Known for their stripped back approach to skincare, Foile’s tight line-up consists of five hard-working formulas, all housed in bespoke glass bottles to be cherished and refilled for years to come
- Who is it? Foile, the refillable vegan skincare brand making sensorial skincare feel approachable to all
- Why do I want it? Each housed in a bespoke glass vessel, Foile’s silky formulas call on Australian botanicals to hydrate and brighten sensitive skin types
- Where can I get it? On Foile’s website
Who is it? Foile founders Suzanne Tuttle and Alexandra Grima, along with their respective households, are like “one big intertwined family” living in Byron Bay, Australia. Here, they feel surrounded by community and connected to nature, both of which are intrinsic to Foile, which is built on friendship and uses native Australian botanicals in its formulas.
It all began when Grima – who Tuttle affectionately calls “Al” – walked into Tuttle’s Sydney-based shop one day: “I started a business with my husband in the health and wellness space, working with wellness practitioners, acupuncturers and nutritionists.” They weren’t hiring, recalls Grima with a chuckle, but she asked for a job anyway and, a few days later, she was part of the team. “We just had such a strong connection when we first met,” remembers Tuttle. “She’s like a beam of sunshine.”
In those early years, they never imagined starting a skincare brand. “I think it’s because the space didn’t feel inclusive,” explains Tuttle. And Grima – who doesn’t bother with moisturiser herself, opting for a morning routine of serum and SPF instead – felt like there wasn’t a place for her in the beauty industry at all.
“I had very bad acne growing up,” she remembers. “Going through that journey and going down a medical route, and then back towards more natural formulas, I’ve witnessed changes in my skin.” It still changes, she says, and now she likes to “go with the waves”. Foile gives people like Grima permission to engage with beauty however they want to. “I have a friend who just washes her face with water and nothing else,” she says, “I’m not going to go and tell her that she needs six products to be beautiful. If someone wants to use jojoba oil as a moisturiser and as a cleanser, we don’t want to tell them differently. We want to empower these choices rather than prescribing.”
They’re still learning, though, notes Grima: “The fact that we didn’t come from skincare backgrounds makes us really eager to learn and to listen and not to be like, ‘We already know everything.’ We just want to keep learning and listening and growing; we don’t have it all figured out.”
Why do I want it? When you first spy Foile’s line-up, it’s hard not to be drawn in by the syrupy-hued glass bottles, which look like a juicy selection of Liquorice Allsorts. “That bottle is the whole point of the whole entire business,” laughs Tuttle. But it’s not just about having a refillable vessel, it’s about having something to cherish, display, and bring joy to your day – like art. “We took inspiration from lots of different places,” Tuttle explains. “We looked at Japanese ceramics and Murano glass. We looked at the Scandinavian glass blower Helle Mardahl, who has beautiful work.”
Each Foile bottle feels weighty and tactile in your hand, ergonomically dimpled in such a way that it feels like you should be able to squish it. During the designing process, Tuttle and Grima used Play-Dough to create their own bottle sculptures, which they then showed to their designers. As for the colours, the founders chose them to give Foile “a bold sense of courage.” Before Covid, they say the industry’s packaging generally wasn’t as fun as it is now. “We wanted to give users a sense of delight and wonder,” explains Tuttle.
For Grima, the refillable container is there to reduce industry waste, but also to satisfy a nostalgic childhood craving for saving beautiful vessels. “It’s like when you kept perfume bottles when you were younger, and you’d just lug around the empty bottles because you couldn’t bear to throw them out. My friend’s mum is a total minimalist,” Grima says excitedly. “Nothing is allowed on the counter [in her house], but my friend told me that her mum displays her Foile bottles. I was like, ‘Wow, that’s such a compliment’.”
As impressive as they are, these bottles would feel lacklustre without the impressive formulas to match. With just five products on their website (a milky cleanser, a hydrating serum, an everyday cream, a brightening cream, and jojoba oil), each manages to care for skin without disrupting the skin barrier. “We don’t use any fragrances, we don’t use any products tested on animals, and we don’t use any polyethylene glycols [synthetic thickeners],” says Tuttle. “This is a really amazing base, but then we use Australian-native botanicals and mushrooms as well.” These botanicals help skin to retain moisture and protect against environmental aggressors, and aren’t too harsh. Each formula is intentionally stripped back, competing with the likes of mainstream pharmacy brands for simple, hard working skincare recipes.
In their determination to be part of the “clean” beauty space, at first Tuttle and Grima found it hard to make Foile feel sensorial and joyful. “By not using ingredients that would upset the skin, like essential oils or fragrances, we found it went against the premise of our skincare. The customer is used to having botanical skincare that smells like a meadow.”
Somehow, they managed it, and the resulting formulas are as pleasant to use as the bottles are to look at.
Where can I get it? On Foile’s website.
