Tonight, Bartel is in a private room at Rekōdo in Barangaroo, sitting in front of a crowd of Sydney's fashion and beauty set. She's wearing a Henne Amelie dress — of course — and it would be difficult to find a better walking advertisement for both her brand and the skincare line she's about to discuss. Warm and quick to laugh, with an immaculately highlighted bronde mane, Bartel holds the room easily as she talks about her new approach to beauty. Tonight she’s speaking to skinbetter Science — and specifically the brand’s AlphaRet Overnight Cream, the retinoid-AHA formulation she has been quietly using for six years and whose results, she says, speak for themselves.
Those in the know will know Bartel as the co-founder and creative director of Henne, the Melbourne-based label that has spent seven years accumulating a cult-like devotion; mother to sons Aston and Henley; and, as of this year, the face of skinbetter Science in Australia. She turned 41 in May — a birthday she celebrated in characteristically low-key fashion with her partner, Peter, and her two boys, away from the hustle of fashion week events. "I just did something really relaxed with family," she says. "Which was actually exactly what I needed."
This version of Nadia Bartel — considered, boundaried, relaxed — has been a long time coming. The public has watched much of her journey unfold in real-time, the inevitable tax of half a million Instagram followers. Less visible is how deliberately she has constructed the life she's living now.
Henne launched in 2019, shaped by a desire to provide versatile pieces that could move with a woman through every part of her day. "I couldn't find a brand that I could turn to for pieces I could wear at home with the kids, to school drop off, out at night or to the office," she says. The ultimate example of its organic, slow-burn growth is the Valentina jean. Launched in 2022, it took 18 months to find its massive audience. "I'm so particular about the rise, the leg lengths, and the denim quality," Bartel says. "We weren't gifting it to anyone or doing any marketing. I was just wearing and styling it in different ways on my Instagram, and it slowly became our number one piece."
She remembers her dad, also a hard worker, rising at 2am when she was a kid, and she recalls wondering where he was and what he was up to. Was he really even working? Today, Bartel takes her boys into the Henne office so they can understand her world and the work that is being done when she is out of their line of sight. "They can see how much I've built, and the time and effort it takes," she says. "I think they'll remember that as they get older."
Bartel's beauty philosophy runs on the same logic as her fashion one: considered over excessive, and consistent over trendy. Her current makeup routine has the efficiency of someone who can "knock out a glam look in 10 to 15 minutes."
With a powerhouse fashion brand, a cult following and a new beauty partnership with Skinbetter Science, Nadia Bartel is feeling better and more beautiful than ever.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY DIEGO LORENZO JOSÉ
STYLED BY RACHEL WAYMAN
WORDS BY RUBY FENELEY
Skin In
The Game
hill out." That's the one piece of advice Nadia Bartel would offer her 20-year-old self (and any other young woman asking) if she had the chance. While her bare-faced Instagram routines rake in endless questions about her surreally smooth complexion,
coming of age in the 90s and early 2000s Bartel says she wasn’t always at ease with her Mediterranean beauty. “I felt I had quite big pores, and I remember my nose was something I used to always focus on."
There were other things too. Eyes she thought were a little too big for her face, and features that didn't match the blueprint being handed out by prescriptive glossy magazines at the time: blue eyes, blonde hair, and skin so airbrushed it barely looked real. "I'd look at those images and just think, that's what beauty was," she says. "If I had the chance, I'd tell myself to chill out and just know that you're beautiful for your own natural features. But that's a lot easier to say at 41 than it was at 20."
"C
Max Mara jacket, and skirt.
“[AMARI] IS JUST SO CONFIDENT; SHE’S A BIT OF A BADASS ... SHE’S THE ONE MIRANDA TURNS TO”
– SIMONE ASHLEY
H&M Studio dress.
"It's nice to work with a brand you truly believe in, and that you've seen a real, measurable difference from.”
– NADIA BARTELL
Henne top, and skirt.
An effective skincare routine took more trial and error, but Bartel is emphatic that she looks better now at 41 than she did in her mid-30s. In the early years of building Henne, running on adrenaline and insufficient sleep, her skin suffered from dullness and pigmentation. She initially tackled this by throwing every K-Beauty product she could find at her complexion — a situation many of us have found ourselves in — only to have it buckle under the weight of a chaotic 12-step routine.
A visit to a skin clinic six years ago changed everything when a clinician recommended skinbetter Science. "When I was using skinbetter six years ago, nobody knew about the brand," Bartel recalls. "My life felt so all over the place — I had a one-year-old business and two young boys. But I researched the brand, and noticed no one in Australia was talking about it, even though it was everywhere overseas." She started using the Even Tone Correcting Serum before graduating to the AlphaRet Overnight Cream — the brand's cult retinoid-AHA formulation, which combines a proprietary retinoid with AHA and glycolic acid. Where previous retinoids left her skin raw and reactive, this one delivered smooth results without the harshness of the myriad toners, exfoliants and serums she'd been hammering her complexion with.
The true test of the product's efficacy came when AlphaRet was temporarily unavailable in Australia. "I literally could not get my product," Bartel recalls. The absence was immediate and unforgiving; without it, she saw a stark, negative shift in her skin as the dullness and uneven texture quickly crept back. Realising just how profound a difference the formula was making to her complexion, she even took to social media to complain about the drought. By the time the official partnership came about, she had already been enthusiastically buying and recommending the range to her mother, sister, and partner for half a decade.
Max Mara vest dress, and short.
PHOTOGRAPHED BY DIEGO LORENZO / ASSEMBLY AGENCY
MOTION BY Daniel Knott/ Saunders & Co
STYLED BY Rachel Wayman/ The Artist Group
HAIR BY DARREN SUMMORS/ AP-REPS
MAKEUP BY Teneille Sorgiovanni / After Winter
PRODUCTION Nicola Hanratty
TALENT NADIA BARTELL
"It's nice to work with a brand you truly believe in, and that you've seen a real, measurable difference from," she says. For Bartel, the secret lies in clinical data and simplicity that works with her busy lifestyle. "If you have too many steps, you don't stick to it, and then it doesn't work. It's the same with everything, isn't it? Getting your steps in, seven hours of sleep. The boring basics."
Ultimately, she believes great skin is a holistic byproduct of routines and boundaries — like putting her phone down at 8pm to stop her mind from scrolling through work emails. "There's no point just using products when you're not doing all the other things," she says. "The morning walk, the sleep, the time with family — that's what really makes your skin glow."
Looking back at the young girl who worried over her features, Bartel's definition of beauty has entirely transformed. "What I find beautiful now are people who look different and unique and really embrace their own features," she says. "Back then, I thought beauty was blue eyes and blonde hair. Now, the distinctiveness of a strong feature feels so much more chic."
H&M Studio dress.
The Products
skinbetter AlphaRet® Overnight Cream $240
skinbetter Even Intensive Skin Tone Correcting Serum $300
skinbetter Mystro™ Active Balance Serum $360
All products are available exclusively at skinbetter science partner clinics. See here for more.
Matteau dress.