There’s a particular kind of frustration that comes with watching your skin transform against your will. You know your products. You have a routine. You’ve done everything right. And yet the face looking back at you in the mirror feels like a stranger’s.
Charmaine Caldwell, founder and CEO of Vixin, knows this better than most because she built an entire skincare brand around the problem and still couldn’t escape it.
“My skin, even though I own a skincare company, still went to hell and back,” she said in her interview on The Australian Women’s Weekly’s Love Stories podcast to host Tiffany Dunk in Part 1 of their conversation.
“I’d hate to see how bad it would have been if I hadn’t had all my beautiful products to help me.”
What menopausal skin actually feels like
Charmaine describes her menopausal skin experience with vivid honesty: “One day it’s oily, one day it’s dry, one day it’s scabbing up, one day there are wrinkles that weren’t there yesterday. Every day I looked in the mirror and went…what is happening?”
It wasn’t just physical. The mental load of menopause compounded everything.
“The brain fog, the emotional roller coaster… I reckon that was a 10-year era of fogginess and fatigue,” she says. “It is extraordinary what women’s bodies can go through.”
“I’d hate to see how bad it would have been if I hadn’t had all my beautiful products to help me.”
Why she built Vixin around this moment
What started as a personal struggle became the foundation of Charmaine’s business. Vixin now specialises in problem skin, with a particular focus on menopausal and perimenopausal women. Every week, the brand sends its customers detailed emails covering what skin changes to expect, which ingredients to seek out, and how to adapt their routine as hormones shift.
“We say: this ingredient does this to help your skin,” Charmaine explains.
“We just spell it out, basic. Because their skin will change. There’s no two ways about it — but there are things you can do.”
What she wishes she had known earlier
If Charmaine could go back and speak to her earlier self, her advice is clear: don’t wait, and don’t try to manage it alone.
“Get help early. I didn’t at first. You think you can navigate it yourself.” The biggest shift, she says, has been the normalisation of the conversation.
“Ten years ago, I couldn’t even talk to anybody about it. Now I’m so happy it’s such a big conversation. There’s help available. You don’t do it on your own.”
“I chose to do it naturally”
In Part II of their conversation, Charmaine shared that she chose to combat her menopausal symptoms naturally.
It is extraordinary what women, what our bodies can go through,” she said in the episode. “Between perimenopause to menopause, that was a big, probably ten years, and I’m only just off the other side of that.”
Instead of HRT, she opted for exercise, journaling, reading, and being mindful about her health.
“That’s not for everybody,” she said, acknowledging that everyone’s journey in menopause is different, something that she hopes to illuminate with Vixin.
Especially when it comes to mental health.
“Talk, talk, talk, talk about it,” she implored listeners. “Talk with your friends so you know you’re not alone.”
“Identification and connection are everything.”
There is light at the end of the tunnel
Now, on the other side, Charmaine’s perspective is one of genuine relief and even wonder.
“I’m like — oh, I don’t know. What was that? It’s like a car wreck. Oh, wow.”
But she’s equally emphatic: “You do come out the other side.”
Vixin Beauty is the sponsor of The Australian Women’s Weekly Love Stories podcast.
Watch the latest episode with Charmaine:
