Ask the Collective
Meet our new Expert Collective: Nourished Life's in-house practitioners, here to guide the whole of you.
Freya Lawler is a naturopath and nutritionist (BHSc) specialising in women's health: hormone imbalances, endometriosis, pelvic pain, and fertility, always working to uncover root causes rather than chase symptoms.
Marta Novovic is an award-winning cosmetic scientist and scent architect with a background in naturopathy and clinical aromatherapy (BASc), with a particular focus on the skin-brain connection and the role scent plays in how we feel.
Real practitioners, not brand voices. This is where their expertise lives.
Women's Health Week 2026
This year's Jean Hailes Women's Health Week theme is “Do it anyway”: small, realistic steps for your health, on your own terms. It's a fitting place to start, because perimenopause is exactly that kind of topic. Not something to have fully figured out, just something worth understanding a little better, one piece at a time.
What is perimenopause?
Perimenopause is the transitional phase before menopause. Little by little, the ovaries begin to slow down, and the hormones that have run the show for decades start to shift their rhythm.
The first to go is progesterone. Before anything else changes, this is the one that drops, and so much of what follows traces back to it.
For many women, this shows up as a kind of anger they didn't expect and can't quite name. It has a name, a cause, an explanation, and knowing that changes things.
Early 40s is often when the shift starts to show, though there's no fixed timeline. Every body keeps its own.
The most useful shift isn't asking, “what's wrong with me.” It's asking, “what's happening for me, right now.” Understanding the stage is the first step to meeting it well.
This shift doesn't stay contained to hormones either. Gut health often moves with it, the two are more connected than most people realise, and it's worth paying attention to both at once.
The good news: there are options, and that's a relief in itself. This isn't a season to endure in silence. It's one to be supported through, whether that's Menopausal Hormone Therapy (MHT), which offers real relief for some and isn't the preference for others, or the everyday lifestyle adjustments that build the quiet foundation everything else rests on. Both are valid. There's no single right way through.
How perimenopause shows up in your skin
Perimenopause doesn't stay on the inside. It shows up on the face, often before the connection's been made.
The first sign is usually dryness that arrives suddenly, skin that once looked after itself, now asking for more. Then it can turn reactive: sensitive, quick to flare. As progesterone drops, the barrier that kept everything calm starts to struggle.
The shift here isn't about adding more products. It's about a different approach altogether, one built around barrier support. This skin has different needs than it did a year ago.
Ceramides are worth knowing: they help bring back the lipids skin has lost, and its ability to recover from everyday stressors. Barrier, restored.
Read what your skin is telling you, then meet it with the right thing, not more things.
Supporting sleep
Sleep is one of the quieter casualties of this stage, and one of the most worth supporting. Small, consistent changes are the foundation everything else rests on, alongside the right botanical support.
From a herbal medicine perspective, Passionflower and L-theanine are a favourite: they help ease an elevation in the stress hormone and calm nerves.
The power of scent
Of everything covered here, this might be the simplest tool, and one of the most overlooked. Scent bypasses everything. Before you have time to think, a smell has already reached the oldest part of the brain and brought you back into your body.
It's something that becomes useful right at the beginning of perimenopause and stays useful the whole way through. Citrus is usually a good place to start: bright, easy, uplifting on the heavier days.
Build a routine that's yours. Keep what works. If something doesn't, leave it, don't stay with a scent you don't love. The point is having something that reliably brings you home.
This is the first conversation in Ask the Collective.
We'll be going deeper into the topics you're researching on your own, month by month, with Freya, Marta, and the voices still to join them. Acne in your 30s and 40s. Skin through every decade. What ageing actually means, for your hormones and your skin. The new products worth knowing about, and why. Real expertise, made relatable.
Tell us what you'd want to know next.
