My Journey to Cosmetic Nursing

I get asked this a lot — how I ended up doing this — so I thought I'd write down the full story properly, rather than the shortened version I usually give.

It started on a holiday in Darwin. We were away, relaxed, with time to actually talk properly for once. We'd been going back and forth for a while about the juggle — me trying to work out how to be a present mum and still have something that was mine, without one constantly coming at the expense of the other. In the middle of one of those conversations, my husband turned to me and said, "you could do this, you know." It wasn't out of nowhere — it had been building the whole trip — but it still landed like something clicking into place.

I remember the doubt that followed almost immediately. Me? Run my own cosmetic clinic? At that point I was a genuinely run-down mum. I wasn't sleeping properly, wasn't looking after myself, didn't even have a skincare routine to speak of. The idea that I could help other women feel good in their skin felt like a stretch when I could barely remember the last time I'd thought about my own. Classic imposter syndrome.

But he wasn't saying it with any conditions attached. He'd clearly been thinking it through with me the whole time, and that belief stayed with me long after we got home.

Choosing this path

I started training in 2023. The doubt hadn't gone anywhere — I just decided I wasn't going to wait for it to disappear before I began.

The real reason I chose cosmetic nursing over returning to regular nursing was simple: I wanted to be present for my kids. I didn't want to miss things because of a roster. Regular nursing shift work doesn't really accommodate that kind of flexibility, and at the time I was mostly at home with them, which I loved — but I knew that couldn't last forever. I needed to build something of my own too, eventually.

So I started the slow plan early, well before they were due to start primary school, because I wanted to be established by the time that happened, rather than starting from scratch while also navigating school pickups and everything that comes with it.

I trained through Derma Institute, a globally recognised training provider, and took it seriously — lip masterclasses, facial anatomy and facial balancing, advanced injecting techniques. I wanted to genuinely understand faces, not just learn technique.

After that, I mentored under a leading cosmetic doctor before I ever treated a client independently. That period taught me more than any course did — not just technique, but judgement. Knowing when to treat someone, and just as importantly, when to say "not today, this isn't right for you," even when that's not what someone wants to hear. That kind of judgement doesn't come from a certificate. It comes from time, and from someone experienced enough to let you learn it properly.

A small start

I began in a single rented room inside The Ritual Skin Clinic. No launch, no fanfare — just me, a treatment chair, and a fair amount of nerves.

I traded under CC's Aesthetics initially, then quickly renamed it Chilli Cosmedics, wanting something people would actually remember.

Taking the lease

Then the opportunity came up to take on a commercial lease in the heart of Torquay.

Was I ready? Not really. Was I going to do it anyway? Yes. My daughter was starting prep the following year, so I worked out the plan — hold the lease steady, keep building, and go all in properly once she was settled at school. That's exactly what happened, gradually, until the timing was right.

Why Skin Tide

When it came time to properly name and build the brand, I wanted something that actually meant something, not just something that sounded nice.

I kept coming back to the ocean — we're on the Surf Coast, and tides are simply part of daily life here. But it was more than a location reference. Tides are always moving, always changing, never sitting still — and that felt like exactly the right way to think about skin, and honestly, about me too. Skin isn't static. It changes with age, with the seasons, with what's going on in someone's life. I certainly wasn't the same person by the time I opened this clinic as I was on that trip to Darwin. Skin Tide felt right — something that moves and evolves gently, the way good skincare should work with you rather than against you.

Where I am now

Skin Tide is still very much a work in progress, and I think it always will be — that's sort of the point of the name, really. Some weeks feel like I've got the balance right, mum life and clinic life sitting comfortably together. Other weeks feel like a juggle all over again, not that different from where this whole thing started.

I mentor new cosmetic nurses now, which honestly still catches me off guard some days. So many of them remind me of who I was back then — capable, but doubting it, waiting for a kind of permission nobody's ever actually going to hand them. I try to be the version of that conversation in Darwin for them. Sometimes that's all it takes.