This is all hard to compute when talking to the clear-skinned, diminutive figure via Zoom from her home in New York. Blonde hair pulled back into a casual ponytail, blue eyes somehow intensified by the oversized heavy black prescription glasses she’s wearing, she looks every inch the off-duty Hollywood star, down to the perfectly calibrated chic-casual stripy Elder Statesman sweater she’s wearing.

“I was so over it,” she continues, her famous husky voice sounding weary. “I had this moment, eight or nine years ago, when I was working on a film; I was pregnant and I thought, ‘I need to solve this. What can I do?’ ”

She put away her toners, tonics and strippers and tried something radical: putting moisture into her skin. “You know, making it balanced. I just got rid of everything I thought could be irritating it. I did a light exfoliation every day with a brush and started using a very simple noncomedogenic moisturiser.” The results were almost instant. “Within seven days.”

As her skin improved, Johansson wondered why, with so many beauty brands out there, there wasn’t one that answered her needs – and whether she might be the person to launch it. She did her research. “Then I asked a friend if he knew anyone who could help me actually bring my ideas to market in an intentional way – and that’s how I met Kate. We connected on our skin woes.”

Kate Foster, a California-born entrepreneur in her 40s, had suffered similar skin problems to Johansson. “I’d had a baby,” recounts Foster. “It was like, ooh, I’m getting older; everyone told me to use retinols, so that’s what I did, with the end result that my face became so red and inflamed, it was a completely different colour from my neck. I had a major breakout right before my wedding.” She’s humorous about it now, but it was anything but funny at the time. Foster and Johansson immediately bonded over this “simple idea of going back to basics and moisturising the skin in a very gentle way”.