A GIPPSLAND town enjoys a taste of Hollywood glamour. SARAH HUDSON reports

Movie stars Nicole Kidman, Heath Ledger, starlet Jessica Alba and hunk Tom Selleck have all benefited from her deft touch.

For the past 35 years, make-up artist to the stars Viv Rushbrook has redecorated and revamped, polished and powdered, the faces of most Australian and Hollywood glitterati.

But now the women of Yarram, in Gippsland, Victoria, are benefiting from her beauty wizardry after she opened a quaint shop selling her RAW natural soaps and beauty products, in the town's main street.

Concocting her creations out of her lab at the back of her Yarram home, Viv admits the farming town is a far cry from the glamour of movies and TV.

But she says she couldn't be happier.

"I was blessed. As much fun as I had in my career I like a challenge and I'd got to the point I'd done it all and seen it all before," she says.

"When you work on some US film sets, you work 18-hour days and you come home so exhausted you don't eat or shower.

"I have an affinity with farming people and from the start I loved the feeling of this place (Yarram)," she says.

Viv, originally from Queensland, inadvertently started in the make-up business when studying fine arts in Brisbane in the late '70s.

"A girlfriend at Channel 9 said they needed make-up artists on Reg Grundy shows and when I said I knew nothing about the industry, she said 'you're studying art, just paint their faces'."

And so began a stellar career.

After Grundy in Brisbane - where TV moved from black and white to colour - Viv headed to Melbourne's Channel 10, as the chief of "blood and guts" make-up at Prisoner.

She even became the first woman in Australia to get an explosives' licence, to enable real-life bullet shot effects on prisoners and in Return to Eden she blew up a plane.

She worked with Nicole Kidman on Bush Christmas, Heath Ledger on Roar, Jessica Alba on Flipper, Tom Selleck on Quigley Down Under and a host of other shows from Special Squad, to All The Rivers Run, The Man from Snowy River series and finally, Neighbours.

During these years, Viv discovered the charms of Yarram and as much as possible based herself there, either commuting or holidaying.

It was while working on Flipper, however, that her concerns about the dangers of make-up were roused.

"Whenever we worked on a US series we would ring the cast and ask them what make-up products they preferred.

"One of the actors, Elizabeth Morehead, asked for natural products only. She had many concerns, but mostly with the ingredient methylparaben, which is found in many products and has been found in tumors."

So began Viv's interest in natural products.

"I was working on Neighbours and on weekends I'd immerse myself in my kitchen and make my own moisturisers."

Viv's dabbling in soap came from her mum who, for 30-plus years, ran a soap shop in Queensland.

In 2007, Viv decided to make the jump from make-up artist to make-up artistry and within weeks had left Neighbours and opened her Yarram shop, which features a delicious array of goods: soap, shampoo, body butters, bath salts, massage oils, cleansers and moisturisers.

She admits the shop - which is staffed by her daughter Sarah, also a make-up artist - may not make her a fortune but "will pay its own way".

But she has quadrupled production since opening, is constantly developing new products and already sells through Victoria, Queensland and Tasmania, aiming to go nation-wide with possible franchises.

"We've had dreadful and sensational moments," Viv says.

"Business ground to a halt in winter. But we had a farmer's wife come in here the other day saying her husband had specifically asked for our vanilla soap.

"I'd like to think I'm giving country women a little luxury that city girls get all the time."