LM WOMAN #50 / CARLA OATES LM WOMAN #50 / CARLA OATES Carla Oates, a pioneer in the beauty world, was an early champion of ‘health is beauty and beauty is health’ which she articulates through her enormously successful brand ‘The Beauty Chef’. Here Carla shares how she balances running her own business while keeping herself physically and mentally nourished. ‘You can’t pour from an empty cup,’ are wise words to live by. Do you look back and have any sense of how your childhood shaped the person you have become? My most vivid memories of childhood are being in the kitchen watching my mum cook and make beautiful bread baskets that she sold to a boutique in Woollahra, Sydney. Also roaming the streets of Rose Bay where I grew up with my older sister and my cousins, playing knock and run and pretending to be Charlie’s Angels. I also spent a lot of time up the coast with my grandmother and great aunt most school holidays, submerged in nature, in a shack on a lake. I remember being so bored and making up dances and playing card games and badminton and writing love letters to my mum, nanna and great aunt. I also started up a healing clinic when I was about eight years old, at my house and used all of my mum’s beauty products to give massages to my family. I guess that was the beauty of not having computers (except for Nintendo), as it allowed you lots of time to engage in creative play. My mum taught me about what really matters–about love, compassion, laughter, passion and food.
