Melbourne-based brand Self Care Originals is here to help you explore your inner self
WORDS BY CAITLIN CEFAI
Embracing the unsexy side of self-care.
The world is flooded with big brands trying to insert themselves into your wellness journey, convincing you to spend your money, time and energy on products and practices that promise you a new lease on life.
While many of these companies take away the autonomy and joy of practising self-care, Melbourne-based entrepreneur Rachael Akhidenor is intent on changing the world of wellness through her brand, Self Care Originals.
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Founded in 2018, Rachael created Self Care Originals after being frustrated by the lack of representation in the overwhelmingly White wellness industry. Brands like Goop and Poosh have built an elitist world of yoga, face masks and crystal vibrators that falls short of getting to the root of the problem; self-exploration.
The brand launched with Self Care slogan T-shirts which were designed to be wearable activism, acting as a reminder to Rachael’s peers to take the time to look inward.
Since then, Rachael’s “far less prescriptive” version of self-care has expanded from a message to a medium and relaunched this year with three tools to assist beginners on their self-care journey. The aim? To reinvent what self-care means from the ground up.
Self Care Originals has three products on offer: the Only Human Prompt Cards, Big Talk Card Game, and Self Care Journal. With each product providing a different level of intimacy for the user and designed to be used in a different context, there is a tool for everyone, no matter how deep you are into your self-care journey.
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I tried the Big Talk Card Game and found I had quite a lot to reflect on about my childhood and my sex life. From questions like ‘What’s something that nobody knows about you?’ in set one of the game, to ‘What was your first time having sex like?’ in set two, and finally ‘What’s something you would change about your childhood?’ in set three.
While these are big questions and can feel intimidating at first, Rachael wants to remind people at the start of their self-care journey “to be gentle with yourself”. I spoke with Rachael about Self Care Originals, her mission and her relaunch.
Why do you think traditional self-care is not really working anymore?
I question as to whether it ever really worked at all, to be honest! I got into the self-care industry because I was really frustrated with what I was seeing back then on the market, just the whole look and feel of the industry just did not speak to me at all.
I was this very high-functioning, ambitious, young person living in Melbourne. And yet there was this disconnect between the self-care that I was being sold, and how I believed it to be, which is far more grounded in reality. I saw the need for it to be far more accessible and relevant to a young person like myself. I thought that having a kind of self-care that resonated with young people – people like myself – was of value.
Why do you think it has gone so wrong?
Self-care as a topic and a concept is really nuanced, complex, and individual. It’s hard – even as someone in the industry – to not have it be flattened. What one person sees as self-care is not the same as what another person sees as self-care, and it’s hard to talk about. It’s come a long way, and people have deepened their understanding. I feel, from the conversations I’ve had, that people are acknowledging that it is individual – what it means to nurture oneself is dependent on what someone needs. Asking yourself ‘What does someone need?’, that leads to self-awareness, self-exploration and self-knowledge.
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These new products address the need that I felt was there. I developed the products with The Mind Room, a psychological practice in Collingwood, and Joe, a psychologist who worked with us, kept referring to the importance of knowing ‘What is the intention of the act?’. Think about it this way, for someone self-care can look like having a bubble bath, but for someone living in a sharehouse (it’s loud, it’s chaotic, and the bathtub is really small) that may not be the best form of self-care for them.
It is so individual, and we really have to focus more on self-exploration around self-care [and] that often gets lost within self-care as an industry. The self-exploration piece of the puzzle is a bit more unsexy [as] opposed to the ‘treat yourself aspect’ of self-love, but it is instrumental.
Why did you want to work with psychologists to create these tools?
It was a big choice from a financial perspective as a self-funded small business, but I knew if I was going to create products I wanted them to be grounded in science. The concept of self-care is often considered really fluffy and so I knew there had to be science that grounded all these concepts and experiences where self-care had such a benefit in people’s lives.
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I wanted to ensure my products really allowed people to understand that it would be a felt experience, you’ll feel how your life will improve and how you’ll move with greater ease. And there’s [the] science to prove it. If we can, our goal is to try and bridge the gap between psychology and self-care.
What something beginners should know as they start their self-care journey?
It sounds like such a trope, but even if it is just one thing that you want to try, or you want to take a moment of introspection, or just reflect on yourself. Then that’s amazing! If you do that for a day and end up not doing it for the rest of the week, that’s okay too.
There’s this idea of taking our ambition towards work and putting it into our relationship with self-care, and it’s a counterintuitive energy. I would say, at the end of the day, the purpose is to make yourself feel more nurtured, accepted and nourished from a really healthy and grounded state. The awareness in itself should be celebrated.
Shop Self Care Originals apparel and tools here.
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