us concoctions in glass bottles, we are at the mercy of the cosmetic giants. Today a global industry sucks up our disposable income and encourages us to lather ourselves in products with scientific credentials that are, at best worrying and at worst downright dangerous.

Standing in front of the giants is a small but muscular Irish company headed by a woman who is determined to debunk the science bit and strip back to the bare essentials, even if that means taking her clothes off in front of her staff to prove she has nothing to hide.
Dundalk based company Ovelle Pharmaceuticals commissioned a risqué advert earlier this year that has caught people’s attention. Elave skin care products are being promoted in the ad campaign featuring nude actors. A blonde woman, without clothes, tells the viewer about the safe quality of Elave skin care products, developed with the most sensitive skin conditions in mind; eczema, dermatitis and psoriasis. Wandering around in the background, with a total lack of self-consciousness are Lab technicians both male and female, including the MD of Ovelle Pharmaceuticals herself, Joanna Gardiner who is trying to communicate the message that they have “Nothing to Hide”.

Read more about Joanna Gardiner in the October | November 2007 issue of WMB, subscribe now.

WEBSITE DETAILS
www.ovelle.ie

www.elave.co.uk/nothing-to-hide/